alotofthings question

[joediana]

in searching for replacement cartridges for epson r200 alotofthings.com shows this cartridge with a choice of 8 manufacters. is one better than the rest? any help is appreciated

 

[BlasterQ]

i am one of those who is using alotofthings inks. however, my experience is limited only to canon inks, and cartridges. my suggestion is, you e-mail them and ask them, or you can call them.
during my initial search for a good ink refill, alotofthings is one of those companies that replied to my e-mail inquiries in less than 24 hours.

 

[joediana]

BlasterQ
I also have a canon on another computer, are the bulk inks at alotofthings the same as thier cartridge ink, and how do you feel it compares to the OEM or other 3rd party inks?

 

[BlasterQ]

Last time I checked, there are two compatible cartridges being sold by Alotofthings. One of them is Arrowjet. The Arrowjet brand contains the same ink that they are selling as bulk in their online store.
In my experience, I have no problems at all with these carts. How good are they? Well, this is how I use them.
When my OEM inks ran empty, I refilled them with Alotofthings bulk inks, and continue using them, and kept the Arrowjet cartridges on standby. When the OEM inks ran out of inks again, I refilled them, and stored them in an air tight container, and used the Arrowjet cartridges. When those carts ran out of ink, I refilled them, and stored them in the air tight container, and retreived the old OEM inks and used them. So I use them interchangeably.
They are good. I haven't bought an OEM cart for almost a year already. The OEM carts I'm using, together with the Arrowjet carts, are still the ones I bought last february 2005.
I haven't experience clogs, and I print on photo paper most of the time, and printable cds.
The inks saved me a lot of money.
When before, when I use OEM inks only, I only print when it's really important. I seldom print photos. Evertyime I print, I always worry about the cost.
But with the refills, I print to my heart's content! I never worry about ink cost anymore!
In fact, my concern has shifted to the cost of photo paper, and not on the inks.
Hope that helps.

 

[fotofreek]

Alotofthings has a new message on their site that states that they are selling several brands of compatable prefilled carts as a test of these various products. They want feedback from the purchasers - that is us, the end users - to determine which of the products are best. They will then carry just the prefilled carts they get the most positive feedback on. At this point, I don't think they are guaranteeing that the Arrow carts are filled with Formulabs inks. I know that the manufacturers of the Arrow carts had filled them with OCP (is that the correct name for the German ink sold mostly in Europe?) instead of Formulabs but had not told Alotofthings they had done this. I've read that OCP is also good ink, but it may have different color characteristics. When it comes to prefilled carts it is a very confusing marketplace! The only firsthand knowledge I have of any of this is that I read the message about the selling of several brands of carts for the purpose of narrowing the alotofthings inventory to the three best brands, and the owner of Alotofthings told me about the OCP ink they had sent him in the arrow carts without notifiying him of the change.

 

[drc023]

At one time alotofthings.com did state on their website that ArrowJet cartridges used Formulabs ink, however they later found out that ArrowJet (Jet Young) was also using OCP inks and they no longer guarantee that the cartridges are filled with Formulabs ink. They do state that all their bulk ink is manufactured by Sensient-Formulabs, Inc. I've used Formulabs ink from alotofthings.com for several years and it (along with ink from Hobbicolors.com which I also use) is excellent and the results for me are on par with Canon OEM ink. I did run into problems with the BCI-6BK ink in the ArrowJet cartridges which I ordered. The black ink had very noticeable bronzing on gloss photo paper which indicated that the cartridges had been misfilled at the factory - either with a completely wrong dye based black or with a pigment based black. Removing as much original ink from those cartridges and replacing the improper black with BCI-6BK bulk ink from Formulabs resolved the problem without any damage or clogs to the print head.