Epson ET-7700 inks

[Ink stained Fingers]

a German computer magazine c't recently published a test of some home office printers including the Epson ET-7700 and the new XP-8500. The ET-7700 comes with an Epson CISS and Epson bottled 106 type inks. The XP-8500 is using an Epson Claria HD ink set, 5 colors including a pigmented black for normal paper.
c't is doing a fading test of the inks in use, with an abbreviated daylight test, under a strong Xeon lamp and all UV emissions filtered to resemble an indoor environment behind windows. The target temp is controlled to 20 deg C but no provisions are taken for ozone in the air flow over the target. The exposure time is 100hrs, and color deviations are then measured on several color patches. This test is showing that the Epson inks are better than the Brother and HP inks, and that the ET-7700 dye inks perform slightly better than the Claria inks of the XP-8500. Epson recommended Claria cartridge prices - e.g. cyan are at 11,49€ for 4.1ml or 2800€/litre, market prices are typically 20-30% lower. The ET-7700 bottled ink sells at a distributor price of 10,01€ for 70ml or 145€/l which makes a huge difference. The ET-7700 inks are not called Claria inks , and it is not clear whether they are the same as for the L8xx photo printers but just in a different bottle for an easier handling of the refill process. I'm going to do some testing with these inks in the next time to see how they perform against the Fujifilm DL inks, those genuine Claria inks are just not affordable for me.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I'm running another fading test, this test with the ET-7700 inks, Epson 106, against the Fujifilm DL inks on a castcoated budget Labelheaven 230gr paper which lets dye inks fade faster than the RC/PE type papers - Sihl , Tecco etc.
There are no changes yet after one week, not visible and not measurable with the DL and 106 inks , a few other inks - Inkowl - Solution CL - and a Chinese ink - show the first small changes in the measurements. As discussed already in the thread about the swellable papers the test conditions are now different than during spring/summertime - much less UV vs. ozone in this situation.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

The test with the ET-7700 photo inks passed another week, changes overall are pretty small , the Fujifilm DL and the Epson 106 inks are fading with the slowest speed and very close so far, it's too early yet to say that the Epson ink is better; the other inks in this test are shifting away and are not of the same class as the DL and Epson 106 inks. I need to do another test with more sun with this ink set, the Epson inks are performing quite promising so far, it appears that the DL inks are becoming a competitor.

 

[John R]

The Epson 106 and Epson 512 are the same, but from different regions of the world?

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I'm not aware of Epson 512 bottled ink - which region and which printer are you referring to ?
Epson is regionalizing cartridges for newer printers and even firmware - e.g. P800 - to make use of 3rd party inks/refill cartridges more difficult - one time chips - serialization of cartridges and other software tricks

 

[John R]

I made the ink model numbers link to the US page below:

In the US - T512 is for the ET-7700. Marketing says these are 1.5pL sized print heads. The T502 is for the ET-3750 (current model Workforce) which is 3 - 3.3pL sized print heads. The T664 & T774 are for the ET-16500 (previous model Workforce) which is 2.8 - 3.0pL. Lastly, the R12X and R14X are the only ones that advertise Durabrite Ultra which is for the WF-R5690 and a 2.8pL head. There are larger ink bags, like the T974 but since the print head droplet size is 3.7pL, I'm assuming the ink is far too viscous to be used in a home office workforce printer.

Epson only lists page yields consistently, so for comparison it looks like the T974's are 1/2 the price of R12X, which is 1/2 the price of a 788XL, which is 1/2 the price of a T252XL. Back-calculating from the bottles (which list mL amounts on the ET-16500 page): A T774 black is 140mL, T664 CMY is 70mL. (ET-4750 webpage) T502 black is 127mL and T502 CMY is 70mL. (ET-7700 webpage) T512K is 140mL, CMY is 70mL. Comparing the page on the two printers, they do not yield the same output for black: the ET-16500 has a larger bottle yet yields 1500 pages fewer than the ET-4750 (which isn't explained by the ET-4750's 18% bigger minimum drop size). To frustrate things further, Epson lists the ET-7700's black yields at 500 pages higher than the ET-4750 (makes sense, smaller drop size), but color yields 1500 lower than the ET-16500 for the same ink bottle size.

...and as I was researching the marketing information, the page on the WF-4740 uses a 3.8pL printhead (probably not right, the WF-4730 uses a 2.8pL) that is the same speed as Epson's enterprise printer that uses the T974.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

you did quite some information retrieval, but there are limits what Epson lets you know. I don't really care for their page yield numbers, I just refill as necessary. It could be that Epson prints something different on a photo printer than on a general purpose printer - photos vs. business graphics - I don't know. The min droplet size is not so much an ink issue, Epson nozzles can emit a range of different droplet sizes, Canon would need several nozzle rows for that, and Epson may use different dithering patterns on diferent printers. Epson does not tell their users which inks are equal in different bottles as you are listing them unless its Durabrite inks in cartridges or Claria inks.
My starting point was a test report that the ET7700 inks are performing slightly better in a fading test than Claria inks, and that's what I'm currently testing (within limits at this time) , the ET7700/7750 are coming with 2 sets of ink bottles which is quite a lot overall.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

another two weeks have passed for the fading test of the ET7700/106 bottled Epson 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

Fujifilm DL__C_________0__________0
_____________M_________0__________0
_____________Y_________2__________2
_____________K_________3__________6

____________Sum________5__________8


InkOwl_______C_________8_________20
_____________M_________5_________18
_____________Y_________3__________6
(dye black not available)
____________Sum________8_________44



Epson 106____C_________0__________0
_____________M_________0__________0
_____________Y_________0__________0
_____________K_________0__________5

____________Sum________2__________5

The Fujifilm and Epson 106 inks perform very well and quite similar up to this time , this
would make a very good Epson dye ink available in 70ml bottles for refill at a decent price and with no supply/availability problems around the world.
I had a patch sheet available from last year's tests with the InkOwl dye inks for Epson printers, as they call that ink set 'fade resistant'.....at a price not much lower than the Epson inks.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I can update the above table with some results after 6 weeks

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

Epson 106___C________0____________0_______0
(ET7700)____M________0____________0_______0
____________Y________0____________0_______1
____________K________2____________5_______6

Sum__________________2____________5_______7


Fujifilm____C________0____________0_______0
DL__________M________0____________0_______0
____________Y________2____________2_______2
____________K________3____________6_______8

Sum__________________5____________8______10


Inkowl______C________8___________20______27
____________M________5___________18______25
____________Y________3____________6_______7
(pigment black)______1____________1_______2

Sum_________________17___________45______61


The Epson 106 ink set from the ET-7700 performs at least as good as the Fujifilm DL inks,
that's a real good ink, about the best on the market, at an affordable price for a practical
volume of 70ml, enough for those who don't need higher volume inks by 300 or 500 or 700ml Fujifilm cartridges.
(And the InkOwl ink - claimed as UV resistant - just cannot compete at all with these inks)

 

[te36]

If i remember (can't find thread now), your test of the original epson inks for Epson 800 series (T673) showed them to fade faster, right ?

So let's say i would rather like to get an L1800 instead of the ET-7750, price, A3+. I could to use the new 106 series ink, but that is missing LC and LM. You also mentioned in some other thread i think that one could simply mix down e.g.: 1/3 C/M + 2/3 H2O = LC/LM ? Or was it something else than H2O ?

Thanks!