Use Canon inks in a Brother Inkjet?

[R_Andersen]

I have a Brother MFC-J835DW printer that we use for everday printing. I also have a Canon PRO9000 that I use for photo printing. I ahve hobbicolors ink I use to refill the Canon printer and I'm wondering if tehre's any reason I couldn't use this ink to refill teh Brother LC-71 carts? I'm not too worried about the colors being slightly off on the Brother, I just want to make sure teh hobbicolors ink would be compatible with the printhead.

Thanks for any advice,
Rob

 

[wilko]

I've just bought a S/H Brother DCP-j4120DW and am using OCP Canon Cli-8 ink including black dye instead of pigment. So far I've printed about 150 double sided A4 prints with no problems. Prints are not as good as Canon prints but I'm not using it for photos.

General advice seems to be that Canon ink shouldn't be used in Brother printers but as the printer is S/H and I have some spare Canon ink, I thought I'd give it a go.

Can't be any worse than using compatible carts filled with universal ink. Will report back if I get any clogging etc.

 

[wilko]

Just an update. Compared Canon ink print outs with original Brother carts ink and Canon ink prints are brighter with better flesh tones. The Brother ink carts are duller and flesh tones have a pinkish tone.

Now I must add that I am using generic 80gsm paper and not photo paper. However,my first choice for photo printing would always be a Canon printer.

Leaving aside photo printing, I'm mightily impressed with my Brother. It's so solid compared to other mainstream inkjets. I'm far from impressed with Brother ink though. It's lifeless compared to OCP Canon Ink.

I wouldn't recommend switching from what ink you are using though. Brother printers will never be able to compare with Canon for photo prints, so why risk changing your ink which works well for you.

Although I haven't tried refilling Brother ink carts (I use refillable carts), I like the idea of spongeless carts.

My conclusions so far - Canon for photo prints - Brother for everything else.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I cannot really follow your conclusions, comparing printers and their color rendiiton would require to measure the overall gamut, and this on a suitable photo paper, plain paper is not suitable for a decent photo print. Brother printers run with a similar droplet size as Canon printers, there wouldn't be mauch difference in terms of actual resolution. There is one significant difference between Canon and lots of Brother models, Canon uses 5 or 6 colors, always with a photo dye black additionally to the pigment black for prints on normal paper, Brother uses 4 inks in lots of models , with a pigment black for text print and the black on photo paper is mixed from CMY. Depending on the photo paper used this may cause a color cast in the blacks. And some Brother printers depending on the nozzle layout are pretty slow with photo prints.
Using Canon inks in a Brother may possibly work, and color shifts could be corrected with an icm-profile, but it won't work the other way around - piezo Brother inks won't work in a Canon.

 

[wilko]

I think you have either misunderstood this thread or are over complicating things.
I am simply replying to a thread asking if it is possible to use Canon ink in Brother printers. NOT what the result would be on photo paper.
Personally I cannot see the point in comparing Brother printers with Canon as far as photo printing is concerned as the Canon would outperform the Brother no matter what ink was used in the Brother.
I have simply stated that the Canon ink I used produces a better print on plain paper than Brother OEM ink when used in my Brother printer.
Double sided printing on plain paper also uses black pigment ink mixed with colours on the Canon and presumably on the Brother?

I wouldn't dream of using Brother ink in a Canon printer.

 

[wilko]

Just an update on my experience of Brother printers.

They are far more sturdy than mainstream Canon printers, which have become so plasticky in recent years. However, Canon prints, especially for photos are far superior to those of Brother printers and arguably any other printer manufacturers. However, for non photo prints I would recommend Brother printers over Canon everytime. Ideally an office should have a Brother printer for general work and a Canon printer for photos etc.

 

[MP640]

Fully agree. I use 2 Brother printers for everyday non-photo printing without any problems. And I really like the ADF, which saves a lot of time when scanning or copying.
I'm still looking for an A3 Canon or Epson photoprinter.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

O.k., I can join the club and report overall good performance and experience with my pretty old DCP-195C, refill is simple, no chips yet, takes oversized cartridges, performs barely any cleaning cycles, and I'm still running with the 1st wate ink pad at 55 000 pages. And when it comes to the quality of photo prints - it's as good as with other printers once you create icm-profiles for it, the droplet size is at 1pl, that's as small as it was with the IP5000, the printer gets veeery slow when printing photos ,and the paper handling from the bottom tray is actually the most limiting factor, most >250 gram papers won't run reliably

 

[Xon2]

Hey everybody,
i had been using a canon mp610 multifuntion printer since 2008 with refill ink from Inktec until it died a month back (powerloss which shorted the printhead which in turn then killed the printer entirely). It was on its second printhead but that for at least for the last 6 years. It was a great printer and RIP after so many years is alright i guess.

A friend gave me her pretty new but clogged up (only text black clogged) Brother MFC-j470 DW printer which i completely restored with flushing couple ml of distilled water through the black chamber. Happy about that one anyways...

But: I have still about a liter of pigmented ink from Inktek designated for the Canon PGI-5BK catriges from my canon mp610 as well as about 100ml CMY Inktec dye-ink for the same printer. I am wondering whether i can use this up with the Brother (not much concerned with colour deviation for i am only printing text with some graphs etc.)?

As i understand from another thread here on the forum: Canon uses the bubblejet (heat) design and Brother pritheads use the piezo technique. As i read around here, i should be able to use the ink for canon with the brother but not the other way around.

Does anyone of u actually know how these inks technically differ and why using the 'Canon' from Inktec might clogg up the Brother printer?

Would you think the 'Canon' ink is comparable concerning pigment size and viscosity?

I guess i should only run into problems if pigment size of the 'Canon' ink is bigger and the ink overall is less viscous than needed for the piezo nozzles of the Brother?

Could you be so kind to give me a bit more technical background whether my thinking is correct?

Thx for the help and i am aware that the actual risk of testing this is totally mine of course.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Brother and Canon both don't publish technical data and requirements like viscosity or pigment size of their inks, so it's all just speculation. Typically the droplet size of the pigment black channel is much bigger than the smallest droplets of a Brother printhead, so one can assume/or speculate that pigments of the Canon black ink are bigger than those used for a Brother ink. So I just would not take the risk and use up the Canon pigment black in a Brother printer. And with your dye inks - if at all - I would mix the Canon inks with other refill inks suitable for Brother which you are probably planning to use anyway.