Use ink 113 on Epson ET-8550 (L8180)

bserrao

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Hi there,

I'm thinking of buying the Epson ET-8550, but i would like to have the CMY pigment based like the black already provided for when printing documents, keeping the dye based grey and maybe the photo black? don't know if this makes sense...
Anyone here tried something similar? Is it to risky? :)

I'm between this Epson ET-8550 (since A3+ would be a nice to have for some larger photo prints) and the ET-5800. I have 3 kids and they going to print stuff for school, pigment based inks are better because of smear resistance (I'm not so sure they're going to be extra careful with their prints). On the other side I'm getting into amateur photography and the reviews about the capabilities of ET-8550 printing photos are amazing. Also not sure if swapping those inks would affect the print quality and color accuracy.

Thanks,
Cheers
Bruno
 

Ink stained Fingers

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I would not swap inks in a ET-8550 for a simple reason - it may technically work but what if you need to go for repair - you are loosing warranty doing that for a pretty expensive printer.
Swapping from dye to pigment may work technically and may work for a while, and I did it with an L1800 and with an L310 but I experienced problems when trying to switch back from pigment inks to dye inks - it is quite impossible to flush and clean the ink system completely - container - tubes - and the cartridge inserts/dampers in the printhead, I kept clogs for a long time which came back after cleaning cycles. I do not have a problem to switch between pigment and dye inks with different cartridge sets on a WF2010W, a cleaning cycle or two are enough - the ink paths inside the printhead are very short.
I think you should reconsider what you need - format A3 or A4 - pigment and/or dye - a Canon GX5050/6050 could be an alternative for a printer with pigment inks.
If you want to experiment with pigment inks for photo prints you may have a look to printers like the Epson SC-P700 or you start with a dye printer like the HD XP-15000 for which you can get refill cartridges and you swap to pigment inks with those. And be aware that the use of non-standard - not driver supported ink/paper combinations may require color adjustments or icm-color profiles. Or you just stay with the ET-8550 and run it with dye inks.
 

Marco Moreno

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Apologies for the two-month old bump. Total newbie here, I am about to perform this exact maneuver, but am holding off until I can learn from someone else's mistakes ;)

I am curious what specific precautions, if any, would need to be taken if one does choose to go with the 113/T542 pigments in the ET-8550. I have been searching for any experiments done with this specific combination of ink and printer but can only find general advice on using pigment inks in the EcoTank line.

I guess my question is will there be glaring issues upfront- clogging, people coming out with green skin (joke), etc. I understand my warranty would be void but that seems besides the point since OP specifically asked for experiences with T542 OEM pigments in ET-8550. I am very curious about this. I do not intend to use aftermarket pigments.

My motivation for doing this is that I have used dye inks in my craft projects and ink smudging ruins a lot of my prints. I do small scale papercraft- water-based glues and other water-based solutions are present everywhere. I need the robustness of pigment inks, but color accuracy (as in photos) is not quite as important since everything I print is digital drawings/illustrations with limited palettes anyways, so I'm definitely not a gamut-freak nor will I be fiddling with color profiles much, if at all. I just need vibrant, robust pigment inks. I intend to keep the Pigment Black, Photo Black, and Dye Grey that came with my ET-8550.

Will my ET-8550 get explosive diarrhea if I make it chug the T542 inks? I print a lot, so I don't think clogging will be an issue?

Thanks
 

Ink stained Fingers

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Do you need the A3 format ? Are the papers you are (planning to) using otherwise water resistant enough for your plans ? Why would you keep some dye inks ? You don't know how the driver is mixing pigment and dye inks, that depends on the paper selection in the driver, and you cannot control/suppress the use of the gray dye at all.
I have an ET-8550 runing on dye inks, I have other printers to print with pigment inks, so I cannot report any experience for such ink swapping and I'm not aware of such report in the web. I wouldn't exclude 3rd party inks altogether, there are various offerings for inks for the P700 or P900 which run with the same droplet size of 1.5pl as the ET-8550 does.
 
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