Which ink is better for epson ET-18100 ?

[j0k3r]

Hi everyone...i just bought my first ecotank printer the et18100 and i have some questions first of i'm curious which inks are better the 106 107 or 108? Have anyone try them? Thank you...

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Why are you looking for a 'better' ink for the ET18100 - specifically which property is of concern ? The ET18100 is a very good printer and the inks as well. I would not exchange inks between these printers ET-7750 or ET-8500 or ET-18100.

 

[j0k3r]

Thank you for your reply...I'm just curious because the printer as i understood have an other version with the name L-18050 that includes the USB wire and different ink sets named 108 instead of 107 that the Et-18100 use...also as I read the 106 inks are a bit more archival... I just want the best results possible in my prints so I'm really interested to hear an opinion from professionals..

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Product numbers for Epson products vary by business region , for printers and inks etc, the same ink as well may have different numbers, the bottle heads may even be coded differently - and the bottles having a different price - this to reduce cross border business e.g. Western vs. Eastern Europe - or North and Middle America. I would go by the price in this case for the inks for the premium printers.

 

[pigmentinoil]

Why are you looking for a 'better' ink for the ET18100 - specifically which property is of concern ? The ET18100 is a very good printer and the inks as well. I would not exchange inks between these printers ET-7750 or ET-8500 or ET-18100.

Hi, new here, thought it better to post in existing thread on this subject as it has been discussed a few times. I run an ET-7750, bought circa 2020. Questions about inks for this machine: It seems your recommendation is to run the OEM Epson 106&105 inks, Is that correct?

If you were going to upgrade the inks for the ET-7750 what would you use? A pigment ink? The desired specs would be longevity mostly on high quality semi-gloss papers (I noticed a print of mine with some fading recently)

You have mentioned several posts about converting this printer to pigment inks. In your experience, would it in anyway improve longevity and/or colour density or richness by using pigment inks?

I have been in touch with Farbenwork about running their Pigmera ETX inks on an ET-7750, and was advised that for 'neutral' black & white prints you need more than three colour channels (i.e. an ET-18100), and printing black and white on gloss you may struggle with 'bronzing'. I print both colour and b&w.

I have seen multiple posts of your fade tests of the 106 and it seems to be a very reliable ink.

If you were to upgrade the inks would you? What would you use?

Sincere thanks for your help.

 

[pigmentinoil]

I see in this thread:

https://www.printerknowledge.com/threads/epson-bottled-ecotank-pigment-inks.13716/page-2#post-138603

post #13, you, in short, recommend to stay with the 106 unless there is a specific reason to swap out for pigment over dye based inks. His question was specifically about using Epson 113 pigment inks on an ET-7750.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I would not make much of a difference between the 106 and the 114 dye inks, pricing between the inks may vary - over time - and by country . I see several offers of alternative pigment inks for the ET-8550 and similar . Be aware that performance like lightfastness or gloss/bronzing etc is not just a property of the ink but depends very much on the combination of ink and the paper. This is very well presented in the Wilhelm research test report which shows dye inks better than pigment inks - in the published ink/paper combinations, and another paper in the test would give you pretty different results.

https://www.printerknowledge.com/threads/do-pigment-inks-fade-slower-than-dye-inks.15466/

This just shows that general statements like 'pigment inks fade slower than dye inks' don't help you - you would be able to find other tests which would support that assumption - or not. . It's getting even more difficult to judge when you start using 3rd party papers and inks. The same applies to the effects of bronzing and gloss differentials you can get with pigment inks on glossy papers.

I converted several printers from dye to pigment inks - this was working without much hazzle - I had more problems to go back from pigment to dye inks - it didn't work on a L1800 and a L805 - missing nozzles appear even after lots of cleaning and flushing - and 2 nozzles come and go on a random level - even after prints of 5000 or 10 000 sheets of paper with dye inks. So it is your risk to switch inks . I don't have a problem to switch inks on a cartridge based WF-2010W which I used and use to test a wide range of inks - dye and pigment - for the tests of which I have posted the results here over time.
So I only can tell you that easy answers are not possible, and I won't address differences in gamut and black level of dye vs. pigment inks.