I'm unhappy with the limited information from my ink suppliers

Ink stained Fingers said:

that's not just business practice of Ebay sellers, I ordered some Ultrachrome pigment ink at a company with a rather serious image - they offered the Ultrachrome inks in various versions, the original one, the K3 version, the vivid magenta version and 1 or 2 more, I ordered the K3 version but got the vivid magenta , I called them up for an exchange but they just told me that everybody gets the same ink regardless what they order, and just the bottles are labelled differently - and the pricing varies........o.k., that was the last order with that company

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I found this interesting as I am trying to purchase bulk pigment ink for my Epson 3880 to harvest into the smaller 3880 80ml cartridges.

I find many ebay sellers less than forthcoming on the details of their products. Sometimes downright evasive.

Question - I was under the impression that Epson's designation K3 Ultrachrome was ALWAYS the VIVID magenta's?

Second question - To what degree do you think the expiry date is critical? I have arbitrarily selected 2012 as my limit, but have no idea if this is wise.

Thirdly - any advice on purchasing Epson inks for harvesting appreciated.

RS

look to the various generations of printers - Pro 4000 with Ultrachrome inks - the original ones - the Pro 4800 with the Ultrachrome K3 successor, and the Pro 4880 with the vivid magenta inks, and when you go through the decendants of the larger format Pro 7600/9600 etc models you'll find more Ultrachrome ink versions, adding the newest HD inks for the P600/800 etc.
I don't think the expiry date is that critical - that inks suddenly won't work anymore after that date, the issue with pigment inks is their storage, they should be agitated , shaked once in a while, I think I remember something like every 3 to 6 months recommended by Epson in some manual, it's to prevent pigment settling. There is not so much valid information about that available - more feelings and guesses, the matte black seems to be more critical, I have seen bulk ink specified with no pigment settling within 2 years - o.k. - believe it or not. You may be safe with 2012, I just got some cartridges from 2009, my risk , but ink was fine, I actually needed the empty cartridge only.
Harvesting those inks - you might find a professional print shop in your vicinity running Epson printers, and they may give you their empty cartridges directly - there are various sources for those - like Ebay etc.
But I think there are so many 3rd party Ultrachrome type inks on the market that you can find a supplier for you. And as I have elaborated elsewhere - the paper, the coating is as much important as the ink for a good printout - bronzing, gloss , black level etc . Lyson inks are premium refill inks , with the anonymous Chinese suppliers via Aliexpress at the other end, but cheeeap. It all depends what you want to print - those cheap inks should suffice for the next posters for a sales action - I once printed 10 rolls of paper for posters for a back to school action of a paper/book store - the 25$/litre ink was just o.k. for that, and quite good on glossy paper actually, only the black level was not exciting.

Ink stained Fingers said:

that's not just business practice of Ebay sellers, I ordered some Ultrachrome pigment ink at a company with a rather serious image - they offered the Ultrachrome inks in various versions, the original one, the K3 version, the vivid magenta version and 1 or 2 more, I ordered the K3 version but got the vivid magenta , I called them up for an exchange but they just told me that everybody gets the same ink regardless what they order, and just the bottles are labelled differently - and the pricing varies........o.k., that was the last order with that company

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I too could name quite a few ink suppliers just like that myself, but I didn’t want to sound like I was hitting on them, I am quite happy with the two I use now.

Roy,
here is just a little bit of advice for pigment inks
http://www.vermontphotoinkjet.com/our-pigment-technology
and copying from there ' Our encapsulation process also ensures a waterproof result and gives our inks a very long and stable shelf-life of at least two years from date of manufacture. Ink left unattended only needs gentle shaking to return it to suspension.' They don't tell you what happens after 2 years nevertheless

Ink stained Fingers said:

Roy,
here is just a little bit of advice for pigment inks
http://www.vermontphotoinkjet.com/our-pigment-technology
and copying from there ' Our encapsulation process also ensures a waterproof result and gives our inks a very long and stable shelf-life of at least two years from date of manufacture. Ink left unattended only needs gentle shaking to return it to suspension.' They don't tell you what happens after 2 years nevertheless

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Thanks for your help and guidance and answering my questions..

Right now I am harvesting and using Epson OEM ink and using it to refill my 3880 OEM cartridges. It is the method described by JToolman in his Youtube videos, and it is working working out well for me so far. I hacv3 accumulated a reasonable hoard of OEM pigment ink so far.

Plan B is Jon Cone or Vermontphotoinkjet ink if anything goes wrong with the main plan.


rs

Question: Is Cone ink that much better than other 3rd party pigment inks ? Considering the big price differences I mean, or would it not be better staying with the OEM ink, at least you know your getting the best quality and no compromises..

I didn't use Cone inks so far, I don't know their properties and performance, but probably some forum member can provide some information.

Most times, I do think that retailers or wholesalers such as Octopus Ink lack information due to their business model. Generally, the printout quality can be determined by suppliers or manufacturers of the toner powder and parts.

If you're keen to switch to a laser printer and so on, feel free to check out Jaditoner.com.
It is an online store established by a subsidiary of a toner manufacturer. It is still new and updating its product information alongside improving its user experience, but in the long-term, I believe it would be very useful to have the performance data for customers' references.

Yes, there are only a few makers of the raw materials. No small mfr can make the ingredients from scratch. However, how they handle it and what they do in the formulation is also important. There are various combinations of materials to choose from.

I can tell you that pigments remain in suspension due to "charge" of the particles. When the charge is not where it is supposed to be there will be dropout and then the particle will settle. Simple shaking will not permanently restore the charge but for a time it will remain in suspension. Like all processes there will be random errors and thus there will dropout of some particles.Again, once the charge is lost due to a random fault or variation in the particle, it cannot be restored. Yes, some folks believe in magic but usually there is a technical explanation.

Also FYI. the Precision Colors PCK3HD pigment inkset is also fully encapsulated with high gloss properties and significantly different in output from the previous Image Specialists offering.

Can an aftermarket make an identical ink as an OEM. No. The OEM obtain pigment pigments from global suppliers and these pigments are retained as exclusive to the OEM and sometimes are actually patented somehow. Aftermarket pigment materials off the shelf attempt to come close but the exact color is unavailable to the aftermarket and for contractual reasons never will be for obvious reasons.

Being a refilling board, Ive answered this question before. Refill ink is made especially dye ink with cost restrictions in mind. OEM ink is made with a much much greater latitude with regard to cost of ingredients. One should expect differences in the end product. Any idea that they are identical especially in dye inks should be dispelled. The refill ink model works on the principle that "good enough" base materials suffices for the intended market and when a quality ink is chosen that typically is true. For some refill ink will not be suitable.
For pigment ink, there might be ways to extend the archival properties more than what most standard pigments would provide but is there a significant difference to a typical consumer if a print last 80 years versus 120 years?

So is OEM ink or refill ink for you?

It depends and there is a choice. Only by trial in the intended application will determine its suitability. I just love when someone purchases aftermarket ink and asks the question....is it identical? No. Some sellers will claim so but I am not one of those.

One aspect worth noting is that artists are who they are. They are not typically scientific/technical types, thus the marketing directed to them are quite "flavorful" full of subjectivism and possibly non truths technically because that is what the essence of art is. Yet, they are the key consumers of a technical product. I am an older mechanical engineer and never will be an artist. Marketing types will direct the copy and wording appropriately to the intended audience. In my teen years I always giggled when a global multinational sold the Ford Granada automobile with a claim of "more road hugging weight" which is totallly at odds of what is needed physically for an automobile to hug the road. Yet, hundreds of millions of people viewed this and possibly an appropriate amount of viewers believed it but the claim is counter to fundamental engineering. A totally false claim that educated millions of viewers with false ideas.
For the masses who did not embrace physics classes the claim appears to make sense initially because the mass of the automobile combined with gravity will exert more force to the road, at the same time there is also that same mass of a heavy automobile to also control and the second part is not as easy to grasp. Exploitation of limited knowledge of the masses. Something that has been used since the dawn of civilization. Sigh.

Cone Color has full i*metric fade data that it publishes about its inks. Currently the Piezography inks (the targets that were printed correctly) are the second highest rated inks at Aarrdenburg test labs under the most recent Canon Lucia inks and above all others. Cone Color is not as archival as current OEM but then again it's way beyond older Epson OEM ink (we all know how badly that turned out in real-world) and is 75% less expensive and matches the neutral and medium-high chroma and range of OEMs (like 95% of fine art printing reqs). Anyway, the short form information is here: http://www.inkjetmall.com/tech/content.php?126-FAQ-ConeColor-inks

best,
Walker
R&D InkjetMall