How bad is using pigment ink in Canon dye printers?

[costadinos]

I recently got an offer for some Canon printers at a very low price, and I am considering getting them to use with refillable cartridges or CISS.

The thing is, I only currently have pigment ink in stock, and would also prefer to only use pigment inks (for fade and water resistance considerations).

So, has anybody actually tried to use pigment ink in such printers and see what happens? Is doing that going to destroy the printhead? I know that Epsons can deal with both pigment and dye inks with no problem, but I'm not sure about the Canons with their thermal heads.

 

[The Hat]

Canon printers are a complete different animal to Epson printers so what works in one does not mean it will work in the other.

You can give pigment inks a try in your Canon printer but you will fail miserably and end up having to start all over again, they just won’t work favourability or consistently.

The same goes for CISS units they too will work, mind you far better than pigment inks will but again because they need constant care and maintenance it too will fail in the end too and you’ll wonder why you ever fitted one in the first place.

I am curious about you stock of pigment inks because while you can run an Epson on Canon ink but you can’t run a Canon on Epson inks, it will end in tears also, I reckon you should stick to what you now best..

 

[costadinos]

Canon printers are a complete different animal to Epson printers so what works in one does not mean it will work in the other.

You can give pigment inks a try in your Canon printer but you will fail miserably and end up having to start all over again, they just won’t work favourability or consistently.

The same goes for CISS units they too will work, mind you far better than pigment inks will but again because they need constant care and maintenance it too will fail in the end too and you’ll wonder why you ever fitted one in the first place.

I am curious about you stock of pigment inks because while you can run an Epson on Canon ink but you can’t run a Canon on Epson inks, it will end in tears also, I reckon you should stick to what you now best..

Thanks for the info. I'll be using Epson pigment inks, but I suppose since the printer wasn't designed for use with pigment inks at the first place, using inks for another manufacturer shouldn't be the main reason for concern. As far as I know they (canon and epson) are both water based with similar minimum droplet sizes (hence, probably, similar particle sizes).

But, just out of curiosity, before ruining a printer while trying to find out, what's going to happen if I do this, is the printhead going to clog irreversibly? Or die in a very short time due to burned nozzles?

 

[Tudor]

Inks for Epson (OEM or 3rd party) are not made to be boiled. You can (and probably will) ruin a Canon printhead if you use Epson dye ink in it. If you use Epson pigment ink in a Canon dye printhead...

 

[The Hat]

If you use OEM or 3rd party Canon pigment ink then the print head will eventually clog up if you leave it stand for a short while and you will be forced to un-block it manually, but if you don’t spot it in time then the head will be damaged beyond repair.

Don't use any Epson inks full stop..

 

[Paul Verizzo]

To say nothing of color profiles.........