Canon Ink vs. Arrow / alotofthings.com and "USA Ink Cartridge"

[Nifty]

I've been experimenting with different ink cartridge manufacturers for my Canon i860 and thought I'd post some of the results that my brother (also has the i860)and I have had.

Actually, I first had the Canon i560 (I got at Costco) and I noticed something when I printed one of my Excel worksheets. On the cells that had a yellow background with black text inside the cell there was a little bit of bleed from the black into the yellow. I emailed Canon support and they said bla bla bla problem with the media.

Now, with my i860 here is what I've noticed:

Some of the non-OEM inks will produce bleed from black into other colors, especially yellow when printing in bidirectional mode (the print head printing on each pass from side to side). A change in the setting from bi-directional to mono-directional (by changing the setting of the paper to photo paper) allows for more dry time between passes and makes the bleeding much less significant and almost dissapear... in fact, my photos with the Arrow ink are beautiful!

Now, as I mentioned above, this was a little bit of an issue with Canon OEM inks (I've read reviews mentioning that others had the same problem with their printers) but can be worse with non-OEM inks.

I've run tests on both "Arrow" brand and "USA Ink Cartridge" brand cartridges and received basically the same results. My brother ran some tests and replaced the OEM black with the Arrow Black and this is what he got:

Canon OEM on the Left, Arrow on the Right

(Click for larger image)


Notice how the black on the right is bleeding a bit more than on the left, especially when it is against other colors (look at the multicolor "H" in the logo). They could print these all with the "photo paper" setting instead of plain paper, but that would almost double all of their print times.

I'm waiting on some cartridges from inkgrabber so I can run the same tests to see if I have similar or better results. Neil swears by Inkgrabber, MIS and Color Friends so I definitely need to run some tests on them all.

My question to you: Does anyone else see similar issues with black bleeding into other colors when the printer is set to bi-directional (Plain Paper) settings?

Footnote: Two things I like about the Arrow cartridges (other than the great price I got) are:

1) The fact that they come in these GREAT plastic cartridge cases that are WONDERFUL for refilling. They seal the flow hole and hold the cartridge perfectly for injecting the ink... couldn't be easier.

2) The plugs in the top of the cartridges (where they were originally filled) is very easy to remove and replace. The hole is tapered (as is the plug) which makes for a very nice seal.

If the black didn't bleed I would be perfectly happy with these cartridges!




UPDATE: I purchased my cartridges and ink from www.Alotofthings.com. CMY seem to be a pretty good match, but the black issue above is a problem. I do love the cartridge clips that came with my cartridges. Alotofthings say they get their ink from Formulabs which is suppose to be a great supplier of ink. I've also had a few issues with their cartridges not flowing completely (air and ink).

 

[Nifty]

Update:

To show you more of what I'm talking about regarding single / bidirectional printing (Photo and Plain paper settings respecitvely) I did a quick and dirty test.

Below is an image I created in Macromedia Fireworks to show the bleed. It is a large image but I printed it at 3 inches square so I could print them side by side and scan it.

The left side is plain paper mode while the right is photo paper pro mode. The paper is super cheap staples multi-purpose paper.

(Click for larger image)


Feel free to run the same test yourself, here is the original image (printed at 3").
http://www.nifty-stuff.com/color-test/color-print-test.gif

 

[Nifty]

Okay, I know I'm beating a dead horse here but...

Here is the same test but with a white background. As before, the left side is plain paper mode while the right is photo paper pro mode.

Notice there isn't as much bleed when the black isn't against another color. Still, the photo paper mode does make a difference in the amount of bleed.

(Click for larger image)

 

[neilslade]

This has to do with the QUALITY settings on Canon printers. Some paper pre-sets automatically increase the quality. Just change the quality settings to FINE whenever you can, and you sharpen the very fine edges.

Neil

 

[Nifty]

Two weeks ago I was noticing a move to magenta in my photos so I went into my default printer settings and checked "manual" under Color Adjustment and shifted magenta to -20. This made a great difference.

Tonight I noticed on one of my test prints that there was so much black on the page that it still looked wet on the paper... then it hit me: Maybe I'm getting bleed because I'm shooting too much black ink onto the paper! I went in and slid the bar to -20 for black and POW... what a difference. The only downside is that all the images are a tiny bit lighter... which may not be bad, but may be the way they are suppose to look.

I'm in the process of testing the range of black from -10 to -20 to get a good balance of no bleed but good color duplication / rendition.

 

[Nifty]

Okay, I've got some 'fessing up to do!

I hate to admit it, but here's the truth! I've been using the worst combination of ink possible in my cartridges. Here's why:

1) The ink is for the wrong printer.
2) The ink is from a 'no name' company I found on eBay (later I found out they have a website). http://www.mslusa.com/
3) The ink is about 3.5 years old!

OKAY, before you cast stones, let me explain... I purchased ink from this supplier on ebay for my canon BJC-1000 and it worked GREAT. When I got my Lexmark Z32 printer I had ink left over from the Canon so I thought I'd try it... it worked GREAT. I ran out of ink and thought, "if it ain't broke... don't fix it" so I ordered up a BUNCH more ink. When I upgraded to my i560 (that I got for a steal) I used the ink that I had on hand and... IT WORKED GREAT. When I soon thereafter got my i860 guess what I did... YUP, I used the same ink and it is still working great.

Well, I didn't have any more pigment black and I never had any Photo black, or dye based black for the i860 so I ordered some when I got my cartridges from alotofthings.com. After running their cartridges and doing the tests I started refilling CYM with the old inks and the blacks with alotofthings.com inks. Everything is working super great.

NOTE: This does NOT effect the results mentioned above because the tests were all done with the original inks in the cartridges.

Bottom Line: Well, I don't know... I'm conflicted. I'm SUPER anti the whole "universal ink" idea, but how do you explain my good luck (knock on wood)? My photos turn out BEAUTIFUL. Most of my documents turn out great except with the issue related to the bleeding black which I've noticed in all of the non OEM inks I've tried (which is only alotofthings and USA ink cartridges).

The biggest problem is that I have NOT used the alotofthings CYM inks in my Canon yet FOR REFILLING. I've still got 4 oz each of the old stuff and figure I'll use that up first. Fortunately I can say that I've tested all their inks because they came in the pre-filled cartridges I use.

Ah... I feel so liberated! So glad to get this off my chest! Will you forgive me?

 

[fotofreek]

Re: alotofthings carts and plugs --- looks like the MIS plug system. On the alotofthings site their instructions have two pieces of tape one has to peel back and replace after replacing the plujg. MIS doesn't. The computer friends plug is fatter, has a flat sort of cover over the plug, has a handy tab that is faster and easier than using a push pin or other object to remove, and fits the OEM fill hole after the little plastic ball is pushed in to allow refills. I have done up to 10 refills on OEM carts with these plugs and had no leaks yet. The only problem has been one OEM cart that the plug didn't want to stay down in and that was the one that I taped down to keep it from scooting up and losing its seal. Some sort of aberation in the OEM cart, or perhaps when I drove the ball into the reservoir I chipped the fill hole.

 

[Nifty]

Regarding the change from bi-directional printing to mono-directional:

From what I understand the printer goes from bi-directional printing to mono-directional printing when using glossy paper. This means that the printhead only prints while going one way and isn't actually dropping ink on its return as it usually would in other paper settings.

From what I was told, this allows the ink time to dry between passes and reduces splotchyness on glossy paper.

I was told by Jerry at alotofthings.com that they set all their printers (at least the Canons) to print in mono mode. He believes that this returns better results and uses less ink. This was also the solution that he gave me to "fix" my black ink bleeding problem.

Well, I don't know about using less ink, but mono mode does help with the quality of the images. My problem is that I'm putting twice as much wear and tear on the printer (twice as many passes of the head) and it takes all my prints that much longer.

 

[BlasterQ]

Does that mean they are not planning on improving their black ink in the future?
Just some questions. The blank ink that bleeds, is it pigment based, or dye based?
Does this problem only happens when printing in non-photo mode?

 

[Nifty]

BQ... that's an excellent question. My brother and I both experienced the issue, but Jerry said the problem isn't reproducible on their side and they haven't received any other complaints, so I doubt they are making any changes.

As I mentioned, I've tried black pigment from alotofthings, USA ink, and Canon. So far the only one that doesn't bleed on standard paper in regular printing / default modes is the Canon.

Anybody have a bunch of black cartridges from another supplier that doesn't bleed and want to send one to me?

The bleeding black is definitely the pigment based. The problem is almost eliminated in any photo and/or specialty paper mode (I think it is the ink dry time between passes that does this).

ONE disclaimer. alotofthings said that they provide the ink from Sensient and send it over to China where they manufacture and then fill the cartridges. It is POSSIBLE that there could be some issues with the quality of the ink once it gets out of their direct control. The only thing about this is that I've refilled my cart enough times that I think I've flushed out all of the ink that came with the cartridge and replaced it with the Sensient ink.

I do have some ink from Ink Specialists but I've got to get a virgin empty cartridge to really test this out. Any suggestions on how to completely flush out and clean an inkjet cartridge?