Efficiency of 4 color vs. 6 color printers

[Grandad35]

I have been keeping detailed records of my ink usage by color, and I am currently using about 3 PM carts for each magenta cart, and also about 3 PC carts for each cyan cart.

I diluted Formulabs magenta and cyan to approximately 50%, 25% and 12.5%, then used a cotton swab to color a swatch of photo paper with each diluted color. The colors of these swatches were then compared to 100% Formulabs PM and PC colored in the same manner. I had anticipated that the 50% dilutions would match the "photo" colors, but they were still too bright - the 25% diluted samples were a close match. I repeated the test with ink from Canon carts and got exactly the same results.

Using a conservative dilution factor of 33% to get a color match, this works out to a single cart of magenta/cyan being equal to 3 carts of PM/PC. Given the 3:1 usage ratio, 3PM+1M have about the same "coloring power" as 2 carts of magenta. After the yellow and black usage are included in the calculations, a 4 color printer should only use about 2/3 as much ink as a 6 color printer.

Does anyone have direct experience with the relative ink usage on 4 and 6 color printers using the same carts and printing the same types of colored images?

Just in case anyone wants to make their own PM and PC by adding water to dilute their M and C - don't. Diluting with water will put the surface tension and viscosity (and just about everything else) out of range. It might work if you could buy the ink base without any color to dilute the M/C, but the ink base would probably cost at least as much as the PM/PC.

 

[Kenyada]

Great work, Grandad. I'm wondering if anyone has ever asked the ink manufacturers about The Mix for PM and PC. I'm hoping that there's a big bottle of "Photo" somewhere that can be mixed with Cyan or Magenta. That would certainly make things simpler

 

[drc023]

This is somethings I've also wondered about. One of the reasons I prefer my iP4000 over either the s820 or i950 models which I also have is the fact that it doesn't use either PC or PM ink. I never got prints from either of my 6 color printers that were as good as what I get with my iP4000. They always seemed to have too much of a reddish tint. I often wondered if diluting the PM would help with that problem.

 

[Grandad35]

I once played with diluting PM about 10% to adjust the color, and didn't have much luck. If you want to try it, don't use water to dilute more than 10%.

 

[panos]

What did you use to dilute?

 

[Grandad35]

Panos,

I just used distilled water to dilute the ink, since most ink is already about 90% water. I have some cleaning solution which comes from Germany and which the supplier says is an ink base. I would be afraid to use it to dilute inks, however, since it has a strong odor which doesn't smell like any of my inks.

 

[stavstav]

use distilled water. i would not use that cleaning solution
i dilute my color inks about 2% and it seems to help the ink flow after refilling a bit
i agree with grandad dont go over 10%
it will be more drippy if you overfill... so dont overfill
i have diluted my inks up to 70% water and believe it or not it still works. of course its a tradeoff at 70% dilution the colors are very faint.

of course your sharpness will not be good either because one you have no contrast and 2 the water wont absorb into the paper and it leaves a stringy trail on letters. too much surface tension i believe

obviously the ink will evaporate alot faster as well

well if you want consistently good printing results i would not overdilute but its interesting topic