Epson ET-7700 inks

[Ink stained Fingers]

I tested the L800 inks a while ago, they performed better than L300 inks but not as good as the Fujifilm DL inks at that time which are a kind of reference for me. but I did not compare the L800 and ET7700 inks directly. The ET7700 was tested together with a XP-860 which uses Claria inks in cartridges, the fading test of the c't magazine showed that the Epson 106/ET-7700 inks performed slightly better, there may be reasons other than the ink itself explaining differences in results e.g. different ink densities by the drivers in different printers. But regardless of such differences those inks perform quite equal in this test. I'm testing against the Fujifilm DL inks, in an environment w/o sun at this time, so ozone is playing the major role of the fading agent, and not UV as in other tests during summer time. Epson may actually use the Claria inks for the ET-7700 but doesn't tell their customers for marketing reasons - I don't know.
I'm not using water to dilute the M and C inks but a soft cleaner by a German ink shop -
https://www.octopus-office.de/shop/...n-for-the-inside-of-printer-cartridges?c=1295
which works fine, it is probably the solvent base for inks - without dyes, I have seen similar offers by a few other ink suppliers.
A 'clear ink' like this one may work as well
https://www.farbenwerk.com/navi.php?a=1346&lang=eng

 

[kcgoatboy]

I'm not using water to dilute the M and C inks but a soft cleaner by a German ink shop -
https://www.octopus-office.de/shop/...n-for-the-inside-of-printer-cartridges?c=1295
which works fine, it is probably the solvent base for inks - without dyes, I have seen similar offers by a few other ink suppliers.
A 'clear ink' like this one may work as well
https://www.farbenwerk.com/navi.php?a=1346&lang=eng

Are you diluting to create your own LC and LM inks? If so what's the dilution ratio? I have an xp-950 and am looking for a better (cheaper than oem) solution compared to inkowl inks and was looking into Fujifilm DL inks you talked about in other threads. But getting an oem ink from Epson does sound appealing but would need to figure out a solution for LC and LM. I have a colormunki design that I can create my own profiles but don't know if that sufficient for a guess at a dilution.

If Fujifilm DL ink are the way to go, what part numbers would be for the 6 ink colors that is a closest match to the Epson colors? I'm on ebay looking and there's a lot of different part numbers and I don't know if they're all different or if it's just the volume and printer they are used in that is different.

I feel stupid asking but what do the numbers in your test charts mean? I gather low the number better fade performance.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

- I'm diluting with 1 part of ink and 2 parts of solvent, I'm doing my own profiles so if that's not exactly matching the Epson ratio it'll be compensated.
- The Fujifilm DL inks are performing very well, much better than any other 3rd party refill inks, I'm looking for the ink for the Fujifilm DX100 printer and dilute C and M to LC/LM.
I'm running a test currently with the Epson 106/ET-7700 inks and will have an update in a few days, with an 8 week exposure period.
Please refer to a particular test and its numbers for explanation, the fading process let colors loose color saturation and they are getting lighter as well, they are not just fading from a saturated color to a gray with a similar lightness.
I'm just measuring the lightness changes - e.g. how the black gets lighter and gray or brown, I'm scanning the patches together with prints I keep in the dark and measure the relative changes between them, I use a scanner , crop to the individual color patches and read the lightness/luminance via a histogram function of PaintShop Pro

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Let me update on the fading test with the Epson 106/ET-7700 inks


Fading test of some dye inks - ET7700/106 inks vs. others
(Luminance changes per histogram in the range 0___255)

________________after 2 weeks___4 weeks__6 weeks__8 weeks

Epson 106___C________0____________0_______0_______0
(ET7700)____M________0____________0_______0_______0
____________Y________0____________0_______1_______0
____________K________2____________5_______6_______8

Sum__________________2____________5_______7_______8


Fujifilm____C________0____________0_______0_______0
DL__________M________0____________0_______0_______0
____________Y________2____________2_______2_______2
____________K________3____________6_______8_______9

Sum__________________5____________8______10______11


Inkowl______C________8___________20______27______35
____________M________5___________18______25______33
____________Y________3____________6_______7______10
(pigment black)______1____________1_______2_______2

Sum_________________17___________45______61______80


These Epson 106/ET-7700 dye inks perform very well- even slightly better than the
Fujifilm ink, This is currently an outdoor test with a pretty low sun/UV level, so most
of the fading is likely caused by ozone at this time. I'll redo a test later next year to
compare the inks under more UV exposure but so far the results are very promising.
This is the best option for a Epson refill ink so far, with an acceptable pricing and
good availability. All these tests are not able to separate the influence of ozone and
UV radiation onto the fading process, and probably other factors like humidity acting
as a catalyzer speeding up/slowing down the fading process.
I'm reading with disappointment that Aardenburg has cancelled a project to specically
do ozone related tests, and I'm surprised about the complete lack of interest by the
printing user community for such tests.

http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com/portfolio/gas-fade-testing-unit/

Gas Fade Testing Unit
(Cancelled 11-2017 due to lack of funding)

Wilhelm Research did some of that as well, but it is quite cumbersome to get their
reports together to compare data and to understand which tests have been done in the
first place - by printer model - by ink - or paper

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I had a look to the ET7700/Epson 106 inks and their gamut, I downloaded and installed the ET-7700 driver which installs several color profiles for the various Epson papers you can select via the driver.
I'm comparing the gamut of the Epson Ultra glossy paper with the gamut of the Sihl/Aldi glossy paper with the Fujifilm DL inks printing on a L800 - these gamuts are virtually identical - the overall gamut volumes differ by 1.5% , that's neglectible. I created icm-profiles as well on a WF-2010W for both the DL ink and the Epson 106 ink on the Sihl paper - they differ just by 2% - that's not visible at all and I won't show you diagrams which almost completely overlap in this case.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I have added a gamut comparison between the ET-7700 ink tank printer and the new Epson A3+ photo printer XP-15000 with a red ink ( cartidges only) here
https://www.printerknowledge.com/th...idate-for-refillable.12076/page-2#post-104949

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I'm updating the above table with the fading data after another 2 weeks - 10 weeks in total now

Fading test of some dye inks - ET7700/106 inks vs. others
(Luminance changes per histogram in the range 0___255)

________________after 2 weeks___4 weeks__6 weeks__8 weeks__10 weeks

Epson 106___C________0____________0_______0_______0__________0
(ET7700)____M________0____________0_______0_______0__________0
____________Y________0____________0_______1_______0__________2
____________K________2____________5_______6_______8_________10

Sum__________________2____________5_______7_______8_________12


Fujifilm____C________0____________0_______0_______0__________2
DL__________M________0____________0_______0_______0__________0
____________Y________2____________2_______2_______2__________3
____________K________3____________6_______8_______9_________12

Sum__________________5____________8______10______11_________17


Inkowl______C________8___________20______27______35_________43
____________M________5___________18______25______33_________42
____________Y________3____________6_______7______10_________12
(pigment black)______1____________1_______2_______2__________2

Sum_________________17___________45______61______80_________99

The trend solidifies that the Epson ET-7700/106 dye inks perform as good/slightly better than the
Fujifilm DL inks which gives Epson refill users easy and affordable access to a very good dye ink, it performs much better than other inks claiming 'UV resistance/stability/permanence' whatever.
I have a few more inks running in this test not listed above in the table but one showing in this scan

Both black patches were printed at the same time , the left one is with the Epson 106 ink, the right patch with a Solution CL (~Claria.?) dye ink by Falter in Poland, a replacement ink for an inkset by Vermontink they distributed earlier last year and then discontinued. The black has turned into a dirty brown/yellow in these 10 weeks, the Epson ink has remained dark , under the same conditions. The Epson L300 dye ink would not perform better.

I'm closing this test now, the results are obvious.

 

[kcgoatboy]

I'm not using water to dilute the M and C inks but a soft cleaner by a German ink shop -
https://www.octopus-office.de/shop/...n-for-the-inside-of-printer-cartridges?c=1295
which works fine, it is probably the solvent base for inks - without dyes, I have seen similar offers by a few other ink suppliers.
A 'clear ink' like this one may work as well
https://www.farbenwerk.com/navi.php?a=1346&lang=eng

Do you know of any US suppliers of a similar product? I can order the first one you suggested off of the UK amazon site and have it shipped to the states but it'll be $40USD dollars for shipping.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

40$ for shipping appears to be quite high, I'm not so familiar with the product offerings of US market suppliers, there is this offer which seems to match what you would need
https://www.inksupply.com/product-details/pn/PR-CLEARBASE-PT.html
I could assume that a few other suppliers have something similar, you may just inquire them by e-mail.
Or you contact the German suppliers directly and ask them about the shipping cost to U.S.
This may do as well, it does not specifically state that the liquid contains potentially aggressive cleaning agents/additives
https://www.inkowl.com/inkjet/ink-refill-tools/epson/120ml-printhead-cleaning-kit-for-epson/P6218/
available as well in a 1 liter bottle
https://www.inkowl.com/wide-format/...ge-fluid-for-epson-stylus-pro-printers/P5581/

 

[dimirass]

Another excellent test by Epson printer guru. As a recent owner of an L850 I would like to ask you the following:
-Is it possible to use the Epson 106 inks instead of the original 673 and will I see a difference in fading?
-Could you suggest me settings to print b+w photos
thanks a lot