Pigment or Dye-printers

[Jokofix]

I learned today that epson printers are devided in at least two categories, Dye-printers and printers designed for pigment kind of inks.

How do you recognize the difference of the two printers and what exactly is the difference? Is there somewhere a sort of list available?

Someone talked about the R-series are Dye-printers but than what about the R-1800?

I try to find out what printers are given the best change on being succesfull swapped over to pigment inks?

 

[jackson]

If you plug in the information on this site, you will see that the R1800 uses pigment ink, except for the cleaning cart.
http://tinyurl.com/o3end

I learned today that epson printers are devided in at least two categories, Dye-printers and printers designed for pigment kind of inks.

How do you recognize the difference of the two printers and what exactly is the difference? Is there somewhere a sort of list available?

Someone talked about the R-series are Dye-printers but than what about the R-1800?

I try to find out what printers are given the best change on being succesfull swapped over to pigment inks?

 

[Jokofix]

Thank you, very helpfull tool.

 

[mikling]

Also be aware that most Epson compatible cartridges for the originally Epson pigmented printers contain dye ink. Every time I ask the vendor if it is pigmented ink, either I get no reply and the honest ones come right out and say no that it is dye based ink. If the compatible cartridge deal looks too good to be true usually it is, I guess.

 

[Jokofix]

Thanks mikling,

It is that we have our own pigment inks and try to find out for what printers it would be save to install. As you already mentioned about the compatible cartridges, for us the print heads itself is a grey zone. meaning that it is not very clear to us what printers could handle the pigments save. Epson self gives of course no info to that. The dye-heads seem to be slightly different as the heads who allow pigment, at least that;s my thinking now.

 

[Fenrir Enterprises]

Epson's 4-color C-series printers are all pigment based ink, except the C80, which I believe was still dyebased.

All the R-series below R800 are dyebased, the R800, R1800, and R2400 are pigment based.

Many people sell kits or have mentioned that they converted an R200 series printer (6-color dyebased) to pigment, but I have no long term data on how well this works, as I've been considering trying it myself but don't want to do it until I find someone who's done it. Epson is the only type of printer this would work with, the piezo heads are more forgiving for different ink types. If you try this, just make sure you print constantly so the printer can't clog up.

 

[Jokofix]

I have made this experiences by myself not aware of the differences in print heads. I converted a couple of r320's which works very good for a couple of weeks and yes, printing at least a nozzle check every day, untill the printer was resting for 3 days than it was over. I did also a 2100/2200 which is OK. Now I wanted to start with an r1800.
I have an r300 here but because of the problems with one of the r320 I have some concerns now.

 

[websnail]

Many people sell kits or have mentioned that they converted an R200 series printer (6-color dyebased) to pigment, but I have no long term data on how well this works, as I've been considering trying it myself but don't want to do it until I find someone who's done it. Epson is the only type of printer this would work with, the piezo heads are more forgiving for different ink types. If you try this, just make sure you print constantly so the printer can't clog up.

I recently spotted a discussion on MIS which indicated that they have a compatible R200-R340 pigment style ink using the MIS Pro inks... I queried it to get absolute clarification and Marine (their moderator and one of the techs at MIS) confirmed that they've been selling and using it for a while and it was working fine.

I can't confirm or deny myself but you can contact MIS associates for more info'.

 

[gamarlin]

I recently found Xprint inks for the Epson R1800 sold by www.clickinks.com. They advertise them as pigment based inks. I have used them
for about one week now and find them to be a suitable replacement for OEM ink. The color is close to Epson but after making ICC profiles for my most used papers, the color match is near perfect. I believe the ink is manufactured in England and distributed by clickinks. So far no clogging, skipping or banding but this is just the first week. I have tried it on glossy, luster, matte and inkjet canvas with great success. I will try to follow up here with future results of testing.

 

[Jokofix]

I am using the water based pigments from Trident-ITW manufactured here in the US. Note: that these inks are designed for printing onto fabric and not dedicated to printing on paper.
To come back to the original comparison/problem.
Gamarlin, I do not think that the R1800 will give you problems with the inks you are using as I learned and believe now that this printer is a pigment printer. That printer works also fine with the pigments I am using. The thing what I still can not explain is the differences I have seen in two of my R320's I have installed with pigments. One of them is a catastrophe and the other one is printing excellent already for nearly 6 weeks. Yes, if it was sitting over the weekend you do need 2-3 cleaning cycles to get every nozle firing again but that's it where the other is refusing by blocking 2 almost complete heads.

Did I do something different between the two printers during the swapover? Probaly yes but can't figure out what it could be. I have tried to do 100% the same on both but I can't tell for now.

My 2200 is also working pretty well even if it is running with an exceptional set of inks what is an YMCK, Red, Green and Blue.

Back to the 320, I should try a third one to find out where the clue is to be found if swap over to pigments since one printer is working and the othe is not.