BCI-7 Bulk Inks (ColorLife 100)

[tyamada]

Weink.com is now listing bulk inks for the BCI-7 cartridges (ColorLife 100 inks). I don't know if the new CLI-8 inks are the same but I suspect they are. Canon probably decided to try to get more money from the U. S. market by changing the cartridges and placing a chip on them to make it harder for folks to refill the cartridges. Their CLI-8 cartridges retail for $14.25 and the PGI-5 for $16.25. Last week the prices were $2.75 more per.

http://www.weink.com/ecom/catalog/ultraflo_for_canon_rc100_light_fast_inkjet_inks_4404718.htm

 

[JV]

Image Specialists BCI-7 Ink Numbers are on: www.image-specialists.com/desktop.htm for iP8600.

I tried to get their free samples, but they refered me to WeInk.

My question to WeInk Technical Support: Can I buy BCI-7 ink in 135 mL bottles labeled with Image Specialists Ink Numbers.

Reply by WeInk's Billy Pyrne:

"Since products sold at both WeInk.com and GetInkExpress.com are supported directly by WeInk, LLC we use our internal codes for 135 mL Bottles and specialized inkset groups.

Specifically, the RC100 inkset is labelled with the Formulation code RC100 and the color only. However, the make up of the RC100 inkset includes the WJ master formulas listed in your message.

Please note - These majority of these inks are NOT for use in the Canon i9900, i9950, PIXMA ip8500. Our current RC52 inkset already supplies the same longevity as the RC100 inkset and is properly color balanced for those printers. Using the BCI-7 inkset in a BCI-6 printer will merely increase color differentials and will not provide any improvements in longevity or color quality"

I wonder if the above is true.

JV

 

[zakezuke]

Please note - These majority of these inks are NOT for use in the Canon i9900, i9950, PIXMA ip8500. Our current RC52 inkset already supplies the same longevity as the RC100 inkset and is properly color balanced for those printers. Using the BCI-7 inkset in a BCI-6 printer will merely increase color differentials and will not provide any improvements in longevity or color quality"

I wonder if the above is true.

JV

Looking through the service manual shows a destination setting on the IP4000 that corispods to the ip4100. This would sugest it is possible to set the printer to one which the driver will reconise as being the japanese model which will take the BCI-7s. Whether the heads are the same I have no idea, but it's been proven that the destination setting for CD printing are the same in the ip8500 and ip6000... so if the colors are slightly different one might be able to set the printer to the japansese equilivent and make everything happy. Note i've not seen this tested with bci-7 inks OEM or 3rd party.

 

[JV]

In http://www.uspto.gov/index.html Patent 6,521,030, by Hewlett-Packard, the invention is an improvement in lightfastness of the light photo inks such as Photo Magneta and Photo Cyan. The author was explaining that quality of photo prints can be improved by using smaller ink dots or lighter inks. However lighter inks fade faster.

The new Canon printers have smaller (1 pictoliter) ink dots. Are their inks darker? Is that how they improve longevity?

JV