Canon bottled dye inks

[Ink stained Fingers]

It was about a year ago that @maximilian59 and I did a range of fading tests with Canon and Epson inks, new printer models with ink tanks got announced a few months earlier like the Canon G550 or the Epson ET-8550 - both with the 'real' Claria or Chromalife 100 inks, these inks performed much better overall than other inks tested earlier.

Wilhlem research published a test with some tank system printers in 2018 showing great performance of HP inks and poor performance of Canon and Epson inks in these printers, but HP printers are less popular in Germany than Canon or Epson so there is less attention for these.

http://www.wilhelm-research.com/hp/WIR_Ink_Tank_Printer_Comparison.pdf

It is pretty difficult to keep an overview which printers are using which type of inks - this in light of newer printers announced since then. And Canon and Epson are intentionally adding to the confusion by varying the printer and ink product/item numbers by business region.

Canon is offering a range of megatank printers - G1520 - G2520 - G2560 - G3520 - G3560 (European model numbers) which use the GI51 CMY dye and PGBK black inks

Canon is offering a G4511 since a while which uses the GI-590 CMY dye and 590BK pigment black, this model seems to be the one which got tested by Wilhelm Research - G4200 with 790 inks - performing very poorly

and Canon is offering the G5050 - G6050 - G7050 which use the GI-50 CMY dye and 50 PGBK pigment black inks

I remember that I tested the GI-51 inks of a G1520 at the time it got onto the market, these inks were performing very weak - similar to the Epson 664 inks of the original Ecotank printers.

But what do we know about the CI-50 inks of the G5050 - how do they perform - what could be the reason that the G5050 and similar are not using the GI-51 inks of the GI1520/2520 - is there any secret performance difference ?

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I'm getting ready for a fading test with the above listed inks - Canon GI-50, Canon GI51, Canon GI-53 = Chromalife 100 and with HP GT52 and HP31 inks to compare with the Epson 106 inks . All patches are printed on the Canon PT101 Pro Platinum and a Glossy 240 budget PE/RC paper. I'm just waiting for the next storm front to pass by before I place the patch sheets outside.

I ran profiles with the day 1 scans, the Canon GI50 and GI51 have the same gamut, they appear to be the same inks - the GI50 bottles are not coded, the GI51 bottle tops are mechanically coded to prevent the user to fill up with the wrong ink color.
I'm not testing the Canon GI-590 bottled inks, they came out in the Wilhelm Research test as very weak - link above.
The HP and Canon inks come with pigmented black inks, I'm running this test with the 106 dye black with all the listed inks which puts the emphasis on the CMY colors and their varying performance.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Let me give you a first update after a week of exposure for the ptach sheets - with varying weather conditions - freezing, sun, overcast , storm - typical pre-springtime weather conditions.

There are already now 2 groups of inks visible - good and not so good performers

- the good performers group together pretty closely up to now - Epson 106 - Canon GI-53/Chromalife100 - HP GT52 ,
and this on both papers - PT101 and Glossy 240

- the inks in the other group show about 2x to 3x wider fading variances - these are the Canon GI-50 and GI-51 and the HP 31 inks , the Canon GI-51 is the worst at this time.

These results are no surprise and basically confirm the findings of last year's measurements, and printer manufacturers don't really tell the users whether they get a good and stable or a weak ink with their printers. Substitution is possible over a range of printers , as well in case that some ink type is not available in some business region or much more expensive than another type.

(All ink names/types above are used in Europe, some are more popular in the Eastern part, and inks may have a different name/type in other business regions across the world)

 

[The Hat]

and printer manufacturers don't really tell the users whether they get a good and stable or a weak ink with their printers.

It goes to show, even in OEM restaurants, there’s no such thing as a free lunch..

 

[Artur5]

@Ink stained Fingers.. well done, as usual .
Are you planning to test in the future bottled OEM pigment inks? ( such as Canon GI-56 or the equivalent in Epson).

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Are you planning to test in the future bottled OEM pigment inks? ( such as Canon GI-56 or the equivalent in Epson).

No, not really; I tested a few pigment inks over time and found that they every time again were performing better than dye inks; my main interest over the years on pigment inks was their behaviour how they do in regards to gloss , gloss differentials between the inks and to the paper, bronzing and how they look with a gloss optimizer overprint. Some may think the pigments are encapsulated and are just stable etc but they interact as much with the paper surface as dye inks do , the tests by Aardenburg-imaging and Wilhelm Research show as well a strong interdependence between pigment inks and papers. Both organisations did extensive testing of various generations of Epson Ultrachrome and Canon Lucia and HP Vivera pigment inks, the databases for these pigment inks are much broader than for dye inks - although the GI-56 or Epson 113 bottled pigment inks are still missing, the 113 inks are identified as Durabrite inks by Epson so there is no secret to which ink family they belong.

 

[The Hat]

Are you planning to test in the future bottled OEM pigment inks? ( such as Canon GI-56 or the equivalent in Epson).

I bought OEM pigment ink for my Maxify, not for longevity reasons but to prevent clogging, I still use old I.S pigment inks for my Pro 10 and no clogging with that ink either..

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

The inks continue to fade - that's not a surprise really, and the prelim comments above are getting confirmed , the weakest inks are the Canon GI-50 and Canon GI-51 with a wide margin to the other inks.

- The 'best' ink in this test - with a small margin - is the Epson 106 ink followed by the HP GT-52 and HP31 inks and the Chromalife 100/GI-53 last , I'll publish some numbers later, the type of paper can make a rather significant difference, as well to this sequence as shown in last year's tests.

- The inks perform slightly better on the Canon PT-101 paper than on my Glossy 240, about 10% whatever that means that a print may last 20 years or 22 years at the end - I think these small differences are not that much relevant. It's just the Chromalife ink performing reverse at this time - slighly better on the Glossy 240 than on the PT101. It all can change over the next weeks of exposure - with more ozone, UV whatever.

 

[The Hat]

The inks continue to fade

Now that you have started this fade comparison with the Canon GI-50 ink, I wonder how much better is at withstanding fading compared to other 3rd inks..?

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Now that you have started this fade comparison with the Canon GI-50 ink, I wonder how much better is at withstanding fading compared to other 3rd inks..?

This current test cycle leaves me with lots of leftover ink - 5 x 3x70ml which I'll have to use up one way or another, and there are still 6x250ml of a Chinese D700 ink I tested recently, I stopped that test pretty soon due to poor performance

https://www.printerknowledge.com/threads/some-tests-with-the-et-8550.14953/post-132827

I won't say that I'll never test other non-OEM inks anymore but that will take a while