What does it do?

A Continuous Ink System (CIS) is a cost-effective replacement for inkjet ink cartridges In contrast to conventional cartridges, a CIS uses very large ink tanks, which are connected with tubes to the print head nozzles. The tanks can be conveniently refilled from an ink bottle – there is no need for syringes and you never need to buy ink cartridges again! CIS has now become a firm favourite with both amateur and professional photographers alike, greatly reducing printing costs without sacrificing quality. CIS is also known as Continuous Ink Supply System (CISS), Continuous Ink Flow System and bulk ink. Although many CIS kits are not cheap, regular users of ink cartridges or printing services will soon find themselves saving a fortune on printing costs. If you only print out a tiny handful of photos each year, then CIS may not be worth the initial investment, but if you print out photos on a regular basis, you will quickly find huge savings from buying a CIS.
Advantages Include...

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Greatly reduce inkjet printing costs with CIS.
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Never "run out" of ink so long as you keep the ink tank topped up!
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Never replace an ink cartridge again.
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Save money, time and hassle
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Save the environment too!
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No wasted ink – when using normal cartridges there is always ink left in the cartridge when it reads 'empty'. With CIS, they always read "Full".
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Protect the environment, save money. Say goodbye to buying expensive ink cartridges - this will result in fantastic savings (over 50p on every A4 print!).
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Stable quality - The sealed system uses no sponge cartridges and ensures maximum ink flow in the course of printing.
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Simple installation, easy to fit on to your printer and start using right away - systems come with step by step instructions (installation takes just 30 minutes on average).
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Once installed you never have to remove cartridges from the printer again. Easy, trouble free, low-maintenance operation.
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Once installed, the cost of "fuelling" your printer is dramatically reduced as you simply purchase bottles of ink – and paper of course!

A continuous ink supply system replaces the need to buy and change inks cartridges. Ideal for high volume use, once CIS is set up it works out far cheaper to run than using normal ink cartridges. Depending on your printer, you have 4-8 tanks of ink, which sit beside the printer, with tubes running into dummy ink cartridges, which plug into the printer as normal. There is a line running from the cartridge to the tanks and it continually supplies the printer with ink from the tanks. When the tanks are running low you simply top them up with ink, which can be bought in bulk very cheaply.

Is it easy to use?

Yes very easy to use, basically plug in the dummy inks as normal, they are also labelled to make sure goes into right colour and then install software supplied. Then thats it just print as normal, when ink running out use the syringe supplied to top up the tanks its really that easy and saves a lot of money and time changing inks.

To install a CIS, you need to remove the grey lid that covers the cartridges. To do this you just unscrew two little screws either side with the mini screwdriver provided and unclip a spring. This is easier than it sounds! The cartridges install the same as normal ones then you just have to attach the supply tubes to two parts of the printer. All details are in the easy-to-follow manual provided. Once installed, click “Clean Print Heads” and “Check print head alignment”. After rigorous testing on various CIS manufacturers, the quality seems to be as good as any cartridges out there.

The CIS works by using a vacuum seal which prevents leakage and loss of ink supply to the cartridges. A CIS does not require chips to be reset on the cartridge so no chip re-setter is required. Most CIS come complete with 4-8 pre-filled ink containers, each containing approximately 100ml of ink – the equivalent to about 7 cartridges! If you consider that every time you change just one cartridge, the printer runs a head cleaning process for all cartridges, wasting ink on all 4-8 cartridges. This does not happen with CIS. So CIS can provide approximately 10 cartridges worth of prints.

Once you have used the initial 600ml (100ml x 6 colours) ink that is supplied with the CIS, the ink tanks can be easily refilled with compatible ink which is available in 100 bottles. You only need to top up the colour that is running low. Nothing else needs adjusting or replacing. Most continuous ink systems come already connected with ink inside. You may notice bubbles in the supply leads, but these do not affect print quality at all and they disappear after a few prints. You will notice the bungs are open when in use, they must be kept open all the time. The valves are one-way, so the ink doesn’t pour out.

What Will I Receive?

You will recieve a brand new Epson Stylus Photo R285 printer and also a prefilled continuous ink system with 100ml of each colour (600ml in total) complete with fitting kit and installation instructions