Shake It Up, Baby

A client last week asked a question about the use-by dates on the inkjet inks cartridges - how come they were there and how much notice should he take of them. As I use Epson printers myself, I could give him an off-the cuff answer. I was wearing a short sleeve shirt at the time.

The inks do age and might make for less-than-perfect printing if they are well beyond the date. Whether it would be particulation or evaporation I cannot say - I just would not use one well past the date.

Remember to shake it up, Baby, when you put a fresh cartridge into the machine.

I would also make sure that some little amount of printing was done each week - even just an A4 sheet of a multicoloured test shot would exercise the machinery and ensure that the ink flow though the heads was normal. Each Epson machine has provision on-board to do ink flow analysis and head cleaning and some of the bigger ones can do a very vigorous cleaning indeed. But it uses up ink and the maintenance tank capacity if you are doing it a lot - better to just print each week and keep the problem at bay.

If you are in the habit of stocking up big be sure to look at the dates on the boxes at home and use up the oldest first.

Oh, and paper. Far as I can see paper doesn't expire but if you store it badly you can get some odd results later on. Keep the flat sheets flat and they will stay...flat.

Money Coming Back To You From Epson

New Epson cash back promotion for you today - If you need to print up to A2 on thin or thick stock - with the finest of inkjet ink - the Epson Stylus Pro 3880 model attracts a cashback payment from the Epson people of $ 250.

This promotion will run until the end of September 2013. You buy from us and claim your reward from Epson on-line.

If you don't quite need as large a size, but want all the benefits of the Epson ink set and their expertise in easy colour printing, may I suggest that you get an Epson Stylus Photo R3000 right now. This will print to A3+, do rolls and CD discs, and also open for thick stock. It will print through a wifi network if there is someone in your house young enough to know how to connect it, and from regular USB or ethernet if you are old enough to remember Nixon...

There is a cashback from Epson of $ 200 for purchase of a printer and if you choose to purchase a printer AND a set of replacement inks, you can increase that cashback to $ 400. But you have to get your skates on - this promotion finishes at the end of this current month.

My own experience with these printers has been very positive - as it has been with Epson papers, Epson scanners, etc. I use the R3000 regularly for the paper output from my Hot Rod Honey series and for wedding pictures. It really does do the business of translating what is on my computer screen to a print in hand with a minimum of fuss.