So, what Canon 3rd party ink is good? Totally confused...

[Inky]

I ordered from HobbiColor on Ebay, and I really like the cartriges with the screw closures. Color is not OEM though, at least for the 4 color formulation. If the inks were balanced for 6+ color that could be why.

Identical print settings produced noticably different prints with the Hobbicolor ink than from OEM. Having said that, they're better than the Arrow carts and have greatly reduced the ugly purple shadow shift I was seeing with Arrow carts. Also, there may be some validity to claims of higher gamut. Will look more into that later.

So, the color from HC is prety good. With a custom profile it could potentially be great, and I hope to get a profile soon. Will review further then.

 

[KCDoug]

I ordered from HobbiColor on Ebay, and I really like the cartriges with the screw closures. Color is not OEM though, at least for the 4 color formulation. If the inks were balanced for 6+ color that could be why.

Identical print settings produced noticably different prints with the Hobbicolor ink than from OEM. Having said that, they're better than the Arrow carts and have greatly reduced the ugly purple shadow shift I was seeing with Arrow carts. Also, there may be some validity to claims of higher gamut. Will look more into that later.

So, the color from HC is prety good. With a custom profile it could potentially be great, and I hope to get a profile soon. Will review further then.

Inky - Have you had any luck getting a 4-color profile so that you can review your perception of HC ink?

-Doug

 

[hpnetserver]

I have been using Hobbicolors refill kit on my ip8500 since about 8 months (or 10 months) ago. I did not finish the original set of OEM cartridges before switching to Hobbicolors. So far I have been completely trouble free and happy. I totally agree with inky that Hobbicolors cartridges are among the best I have seen. However, I do not see the kind of color difference Inky experienced. If I mix some prints printed with OEM and some others with HC and show them to you it will be very unlikely you will have any idea that the prints are actually printed with different inks. Of course ip8500 is very different from an ip3000. I do not have an ip3000 so I can't say Inky is wrong. Just before Christmas I printed about 300 4x6 photos within a couple of days. Two or 3 of the cartridges went out of ink and I had to refill them. But I did not have even one bad print becuase of ink problems. BTW, ip8500 is so fast. The feeling of a 100 percent confidence in getting every print right at a very fast printing speed is a very unique experience. I don't think I would enjoy much from printing photos if I had to watch every print coming out of the printer to see if anything messes up. I don't use any profiles other than the few came with the printer software.

 

[KCDoug]

hpnetserver - thanks for tossing in your experiences.

I have a i960 and have been very pleased with it. I have only used OEM cartridges, but don't print high volume. Maybe a total of 300 4x6" a few other sizes a year. About a year ago I did some unscientific testing of different papers and posted that info. on Steve's Digicam's Forum. Bottom line was that my wife and I thought the Canon Photo Pro gloss rendered the best results overall, and I discovered the paper offered at freephotopaper.com gave me the same results, and it costs a tad less. But I digress...

I'm still a little concerned about not having a tweaked profile available, especially should I want to try some other paper (such as less expensive) to use for simple give away prints.

Just to be sure I'm clear, when you say you've used the HC cartridges successfully, are you referring to prefilled cartridges, or the bulk ink kit that comes with his empty carts with the interesting looking screw fill hole? One other question -- would I be best off replacing all the OEM cartridges with the HC cartridges at the same time or is it worth the risk of replaceing the OEM's one-at-a-time as they go empty?

Cheers,
-Doug

 

[fotofreek]

Doug - I have also been using an i960 and refilling with MIS inks. When I first started refilling I simply refilled the original OEM cart that was low with MIS ink and replaced it. This technique was described in Neil Slade's info. He would take the cart out of the printer, cover the ink outlet hole with his (gloved?) finger, open the fill hole, inject the ink, seal the fill hole, let the cart drip until it stops, and replace it into the printer. Having a mix of MIS and OEM didn't seem to alter the colors enough for me to notice. I now have all my carts filled with MIS and the question of mixing inks is moot. I don't know about the HC inks. I am using some of their carts, which I received empty in one of their kits, and they seem to be very good. Since I am pleased with MIS inks I didn't use their inks. I have seen very good reports, however, on the HC inks.

 

[hpnetserver]

Doug, I do not refill my OEM carts. I still have the whole OEM set partially used in storage. I bought HC refill kits twice and all the carts were empty to begin with. It isn't difficult to fill the empty tanks and refilling is just as easy. I have had HC carts and ink in my ip8500 most of the time. I do not mix HC and OEM carts. So I don't know if mixing will produce noticeable color changes. If you have empty OEM carts you should be able to refill them with whatever good quality 3rd party ink. It has been discussed many times on this forum how to fit a nylon or a stainless steel screw on the top of an OEM cart. You should be able to just fill whatever good quality 3rd party ink without draining all the OEM ink out. I doubt you will detect any color changes if you fill with HC ink. As fotofreek said MIS ink is a superior brand of ink to use. Formulabs ink should be another excellent brand as well. I am happy with HC brand. There are also many reports in favor of HC ink on this forum as well. Just choose one of of them and start using it without a custom color profile to see if it is a probelm to you.

I don't really feel a need of messing with color profiles. As long as colors look natural, green does not look like brown as an example, I really feel OK. Why? Just think of having two different cameras and each produces different look in the detail of colors. Sometimes one is better than the other and sometimes it may be the other way around. No 3rd party ink can be exactly identical to OEM. As long as it produces colors close enough to OEM it is acceptable. For me the color differences from using HC ink is far less than the differences caused by printing on different paper. If you need a color profile it will be for the paper.

Another very important factor in chossing a 3rd party brand of ink and cartridges is if they will be completely problem free down the road. From time to time people reported getting clogged printhead from using prefilled 3rd party ink cartridges. Those prefilled 3rd party ink cartridges are so cheap that makes me wonder if they use quality ink in them. They may look really cheap but refilling is still cheaper because you can reuse the cartridges many times. Yeah, it is more work. That's a tradeoff, a good one though.

 

[KCDoug]

Thanks fotofreek and hpnetserver - you have been real helpful.

I've been perusing through the forums (but haven't searched) and did not see anything about the procedure for refilling oem carts. But honestly think I would probably be more inclined to simply replace the oems with HC's carts that I fill myself. Hp...you mentioned that you kept your oems in storage. How are you storing them partially used, and how long do you think you can keep them functional for reuse?

The other question I have is about incrementally replacing oems with HCs or any other 3rd party ink. Has anyone replaced just 1 or 2 oem cartridges at a time w/third party, so that you are running a mix of oems with 3rd party?

I'm giving serious consideration to trying the 3rd party route.

-Doug

 

[drc023]

Here are my suggestions:
1.- Order a refill set of HobbiColors empty cartridges w/ink from www.hobbicolors.com (eBay search on HobbiColors) or Formulabs ink and empty cartridges from www.alotofthings.com. (HC is less expensive. I use both inks and they are both excellent).
2.- Save what is left of you OEM cartridges for the very, very remote chance you might have to use them for troubleshooting. The possibility of needing to do this is very slight, but it's just good insurance.
3.- While it doesn't hurt to mix cartridges, there isn't any reason to do so. Using the HobbiColors solution is so inexpensive, you should start out with a matched set of inks.

If you replace and secure the orange caps on the OEM cartridges and put a piece of tape over the vent hole, they should keep as well as a new cartridge. As to refilling Canon OEM or third party cartridges the procedure is the same. Cap the bottom outlet (original orange cap or even hold your finger against it while refilling - wear gloves), make an opening in the top of the cartridge and inject ink - remove the original sealing plug and then reseal with either a nylon or stainless steel screw or as some users do, use hot melt glue. You might also want to look at the photo and write up in this article. It shows how the nylon screw seals the fill opening and gives an alternative method of filling and storing refilled tanks for later use.
http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=433

Also review the photos and procedures in this article. The bottles and soft needles are an improvement over what I used in the above link.
http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=619&p=1

--
Ron

 

[hpnetserver]

Doug, I doubt that you will see any significant color shift by incrementally replacing OEM cartridges with HC cartridges. But if you look very closely with an intention to find differences you will see them. DRC made a great suggestion to save a set of OEM aside for future whatever purposes. That's what I did. I only recap the orange caps and wrap them tight with rubber band. I store the whole set in a thick sandwich bag sealed. This is probabbly not perfect so I will use the OEM set in the next couple of months. So why not just replace all of your PEM carts at once with the 3rd party set of your choice. If you make profiles then the profiles will serve the purpose for you. The profiles will not be useful if you replace cartridges incrementally.

 

[Correzpond]

I have just tried my first set of carts filled with HC inks on my ip8500. Choosing to allow the 'Printer to Determine Settings', then selecting 'Glossy Photo Paper' and 'ICM = On" I found that (to my eye) the colour adjustment required by HC was Cyan +10, where as my preferred settings for MIS inks have been Magenta -5 and Yellow +5.

Overall at these settings the colour fidelity of the HC inks is excellent; at least as good as MIS if not better. I suspect that the lower intensity of the HC Cyan relates to a wider gamut in the blue-green region which makes it (at least theoretically) more capable of emulating the Adobe1998 colour space. This has also been supported by correspondence with Dave at Hobbicolors:

"Our cyan ink is exactly as you have observed to be different from Canon OEM. Without intentional cross examination this is about the only difference that can be visually detected. However, this is actually preferred by many of our customers as it makes the overall colors a little warmer and is preferred for portraiture prints."