Color Profiles of Alternative Inks

[hseeng]

Neil,
I REALLY enjoyed reading your web page on inks, papers, and photo quality inkjet printers. Per your recommendation, I purchased a Canon i960 to replace my H-P 720C, and LOVE it!! Now the dilemma: I now need to refil my OEM cartridges and wish to buy bulk ink. I wanted to use MIS, but the posts I've read here indicate recent viscosity problems with MIS and Colorbat inks, which is putting me off. What looks like an alternative is the Formulab inks.

What iis your opinion on my concerns? Do I really need to be concerned about using recent MIS inks in a Canon cartridge? How do Formulab inks compare? Have you tested these also?

I'm also interested in anyone else's recent experiences in this area.

THANKS!!

Small world when it comes to the WEB.

I did the same thing.
Had a HP 720
Got an i960
Read Neils web site
Ready to order MIS ink.

You wouldn't live near Toronto Canada would ya?
Could save on the shipping costs

Anyone else want to get in and buy one shipment to Toronto Canada ?

Cheers....

 

[RC]

Neil:

You mentioned before that viscosity is not the problem and that the problem is with the cart. To some extent you are right. The old spongeless carts from ColorBat were a disaster, they ran all over the printer.

However, I have used about six or seven different types of carts, including brand new Canon ones, and the problem with banding continues.

I believe that there is a big difference as to weather one uses a CFS system or not.

Another thing going trough my mind is that Canon may have made some changes to the printheads, therefore, older printheads work better with MIS ink.

I am not sure of it but, I think I remember reading somewhere on the net that Canon had made some changes. However I could be wrong on this one.

I would be willing to send you a brand new cart like the one I am using, to see if your printer repeats the problem.

I find this mind bugling that some have problem with it being to thick and some being to thin. Also some have problems with Cyan, some with Magenta etch..

I most have wasted about 100 brand new carts doing experiments, eventually I gave up because the problem was always repeated with the same color CYAN.

I also would like to know what kind of results people have had with FORMULABS inks, I have read from very good to very bad on this ink.

As I have said before, I find the color balance of MIS is great, but the viscosity has been a problem for me.

Neil, thanks in advance.

Robert

 

[Nifty]

Robert,

What I don't understand is why many people can't find more Formulabs ink distributors. Other than alotofthings.com do any other companies profess to use Formulabs' inks? Maybe if you called them they'd tell you some of their reps / distributors?

 

[RC]

To Rob:

Rob these are supposedly the USA distributors of FORMULABS:

Sensient Imaging Technologies - Inkjet Inks California
529 West 4th Ave., Escondido, CA 92025
Toll Free: 800-642-2345 Phone: 760-741-2345
Sales/Tech Support Fax: 760-480-4655
Customer Service Fax: 760-740-1340
General Fax: 760-740-0593

Sensient Industrial Colors - Northeast Sales Office
Holden, MA
Tel: 508-612-7988

I think they only sell wholesale I gallons quantity, by maybe they sell less quantity at one time.

I just dont want to order any more ink, I have so many gallons left from experimenting with different brands.

From what I understand FORMULABS is more popular in Europe.

This is one of the oldest ink manufacturer in the world.

Their web is:
http://www.formulabs.com/

If anyone is interested that is the info.

Robert

 

[RC]

To Rob:

I have ordered a sample from FORMULABS, when I receive it, I will test it and post the results.

Robert

 

[Nifty]

Great, I look forward to your post!

 

[fotofreek]

I follow the comp.periphs.printer newsgroup and saw a post from Weink.com claiming to use Formulabs ink in their CRU items. Also Wiredbeans store on ebay claims to use formulabs inks. I would call before ordering. I don't know if they only sell formulabs refill inks or if they have prefilled carts with formulabs ink in them as well. One of the people who sometimes posts on the that NG, Ron Cohen, has used the alotofthings prefilled carts and then refilled them with Formulabs ink he has purchased from alotofthings. He is very happy with their products. Formulabs did have a problem wiith their vendor in China who filled half of a recent order with OCP ink instead of Formulabs, but Joe told me that the Arrow carts currently on sale from them are all Formulabs inks.

 

[Nifty]

Interesting about wiredbeans and formulabs... do you have a link? I'm looking forward to testing their inks / carts to see if I get the same black bleed problem with alotofthings carts: http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=24 If they are indeed both Formulabs, then I should get the same results. If I get different results then that opens up a can of worms.

 

[fotofreek]

http://www.weink.com/
http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQfgtpZ1QQfrppZ50QQsassZwiredbeans
Nifty - you will have to verify bu phone which of their products (if any) are formulabs. I wonder if you might have gotten Arrow carts mistakenly filled with OCP ink instead of formulabs???

 

[Nifty]

That could explain why I got them as cheap as I did. If so, it would have been nice of Jerry during our few hour long phone conversations to mention that one detail.

BTW, I don't see anything about formulabs on any of the wiredbeans documentation, so maybe I'll shoot them an email.