Hobbicolors UW8 versus Canon OEM BCI-6 inks

[pharmacist]

Yesterday I purchased a used Canon i9950 wide format printer with original Canon cartridges installed and tested and find the colours from the original Canon cartridges a little bit disappointing (8 colours !) compared to the Hobbicolors UW-8 ink I use in my 4 colour (of which pigment black is not used during photo printing, making it a 3 colour printer !) IX 4000. I'm suprised the Hobbicolors UW-8 ink with just 3 colours produces more vibrant colours than the 8 colour based i9950 printer: is this normal ? I have to say this is the case for cheapo photo paper, but with original Canon Photo Glossy Paper Pro the i9950 made stunning high quality prints. Or should I use special based ICM profiles to improve quality ?

Dave from Hobbicolors recommended me to use the UW-8 even in the BCI-6 cart, but I'm afraid, this will give me colour shifts, since the UW-8 inks are more concentrated. On the bottle it states: backward compatible with BCI-7/BCI-6/BCI-5 etc. Has somebody already mixed OEM carts with after market inks like Hobbicolors and what are the results ?

 

[hpnetserver]

I have used Hobbicolors both WC6 and the newer UW8 inks on my ip8500. I have not needed profiles for my photo printings. The newer UW8 ink will make you no longer want to use OEM inks. It's not because of higher concentration of dyes. I believe it's due to its gamut being wider spread and linear. You should not use photopaper pro setup for UW8 ink. It's known to be only good for Canon photopaper pro. I like to use high resolution paper setup. This setup happens to use a profile that always gives me best result that beats OEM ink. I do not like to use the generic glossy photopaper setup. It does not produce good results. Perhaps this is a way Canon makes to you want to use their photopaper pro paper with photopaper pro setup. You can experiment to find the best available setup for your photopaper with UW8 ink. I don't think you will need a custom profile. But if you do use one you probably can print photos that beat Canon OEM stuff easily. I used UW8 for my latest ip4300 and the ink is just fabulous. Besides being great ink it's fairly inexpensive too. I refill OEM cartridges in my ip4300. Everything works just no different from OEM, but Canon makes me to have to check ink level with my own eyes. That's the only difference that sometimes is really inconvenient.

 

[Grandad35]

pharmacist,

You might want to read these links (and the links in each of them) regarding color management:
http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=8084#p8084
http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=7992#p7992
http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=9124#p9124
http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=10115#p10115

What you do depends on how fussy you are about your colors. If you are a serious amateur (as I suspect you are), you will want to calibrate your monitor and get a custom profile for your ink/paper/printer combination (http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=625#p625).

I would get a few sets of empty carts, purge them and start with pure bulk ink in each cart - otherwise your colors will change as each OEM cart runs out and with each of the first few refills as the original OEM ink gets diluted with (and is replaced by) your bulk ink. Generating a custom profile before your ink supply has stabilized is a waste of time. Purging the carts also prevents potential problems with incompatibility between the two inks.

Consider that your printer's input is R/G/B and that the printer's firmware must decide which and how much of each of the 8 inks to use for each R/G/B value. Since the RIP in the printer's firmware is optimized around Canon's BCI-6 inkset, it is possible that if some of the UW-8 inks are very different from Canon's BCI-6 inks that even a custom profile will have problems getting everything right, but you won't know until you try it (I use BCI-6 compatible bulk inks).

I hope that this helps more than confuses.

 

[pharmacist]

So, what I understand: don't mix OEM carts with after market carts or refilled OEM carts. But I want to use the original carts, since they are better built than aftermarket carts. And I don't want to throw away the original ink inside the cartridge. For the moment I have to live with a mix of original Canon ink in Canon cartridges which will be refilled soon with Hobbicolor ink (since a few of them are running low). Or should I draw all the ink from all of the existing cartridges and then mix them with the Hobbicolor ink bottles and then inject this mixture back into the cartridge, so the ink gets mixed up giving a more uniformily colour shift (if any) over time ? Is this a feasible alternative instead of purging all the ink cartridges ?

 

[fotofreek]

When I first started refilling with MIS (probably IS) inks I just refilled the OEM carts as they showed nearly empty as per a suggestion by Neil Slade. The inks were mixed, but the colors were so close that I didn't actually notice a difference. I've since used MIS ink exclusively with very good color results. Although I've read a few posts on MIS inks clogging printheads, I have only replaced one printhead from clogging in three years. I don't remember if it was the magenta or cyan nozzles that were blocked.

 

[Grandad35]

pharmacist,

I keep a set of partially full Canon carts in case I ever have to send the printer back for service or to run a "sanity check" in case I have an ink feeding problem. You can sometimes buy empty Canon carts:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Genuine-Canon-B...ryZ32789QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.com/Lot-of-30-EMPTY...ryZ51318QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
You can also buy empties from Hobbicolors if you don't want to purge the empty Canon carts..

Some ink sets mix together without problems, but some ink blends have been suspected of causing clogs. There are many components in each ink color and the components vary from supplier to supplier - all it takes is a pair of incompatible components to precipitate solids out of solution. I prefer to not take any chances in this area, and recommend not mixing ink sets.

Some people find that the colors from mixed ink sets are acceptable, while others do not. There are posts on both sides of this issue.

 

[ghwellsjr]

I have vacuum refilled hundreds of virgin Canon cartridges that I got on eBay with MIS, Formulabs, and now exclusively Inktec ink and never had a problem with incompatibility of inks or weird colors. I do this for many different people and no one has ever complained about a color shift. It's possible that the vacuum method eliminates problems that other types of refilling do not.

 

[pharmacist]

Since hobbicolors ink are meant to be injected into almost empty OEM cartridges I presume they should be miscible with the original OEM ink, so I don't think this should be problem for Hobbicolor ink and probably for Inktec ink as well. Dye inks are considered to be true solutions. I think this problem is more eminent for pigment ink, since this type of ink is stabilized with solubilising agents to keep the particles charged in order to keep them into the solution. When these agents are neutralized with oppositely charged ions (from the other ink), the ink may precipitate suddenly, since the cohesive powers will take over from the pigment particles.

I will use the german "Durchstich" method to refill the cartridge, since I find this method more elegant and don't have to mess around with plugs, screws or even glue. There are people at Druckerchannel.de who already filled their carts up to 30 times without any noticeable drop in printing quality or ink feed problems. Another guy took a filled cart and penetrated the sponge with this method about 100 times to see if there was any leak after repetitive penetration and not a single drop of ink leaked from it at all. This was done with the original cartridges: so they must be made extremely well ! Not sure this will apply to after market carts too. In Germany Inktec ink is very well known and considered to be a premium quality refill ink and sell for about 35-40 per liter (the BCI-3eBK/PGI-5 compatible pigment ink is the most expensive of them). I have not tried them yet, since I stick at my Hobbicolor inks.

 

[stratman]

I will use the german "Durchstich" method to refill the cartridge, since I find this method more elegant and don't have to mess around with plugs, screws or even glue.

Could you please detail what this method is or provide a link where I can read about it in english.

 

[pharmacist]

Hi Stratman,

Well there is actually a youtube movie, but I can't find it anymore. Here are the links on druckerchannel.de:

http://www.druckerchannel.de/artikel.php?ID=1724&seite=4&t=schritt_1_patrone_aufbohren
http://www.druckerchannel.de/artikel.php?ID=1724&seite=5
http://www.druckerchannel.de/artikel.php?ID=1724&seite=6

Since I don't have problem at all with german I find this site very interesting for refillers. But don't be desperate: the pictures on the site are very comprehensive. To be sure: use a Dremel at very high speed to obtain a nice, small and smooth hole where you can penetrate the long needle. I believe one of the other forum guys is german (def2con ?) and already mentioned this alternative refill method.

Just have a try, it is very elegant and easy to do ! Nobody will ever detect your cartridges are actually refilled from the outside (when the lid is opened).