Compatible cartridges using Image Specialists, Formulabs or other ink

[jonalava]

I am pretty sure this list would be really usefull to a lot of users. Do you know of any brand of compatible carts that uses a particular brand of ink, i.e. I know MMC uses Formulabs, but I would really like to have a backup brand, just in case... It would be great to have some infos about the more obscure brands like skyhorse, handsome, butterfly, bpi, etc. Thanks for adding your knowledge !

MMC = Formulabs
G&G = Their own formulation
0A100 = made by G&G, so possibly the same ink
...

I just had infos about this :

Colorful = Formulabs
Skyhorse = Formulabs or OCP ?

Some addition to the list

Orange = Formulabs
Hue way = Formulabs

 

[jonalava]

I do agree with you hpnetserver, OA100 is really bad. I once ruined a canon printhead with this weird smelling ink. Also, it seems strange that OA100 is made by G&G (and I got this confirmed by Ninestar) as both ink do not perform the same way.

I remembered that Skyhorse is in fact the manufacturer of the Arrow carts and I have read they recently changed their ink supplier from Formulabs to OCP. Any info on this, anyone ?

 

[jonalava]

Anyone tried some of the brands mentioned ? What is your success rate, compared to other brands ? Thanks for helping !

 

[fish]

I was told that Procolor from alotofthings was Formulabs. True?

 

[jonalava]

I also got infos about Procolor using Formulabs. However, a lot of users have mentionned that the inks were probably diluted as colors are far less vivid than when using Formulabs bulk ink.

I also got a confirmation that Skyhorse was still using Formulabs (and not OCP) by a Skyhorse distributor.

 

[jonalava]

Thought it might be useful for others to post some recent results I had with 3 brands I tested with an Epson R220 : MMC, Colorful and Skyhorse. All in all, MMC gives pretty neutral colors (especially in grayscale) but is a little contrasty when compared to OEM. In fact, I think I prefer MMC to OEM when it comes to color accuracy. Colorful is really awful. Colors are really greenish, impossible to correct without losing a lot of density, looks a bit like G&G (which I never liked, even on my old Canon). Skyhorse falls somewhere between OEM and MMC. Colors are a bit cyan, but after a little tweaking (contrast +5, cyan -5), I got pretty good results.

One funny thing : all these manufacturers pretend to use Formulabs ink. One proof that we cannot buy only according to this statement or the now famous "ink made in USA" one.

 

[Grandad35]

One funny thing : all these manufacturers pretend to use Formulabs ink. One proof that we cannot buy only according to this statement or the now famous "ink made in USA" one.

They might be telling the truth, sort of. Formulabs makes a wide variety of inks for a variety of applications. For example they make food coloring inks (http://sensientinkjetinks.com/pdf/food_colorants.pdf) that may give bad colors when printed on on photo paper. These companies could just be selling a less expensive Formulabs ink intended for some other application, and trading on the Formulabs name. Then too, they could be destroying the truth instead of just playing around the edges.