My New Epson Stylus Photo 1500w (artisan 1430) !!!

The Hat said:

It doesn’t matter who is mixing up the dye ink, whether it’s an individual or big Corp. it will still fade because that’s the nature of the beast, now pigment ink is a totally different animal.

Come on @Emulator dive in and test the waters, ops or should I say pigment inks, you know you want too and yes you’ll be in the dog house for a while but she’ll get over it..

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You don't tempt me! Even if it was free.

Just to give you some pricing indication for inks, small volume for private use, these are rough ballpark numbers Epson inks in small cartridges run at about 1000€/litre, Epson dye inks are not available in larger cartridges as used for the large format Pro and Surecolor printers - those pigment inks run at 350€/l. Fujifilm Drylab dye inks out of their cartridges run at about 220€/l, you can get such cartridges discounted from US at about 120€/l, comparable genuine Epson Surelab Drylab dye inks run at about 300€/l, typical plain chinese dye inks via Aliexpress etc run at about 5€/l, pigment inks from there at 25€/l, and Surelab compatible dye inks at about 100€/l. Why would a Chinese ink mixer sell such dye ink at a price much higher than typical pigment inks from there, about 3x ? it's the cost of the dyes, and with such prices about nobody would buy such inks from there unless he really wants the longevity of the Claria inks at a lower cost. Yes, pigment inks last longer, but that's a different topic, I was trying to find the most UV resistant dye ink besides the Claria type. Pigment inks show other effects like bronzing, gloss issues , different look on different paper surfaces, I'm still experimenting and I haven't found yet theee brand which convinces me most. I may have gotten too picky after lots of testing, other people just don't see those effects when asked, they are happy with the posters they get....

Emulator said:

So are you saying the cost of the best non-fade dyes or pigments would be prohibitive for the third party mixer?
If pharmacist was given the materials could he produce PKs own brand non-fade inks?

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Probably it's not only the cost but also the research and development of dyes and the availability which is prohibitive (there are many "trade secrets" in all msds).
In brochures noritsu and fuji frontier are promoting a certain molecular structure of their dyes which is more stable than other
http://www.noritsu.com/downloads/D502.pdf (see p 4)
For the chemists here I have something to read about fujifilm dye ink research and development, which seems to correspond with the promotion
http://www.fujifilm.com/about/research/report/054/pdf/index/ff_rd054_all_en.pdf
(see p 35 - 42)
So it is certainly not only mixing some known, cheap, easy to get ingredients..

The Hat said:

It doesn’t matter who is mixing up the dye ink, whether it’s an individual or big Corp. it will still fade because that’s the nature of the beast, now pigment ink is a totally different animal.

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If you are still not convinced take a look at test ID #77,78 at
http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com/cgi-bin/mrk/_4777c2hvd19kb2NfbGlzdC80
and compare it with the many pigment inks in the list - you will see that this dye is not a "totally different animal" regarding longevity...

Finally Noritsu etc. wouldn't fill it in their drylabs if it could not compete at all with standard "wet labs" prints...!?

PS: I like my new 3880 pig - but dye makes better gloss, is as good on matte, and in general more compatible, especially on cheaper cast coated paper

So there is science in the processing of the dye structure/solution which contributes to the longevity. It makes more sense now! The know-how is no doubt of considerable value.

the knowledge of a molecule structure with this longevity feature is one thing , and public, but there is another part to it - you need to produce those dyes in a chemical/industrial process with stable results and a yield such that you can sell it/use it as part of a marketing plan for these dry lab printers in the photo finishing business, and you need to be competitive. In lots of cases the process knowledge to synthesize these dyes is proprietary, and not covered by a patent to prevent any leak of process details into the public.

is it possible to print "all Black" with the 1500w in combined use with quadtonerip

so basically I have my 1500W loaded with refillable cartridges and filled every one with 100% dye black ink which is purposedly used to print on
transparent film to expose a screen for screen printing
it is traditionally made by separating each image into four channels C+Y+M+K plus adding a halftone pattern to each individual channel
now each channel will be preserved as a greyscale image
I attched a resized version of the CYAN Channel due compression the halftone pattern is not really visible
My big question is:
how I have to configure QTR to print this image with utilizing ALL 6 carts, basicly tell QTR that each ink cart contains the same ink

any Ideas?

I don't know how a transparent film for screen printing is made ..

.. but for printing "normal" B&W half tone prints with QTR I only know two possibilities:

- using the color ink set and let QTR make the best out of ONE black channel
- or using a B&W ink set with QTR - but with black and 5 shades of grey, not 6x black...
(but there maybe experts of QTR reading this..)

We have discussed in great length the improved longevity of the Fujifilm Drylab DL inks, and their pricing and availability. Epson is running a similar product line with their Surelab printers taking cartridges of 200 or 700 ml depending on printer model.
I have looked for some equivalent substitute inks but with rather limited success so far, there is
an EV6 inkset available by precisioncolors from US claiming very good UV resistance, I have some millilitres on order - we'll see, I'll do a comparative test to the DL inks, in the open, but no numbers, no trends, no spreadsheets.
And I just came across some offers from China, via Aliexpress or Alibaba, you may look for 'Epson Surelab D3000 ink' which is offered as a set for 6x70$ or 6x62$ (promotional) + shipping cost + import fees/duty/tax etc which would end up for me at around 100$ per litre landed cost, somewhat lower than the DL inks. 1 Litre per color is too much for me at this time, but it is interesting to see that a Chinese ink company is offering a dye ink for this price , much above the typical dye ink prices of 5-10$ per litre, or even typical pigment inks around 30$ or so. They may actually use such pretty expensive UV-stable dyes - I don't know - that would require another test.....

Curious to hear your findings about EV6..

Has anyone tried artist's paint materials, e.g. acrylic, as a base material for ink dye or pigment printer inks?