>From my experience, separate cartridges really become useful if you print a lot of images that are heavy in one color. Printing lots of yellow flowers will run out the yellow quicker than some other colors, for example. But for general printing, as Doug said, it isn't that big of a deal.
Bruce Wednesday, November 13, 2002, 6:13:05 AM, you wrote: DF> Hi Keith, DF> On Wed, 13 Nov 2002 04:00:27 -0800, Keith Whaley wrote: >> Let's be clear...you mean 6 or more separate ink containers? DF> That's more of an economic decision. I use an Epson 820, which has one DF> container with black and the other holds all five other colors. >> If that's so. when would you know when one reservoir ran out of it's >> particular ink? DF> If the status displays by the Epson driver are to be believed, black DF> lasts longer than any color (larger volume container) and the other DF> five typically aren't more than a few percentage points different in DF> their consumption. That is, it rarely reports that I've got almost an DF> empty cyan, but nearly full light cyan, magenta, light magenta, and DF> yellow, or anything like that. I've never cracked open a spent DF> cartridge, so I don't know if the status displays are accurate. DF> That said, separate cartridges would be more economically efficient. DF> They also introduce extra plumbing to deal with, and the ones I've seen DF> mount the ink supplies outside the chassis of the printer, making them DF> more susceptible to the attentions of my cats. >> Do the printers so equipped have warnings when that happens? If not, I >> suspect that one missing color may be too subtle to detect readily... DF> One missing color is generally very easy to detect. I've got one DF> around here somewhere. If I can find it, I'll scan a portion of it and DF> put it on my web site. DF> TTYL, DougF KG4LMZ
