Can pigment ink be put in the ET 2650?

[JillBos]

Looks like this subject was explored in 2020 but with no definitive answer. I wonder if anyone tried it? I'm only interested doing this with the black dye ink which I would have to remove.

 

[pharmacist]

It can be perfectly done: Epson printers can -due to the piezo print heads- handle almost any type of ink: dye, pigment, sublimation. Be sure to remove as much as possible of the dye ink from the tank reservoirs as possible and prime the print head first (there is still dye ink in the tubing up to the buffer compartment in the print head, so it take some time to flush the complete system until pigment ink will reach the nozzles).

 

[JillBos]

Thank you so much. Is it easy to find kits to help with getting the ink out?

 

[blue_lazer]

It can be perfectly done: Epson printers can -due to the piezo print heads- handle almost any type of ink: dye, pigment, sublimation. Be sure to remove as much as possible of the dye ink from the tank reservoirs as possible and prime the print head first (there is still dye ink in the tubing up to the buffer compartment in the print head, so it take some time to flush the complete system until pigment ink will reach the nozzles).

I've read mixed information online about this... would it be a problem that pigment ink may have particle sizes too big for the printhead and be prone to clogging? Since the ET-2650 is designed for dye ink. Or is the printhead similar enough to those for the pigment ink printers?

 

[pharmacist]

Even the Epson 1500W photo printer using dye ink and which can fire droplets as small as 1.5 pl can handle pigment ink. The ET-2650 fires with much larger droplets so my educated guess it will even work better.

 

[websnail]

I've read mixed information online about this... would it be a problem that pigment ink may have particle sizes too big for the printhead and be prone to clogging? Since the ET-2650 is designed for dye ink. Or is the printhead similar enough to those for the pigment ink printers?

With and CIS equipped printer the key issue with pigments (beyond making sure there's no dye ink remaining) is to keep the pigment from settling or creating a high concentration where the ink is drawn from. Ecotanks make this a little trickier to deal with because the reservoirs don't detach (with exception of some L series) so you can't swill them around separate from the printer.

My personal advice would to be to learn how to access the printhead carriage and disconnect the buffers from the printhead received stems. With that knowledge you could easily use a syringe and adapter to suck through the ink from the reservoir a few times and dump it back into the reservoir after each pull until you were sure the ink was thoroughly mixed back into solution. That'd avoid most of the issues.