I sent the following message to MIS Inks regarding issues I am having trying to print with their UT-14 black and white ink set:

I am printing with an Epson Claria 1400 and have been using your color inks succssfully for about two years. I don't have any issues with them.

Recently I puchased the UT-14 black and white ink set and I have been attempting to print some black and white images. I am having a number of problems. Most significantly, I get a lot of black ink drops or blobs on the paper; like one of the tanks is leaking. I occasionally get some minor banding that is helped by cleaning the heads, though this seems more frequent than with color ink. Also, when I print a six-color purge page, I can never get a clean print. There is always terrible banding or even complete blank columns. Actual prints do not show this level of degradation, just the purge pages.

I've tried printing with the vent plugs out and in. It does not seem to make any difference.

The carts I am using are all from MIS, but they are different. The color carts have the vent and fill plugs at opposite ends of the cart. The B&W carts have the vent and fill plugs both on the non-clip end of the cart.

What am I doing wrong?

Has anyone in this group used the UT-14 ink set from MIS? Have you had similar issues?