I've spent what on OEM ink?

[t9mike]

I have an i9900 that I was stuck with using for basic printing for about 6 months because my laser died as well as photos. I was too busy and concerned about 3rd party ink to get off the Canon juice. Well, searching my buy.com and Amazon receipts I just calculated I have purchased 51 carts at an estimated $9.50 each for a total of $484 since May 2004. OMG!!!!!!!!! I knew it was bad but wow! I'm fairly frugal usually and it may take me days to get over how much $$$ I've spent on this. To be sure I have some nice prints, snapshots, etc. But again, ouch!

I'm odering a Brother HL-5250DN laser and a refill kit for the Canon this week. I have just started some research on refill kits. Seems like Formulabs or Hobbicolors should work OK. I actually have a very good printer profiling solution so I'm not worried about variations from OEM ink too much. I still need to research that the inks will at least be as fade resistent as Canon. I'm obviously not that concerned or I'd be using pigment (future project maybe?), but I just have not stumbled upon this info yet.

Welp, at least I have been using very high quality but well priced Red River papers. They are in Dallas where I live so I can just pop over and buy more from time to time.

-Mike

 

[Nifty]

Hey Mike,

Welcome to the forum. Sorry you had to learn the hard way that refilling / non-OEM is the way to go.

For fade info you really need to see these pages which were put together by some wonderful members of this forum:

http://www.nifty-stuff.com/docs/inkjet-fading.php
http://www.nifty-stuff.com/docs/inkjet-fading1.php

Keep us posted on your experiences and results!

 

[t9mike]

I just finished reviewing the UV tests. I focused on these strips:

#3 PPPro/Formulabs printed test chart
#35 PPPro/MIS printed test chart
#36 PPPro/Canon OEM printed test chart

Although I use Red River 66lb Polar Satin C1S exclusively at the moment -- I want to experiment with canvas-type papers though -- I thought this would give me a good basic setpoint to compare???

It seemed like MIS was the clear winner from above except for Canon. Also, I don't understand why test #35 was stopped so early at 144 hours. The strip seemed to have much life in it still compared to where #3 was stopped.

I looked at these swabs:

#11 PPPro/Canon swabbed ink test
#13 PPPro/Formulabs swabbed ink test
#14 PPPro/G&G swabbed ink test
#15 PPPro/WeInk BCI-7 swabbed ink test

But since MIS was not included it did not seem to make sense to compare the print vs swabs. Apples to oranges right?

Am I interpreting all this correctly?

Thanks!
-Mike

 

[Nifty]

Mike,

You may want to post your questions / comments on this thread:
http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=729

 

[t9mike]

Will do! Thanks. -Mike