Hobbicolor questions

[binkie]

Does anyone know who the manufacturer of Hobbicolors ink is? I get the impression that Hobbicolors is just the name of a retail distributor who labels the ink that he buys from a manufacturer.

Your statement is correct and, as far as I know, none of the third party ink suppliers will tell you who makes their ink. Gotta trust that if you find an ink you like, the supplier will continue buying from the same source - but who knows. When Hobbicolors introduced the UW8 series, he told us about it and stated some of the differences.

Steve W.

alotofthings.com clearly states, at the top of their bulk ink page . . . "All contain Sensient Imaging Technology, Formulabs Division Inks." You gotta admire a dealer who speaks truth in advertising. What are the other dealers afraid of? They probably don't want us consumers to comparison shop. Bummer!

Binkie

 

[ltsang]

Just an idea, some day some smart guy will reveal the secret of ink making, and it is like coca-cola, there is now Pepsi, root beer and so on. But boy, I think this forum will be closed down by the printer manufacturers fast same as the big oil companies don't like the idea of electric cars. Just imagine that the ink is 98% water, I don't think it is that complicate especially the black, that will give an edge against laser toners. I know in China they are making all the third party cartridges, there are a lot of factories that can produce inks and that is a big business. Another news I heard was that Epson has successfully sued G & G about the copy right of Epson cartridges and is not allowed to import any more compatible Epson cartridges to the States, but Canon did not follow suite yet, so Canon compatible is still allowed. anybody hear about that?

 

[Grandad35]

...snip... I heard was that Epson has successfully sued G & G about the copy right of Epson cartridges and is not allowed to import any more compatible Epson cartridges to the States ...snip...

http://www.americantonerserv.com/company/news/pdfs/pr/lyra.2006.12.pdf

 

[Tin Ho]

Grandad, thanks for the link. It says Nine Star Technology of China (G&G brand) is expected to contest the pending court case. But it has agreed to conditions set forth in ITC's consent orders. That is to stop importation of the accused compatible cartridges into USA.

Although Nine Star is probably the largest Chinese compatible cartridge producer what I have heard was it could not afford to fight against Epson which is a giant comparing to Nine Star's size. The only choice for them is to quickly yield to Epson's challenge and move on with whatever they are able to salvage out of it.

It's not just G&G. Importation of compatible cartridges, Epson compatible in particular, will be choked and ceased by Epson. Not good for consumers. I often wonder why people paid tax money to support a government, which passes or constitutes the laws to make big corporations to rip people off. Whether Nine Star infringed or not Epson's patents is never known. They yield rather than fight because they can not afford to fight.
Microsoft, HP, Intel and possibly many other corporations have used this technique to effectively eliminate competitions.

What can we do? I will not buy any Epson printers for one. I believe Epson will lose market share to Canon in the future.

 

[nelda]

I was doing some web sufing, and stumbled upon this discussion on dpreview (perhaps already known to many of you) about inks and fading. After some testing Renard seems to have identified (from characteristics, color, and fading properties) some of the manufacturers of some inks. Unfortunately Hobbicolors was not one of the inks that he tested. MIS and Media Street seem to be identical to Image Specialists. He felt that Inktek was the closest match to OEM, and IS as a good second (and a lot cheaper). A very detailed and informative discusion, IMHO.

see http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1003&thread=9976889&page=4

...snip... as far as I know, none of the third party ink suppliers will tell you who makes their ink.

There are various sources for bulk ink who state that they use Formulabs, IS, OCP and Lyson inks.

 

[chickens]

UPDATED NEWS:

Hi there, I've been using hobbicolours for a few months and notice a drastic color polling appeared in normal printing and... for their pigment black ink...when they are printed with text highlighted with other colors, it looked smudged... any idea why, almost like the black text ink is black dye....

 

[on30trainman]

UPDATED NEWS:

Hi there, I've been using hobbicolours for a few months and notice a drastic color polling appeared in normal printing and... for their pigment black ink...when they are printed with text highlighted with other colors, it looked smudged... any idea why, almost like the black text ink is black dye....

I really don't understand your problem. I have printed out about 50 8 X 10.5 prints, and many 4 X 6, in the last month using Hobbicolors UW8 inks and Kirkland Glossy and Staples Matte papers with none of the ink pooling you talk about. I rumaged thru my paper stock and found some Canon Photo Paper Plus Glossy in 4 X 6 size. I printed out two pictures - one using my Hobbicolors UW8 profile and the other using the Canon supplied Photo Paper Plus profile. Again no pooling. This was using my ip6000D. All my printing is done with QImage - print profile enabled in QImage and turned off in the printer.
Recently I printed out a 40 page manual with my ip4000 which also has Hobbicolors inks. The 3eBK cartridge has Hobbicolors pigment ink - he also sells a pigmented ink which is a mixture. No smearing at all. Rather crisp considering it is printed on plain paper.
The only possibility I can think of is that you are not completely sealing the cartridge after you fill it. I use a #8 coarse thread screw and a small "O" ring to seal after filling - has always worked well for me. I have recently been refilling Canon BCI-6 cartridges, but have also used the Hobbicolors ones. I prefer the Canon's. Take out a cartridge or two and see if ink is pooled up around the printhead inlets. If so, the cartridge is leaking. Does a filled cartridge without the outlet seal on leak? It shouldn't. What filling method are you using? I hope you can solve this problem - I am very pleased with the results Hobbicolor inks give me.

Steve W.

 

[Grandad35]

Hi there, I've been using hobbicolours for a few months and notice a drastic color polling appeared in normal printing and... for their pigment black ink...when they are printed with text highlighted with other colors, it looked smudged... any idea why, almost like the black text ink is black dye....

What paper are you using? Pigment ink usually doesn't work well on "swellable" papers, as it isn't absorbed quickly enough. Pigment ink usually needs a microporous (aka "instant dry") paper.

 

[chickens]

i'm using both plain a4 paper and glossy photo paper but just today, i also realise that my normal text printings, isnt too straight....so i did print head allignment and to my surprise....the ink allignment pattern changed (most prob because i'm using a different type of ink). Ever since I alligned, it doesnt seem too obvious on the polling anymore (small ink particles) ... hope anyone could help me, I too would like to print out stuff without pigment black ink smearing when it is highlighted with different colors...

 

[stratman]

I asked the guy who sells Hobbicolors on eBay a few questions that pertain to your issues.

Hobbicolors has two different formulations for the PGI-5 Pigmented Black ink cartridge. One is the 5C-LP which has only black pigment ink. The other is 5C-LD which has both black pigment ink and black dye ink mixed together.

Here is a quote from an email I received from Hobbicolors:

"So you should purchase our 5C-LP refill ink pack. It contains OEM PGI-5 like ink that it will not smear even if you dip a print in water. It will print sharp, crisp and deep black text that rivals laser on quality plain paper. It is one of the best black pigment ink you can find in the market. You sure can use a highlighter over the black text without smearing.

According to our test on printers on our test bench black pigment ink is indeed more prone to clog print heads. However, we discovered that the clog is mostly caused by PGI-5 (or BCI-3eBK) cartridges that have dried out. When pigment ink dries out in the sponge it chokes the sponge. A choked PGI-5 when refilled will not deliver sufficient ink flow to the print head. As a result it will clog the print head. We found we had to rinse every empty used dried PGI-5 we obtained before refilling. Rinsing brought them back to top working shape again. However, if you refill before a PGI-5 dries out you don't need to rinse it. It will work perfectly.

If a text print head suffers a clog it can be cleared by using dye black ink in a PGI-5 or BCI-3eBK. Please note that this only applies to the text print head only. It is a simple procedure. Text print head never really gets clogged.

You do not need to flush out Canon OEM ink before refilling with our UW8 ink. We do it all the time with no problems. We never heard anyone reporting any problems either. If you want to you can use distilled water to rinse all cartridges before refilling. This is commonly called purging a cartridge."