Which CIS on Epson D120?

[Justin]

Thinking about putting a new CIS on my D120. I've been using refil. carts but had problems, put it down to blockages but I'm thinking it may have been air locks, maybe caused during refilling.

I bought a cheap CIS for my old 1400 and had the same problem so now I'm looking again. Is there much difference between a CIS costing say £20 and another costing £40+?

My problems with the refil. carts happened during printing and the printers were used daily so this is why I doubt a blockage.

Justin

[bms]

Hi Justin,

The difference between CIS's is very limited but the main problem is poor build quality which can result in air leaks. Air leaks are your biggest nightmare but it comes down to the person that puts the parts together and if they test it before sending it out. I doubt many cheaper companies fully test them so it comes down to luck really on the cheap non-ink filled systems. If a system has ink in it then it has to be tested before it's filled with ink - if you can't get a vacuum in the system whilst it's empty then it won't fill with ink and so any air leak is identifiable. The vacuum enables filling of systems from scratch - when we used to build these we would remove all air from the system (proving it had no air leaks) and then put one end of the tubes into the bottle of ink and the ink would suck back into the cartridge. This ensured the system was completely full of ink.

If you get a CIS with an air leak then make sure you've invested in a hot glue gun as copious quantities of hot glue around potential air leak points (often where the tubes enter the cartridge) often creates a good seal.

Good luck