Epson WF7610 dye vs pigment question

[Evaldas5211]

Hello,

I have just ordered an Epson WorkForce WF7610 (A3 MFU) and two sets of compatible cartridges that have many positive reviews on Amazon.
The original cartridges (T27 as I'm in Europe, T252 in US) use pigment inks and the printer's printhead uses PrecisionCore technology.
I've become very nervous now as I found out the compatible cartridges (not just the ones I ordered, but all on the market) use DYE inks instead of PIGMENT.
Should I be worried? I'm not concerned about slightly worse print quality, but I am worried about the dye inks ruining the printer. On the other hand, many people based on hundreds of Amazon reviews use these compatible cartridges without realising something might be different...

Thank you.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Dye inks in 3rd party cartridges are typically pretty cheap inks, cheaper than pigment inks. You may or may not see color differences, dye inks look better on glossy papers than pigment inks, but dye inks of this type fade pretty quickly under exposure to sun, ozone or other UV emitting lamps like flourescent tubes. Dye inks on plain paper tend to spread a little bit on such fibrous base material, but if you don't look for that effect, e.g. on the edges of black lines, letters etc, and in direct comparison to prints with pigment inks you most likely won't see a difference. Dye inks should not damage the printhead, and pigment inks neither, but if they do then something is pretty wrong with their recipe. There may be other problems with 3rd party cartridges - e.g. bad fit in the carriage impacting the ink flow, not enough ink before the counter is down to zero, effects which can look like nozzle problems but which are not. And a tip, if you are printing onto glossy paper - photos etc - use the matte paper setting instead of a paper setting for photo papers. This sounds contradictory but the black ink in this case will actually be used for a neutral black, otherwise black would be mixed from the other colors CMY creating a color cast for black areas.

 

[Evaldas5211]

I've done some research and there are Epson EcoTank models that also have the Precision Core printhead and all the EcoTank printers use dye based ink so hopefully the switch from pigment to dye on my Epson WF-7610 won't be a huge issue...
Although I do think in case the printer breaks, Epson would be able to hold this against me as technically you are allowed to use compatible ink cartridges and they can deny warranty only if it the malfunction is caused by the cartridges, which they could say it was as it's a different type of ink...

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I'n not sure about your question, I only can say from quite a long experience that not all clogs are related to a 3rd party ink, that's the smaller part of the cases, there can be lots of problems induced by the cartridge itself causing ink flow problems. And it's an overall question why the printer manufacturer should provide warranty services for things they cannot control, at all. I rather would turn the question upside down and make the cartridge supplier/manufacturer liable for the issues, but everybody knows that this won't work. And I think that the precision core printheads are not more prone to clogs than other printheads. The precision core technology is much more helping Epson to get the printhead assembly more automated and effective, higher yields etc. I don't see from their description that there is much improvement for the user. Amd I think that ink suppliers and actual manufacturers spend lots of effort to make their inks as much troublefree as possible. There is some assumption by 3rd party ink/cartridge users that pigment inks would clog earlier than dye inks - e.g. after a particular idle time. But there are again several factors - you have technical differences of purge units in printers, age and wear can be a contributing factor, so there is no proof for that, and the experience of somebody with model X - I don't have a problem after 4 weeks - cannot be transferred to printer model Y.

 

[mikling]

When you get the dye ink carts, use the printer for a while and you should be OK.
Compatibles are nearly always dye ink because pigment ink is more costly and the reality is that the average consumer would not know the difference because well........they don't know. Leave it at that.

 

[te36]

2014 mikling had a more specific suggestion when changing from pigment to dye, albeit for a different printer. Given how i guess the printer will have to be initialized with original pigment cartridges (being an epson), i would guess this recommendation does apply in this case:

https://www.printerknowledge.com/threads/which-pigment-ink-for-epson-1500w.9323/#post-75664

 

[te36]

wrt to dye vs. pigment: I have not investigated these "office" printers from epson, but if you want predictable ink behavior, dye or pigment, get refillable cartridges. It even seems as if you could get an external resetter for T27, thats what i would go for.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I tested a WF-7110DTW printer only with dye inks here - it works fine
https://www.printerknowledge.com/th...ed-for-photo-printing.10972/page-2#post-97704