I have to feel that at this present point in time that the Canon bci-3&6 family of cartridges offer the best hope in inkjet economy.
For those heavy volume users of ink the economic carrot will justify all kinds of pain, for those not used to the pain of refilling, some sort of ease of refill system would be an incentive. Which is why I might look to some sort of cartridge like the hobbicolor custom designed for refilling and subsequent resealing.
But unless one is a very heavy ink user, one also has to wonder about the shelf life of the ink supply itself. Does in degrade over time?
Of course, there is always the question of color match to OEM. Since inks vary, especially from printer brand to printer brand, this means no generic ink will exist
that will match all makes without custom profiles.
From what I read, I wonder about how long the ink will last on a photo. At present,
the OEM makers seem well ahead of third parties with most printer makers now bringing out new printer lines based on their new longer lasting inks with claims of 100 year life under special conditions. Of course the new inks are never backwards compatable to existing printers, tend to come in less economical cartridge sizes, and I have to conclude these OEM printer manufacturers have zero economic incentive to get archevial ink life up in one rapid leap.------but rather plan a semi-infinite set of small improvements with a new printer lineup at each step.
Given the third party ink refill market is very competitive, I just see a huge opening for any third party who could get a really good color match, a really easy to use refilling system, and better than any existing OEM archevial print life.
For those heavy volume users of ink the economic carrot will justify all kinds of pain, for those not used to the pain of refilling, some sort of ease of refill system would be an incentive. Which is why I might look to some sort of cartridge like the hobbicolor custom designed for refilling and subsequent resealing.
But unless one is a very heavy ink user, one also has to wonder about the shelf life of the ink supply itself. Does in degrade over time?
Of course, there is always the question of color match to OEM. Since inks vary, especially from printer brand to printer brand, this means no generic ink will exist
that will match all makes without custom profiles.
From what I read, I wonder about how long the ink will last on a photo. At present,
the OEM makers seem well ahead of third parties with most printer makers now bringing out new printer lines based on their new longer lasting inks with claims of 100 year life under special conditions. Of course the new inks are never backwards compatable to existing printers, tend to come in less economical cartridge sizes, and I have to conclude these OEM printer manufacturers have zero economic incentive to get archevial ink life up in one rapid leap.------but rather plan a semi-infinite set of small improvements with a new printer lineup at each step.
Given the third party ink refill market is very competitive, I just see a huge opening for any third party who could get a really good color match, a really easy to use refilling system, and better than any existing OEM archevial print life.