Test results for FORMULABS INK

[fotofreek]

Alotofthings sells Formulabs bulk ink. I believe it is cheaper when available on their ebay store. It is quite reasonable. BTW, I purchased some Arrow carts from them but haven't used them yet. I didn't see any notation of "SH" on the package or cart. Where is that information noted?

 

[Inky]

hi foto-

Are you using Formulabs bulk? How is it?

The "arrow" carts that I got from alotofthings.com came in a blue box labeled "skyhorse" with an "arrow" sticker on it.

I thought the relabeling sketchy at the time..... It wouldn't suprise me if the chinese makers use various brands and relabeling.

In my last email to alotofthings I mentioned that I had Arrow carts from them, including Formulabs ink. They didn;t contradict that it was Formulabs ink, and basically told me their inks are good and everyone is happy, which was sort of annoying to me considering I'm getting a defnite purple shift in shadows that the OEM inks do not produce.

How were your carts packaged?

Anyways, this is making me doubtful about alotofthings. no pun intended.

 

[fotofreek]

Inky - I am using bulk MIS inks. I have purchased Arrow carts from Alotofthings but have not used them yet. They are in a box that is professionally printed and has no stickers on it. Granddad posted a message today having to do with Formulabs inks. Read his message. He suggests that the ink in the carts may be different from the bulk formulabs ink. I did talk to Frank at Alotofthings several months ago and he did tell me that the Chinese firm had filled some of the Arrow carts with an ink from Europe (I think it was OCP) instead of the Formulabs ink he had specified.

I don't know about samples, but the Formulabs inks are quite inexpensive when purchased from Alotofthings. They used to have this ink on their ebay site, but they have recently upgraded their web site and it looks like they are planning to sell only from their own web site. Too bad, as the ebay site was cheaper. They are still a bit cheaper than MIS inks, but MIS will sell 2 oz containers as opposed to Formulabs from Alotofthings where the smallest container is 2 oz. I have been very happy with MIS ink and am using the Canon glossy photo paper profile that came with the Canon driver. For my purposes it is as close to the OEM colors as I need for my photo printing. Grandad has zeroed in on profiles for the Formulabs inks with various papers and is undoubtedly producing truer colors in his prints. Either way, I don't think you can go wrong.

 

[RC]

I find myself to have lost all interest on this subject.

I think I will close it here.

Robert

 

[Inky]

fotofreek

Thanks for the info. So your "arrow" carts came in different packaging than mine. hmm.. Sounds pretty difficult to know what ink one is getting in prefilled carts. Well, that's too bad.

> I did talk to Frank at Alotofthings several months ago and he did tell me that the Chinese firm had filled some of the Arrow carts with an ink from Europe (I think it was OCP) instead of the Formulabs ink he had specified.

ARG!!

I assume they order these carts by the thousand, you'd think they would test random samples with a spectrometer and notice changes. Especially if the packaging suddenly changes or something.

Now I have no way of knowing if I got the correct ink I bought from Alotofthings.com

 

[drc023]

Throughout this entire thread the discussion centered on prefilled cartridges from China. From what I see, blame was being placed upon Formulabs, when the problem was actually caused by a plant in China using the wrong ink. I refill using bulk Formulabs ink and also have a supply of the ArrowJet cartridges. Using the ArrowJet tanks with my iP4000 I didn't notice any difference in CMY colors from OEM or refilled cartridges using Formulabs ink. All appeared the same to me. However the BCI-6bk (dye based black) was another story. The ArrowJet cartridges were clearly filled with the wrong ink. Printing on glossy photo paper resulted in a pronounced bronzing effect just as if I had printed in plain paper mode which uses pigmented black. This happened from two different ArrowJet BCI-6bk tanks. I extracted the ink from those tanks and refilled with bulk Formulabs ink which resolved the problem.

I reported this to Alotofthings and they ran tests from their stock which came up negative. What was the difference? Between the time my cartridges were shipped and when I installed them, a couple of shipments of cartridges had arrived at Alotofthings. They would have come from different production runs. Someone screwed up at the Skyhorse plant (maker of ArrowJet) and loaded the wrong ink into their equipment.

So what's the solution to a problem as described in the above thread? One is to get really cheap cartridges and extract the ink if it doesn't give a good match and then refill with bulk ink, which in this case is Formulabs. The other, for the more demanding professionals, would be to get virgin cartridges and then refill them with bulk ink from a known source, i.e. Formulabs from Alotofthings.

 

[Inky]

Foto-

I just sent mail to Alotofthings trying to fogure out what's going on with the Arrow carts, and according to them they don't have a Frank working there, and never did....

Sure that was the correct name?

 

[fotofreek]

My error - Joe is the owner, Frank is his brother. Email to Joe.

 

[Grandad35]

drc023,

Thanks for confirming that the ink in the prefilled carts isn't consistent. This goes a long way toward explaining the strange color differences that have been reported between bulk ink users and prefilled cart users. I guess that it's "caveat emptor" for the prefilled cart user.

BTW, you can completely clean a prefilled cart using the procedure at:
http://www.nifty-stuff.com/docs/canon-BCI-6-cartridges.php

Even when the ink chamber is empty, there can still be 3-6 CCs of ink left in the sponge. It can take several refills to get close to the final color when switching inks unless you clean the cart first.

 

[Inky]

Thanks for the info.

I also confirmed from Alotofthings that they do NOT guarantee what manufacturer's ink is in the Arrow carts. According to an email, they Arrow company may change inks and not notify Alotofthings.

In a nut shell, there is no way to really know what ink is in Arrow carts, which contradicts many people mistaken belief (incluging me previously) that Arrow carts contain Formulabs ink.

btw, I think Alotofthings could be clearer about that, and list it specifically on their site. They don't probably becasue the truth isn't very appealing. They do say elsewhere that their inks are Formulabs, referring to bulk inks, but it has been misunderstood by many to refer to all their inks, including carts.

So...... basically this whole Formulabs debate has been a waste of time in regards to Arrow carts, due to a common misperception held here about Arrow being Formulabs, and somewhat confusing product information on Alotofthings website.

ARG!! Sorry for any confusion. It's been frustrating for me as well, trying all sorts of work around, ad absurdum.

My conclusion so far: it's unfortunate there is no place (that I'm aware of) to buy prefilled-carts and know for certain it's Sentient/Formulabs ink inside.