MIS & ColorBat Cyan problems

[Grandad35]

The article in this link claims that the nozzle heater gets up to 4000 degrees C (7200 degrees F).
http://www.pcanswers.co.uk/tutorials/default.asp?pagetypeid=2&articleid=6899&subsectionid=606

Even temperatures of 150 degress C (300 degrees F) will leave behind any and all impurities in the water, not just calcium and iron. Distilled water is cheap insurance.

If an ink already has a sufficiently low viscosity, reducing it too far can cause the printhead to drip. It is interesting that diluting many of these inks does not seem to make the colors lighter. Run tests with some very small batches, dipping a Q-tip into the ink and then onto a paper towel to remove most of the ink, then paint the blend onto a piece of photo paper to see the effect of the added water.

 

[Darth]

I just came across this post and I too have been having terrible troubles with color on my Canon 950i with MIS inks.

1. I cannot print a black and white photo that is not a cyan color on the greys (oddly enough before adding the 960i color profiles, picking any kind of "photo paper" resulted in the cyan color and "plain paper" resulted in a strong magenta color, even with all profiles deleted and the printer set to "none").

2. I, also get the top left corner of my cyan (B) rectangle missing on the nozzle check, no matter how many cleanings.

3. I have been fighting color profiles through 100's of sheets of photo paper, and dozens of ink refills with horible results.

4. MIS has not been helpful at solving my problem and has not even hinted at this cyan ink thing.

It sounds like this cyan viscosity problem is what I've got, so maybe I'll try the dilution thing.

 

[RC]

I have a feeling that more people are having problems with the MIS & ColorBat Cyan than we may know.

When printing portraits and panorama pictures, the problem is not always visible. The color may not be correct, but one may not notice.

I started noting the problem when the more I printed, the less blue prints were showing. Also, if the printer was off overnight, the first print was always good, but not the following ones.

If it continues at this rate, Canon printer sales will surpass all others, and, for MIS not to correct this problem and to always say that it is the printhead, is very foolish.

When I first called them, they told me that nobody had ever had that problem with their ink, I hope they are not still telling that to everyone that calls.

Also, I keep reading a lot about FORMULAB ink, has anyone used it, what results have you had with it, and does anyone know who sell it at reasonable prices.

Thanks
Robert

 

[BlasterQ]

Alotofthings is said to be using formulab inks on their arrowjet carts and bulk ink sets. Except for some bleeding between black and other colors printed on regular paper, I haven't heard any other problem whatsoever.

 

[osculate]

MIS's feedback to my concern of missing the first few vertical lines in the cyan and to some extent magenta during the first nozzle check was that I probably had a foam problem. I doubt this would be the case since I might have the tanks at rest for several days and still have the problem. Yes, I know "they" say that BCI-6 inks aren't to be used in a BCI-3 ink type printer but since I've used food color in my BJC-6000 before (no long term use though) why not take a chance on BCI-6 ink I decided. A cyan tank that wouldn't work at all in the i9100 but did seem okay in the BJC-6000 until it was shut off for a few hours now works just fine in the BJC-6000 after I diluted the ink by ten percent with "distilled" water even after shut off for several hours. Now, do I try the same diluted ink in the i9100? Hmmm.

 

[Grandad35]

I had previously done a few simple tests diluting a Photo Magenta to try and get a better color match in the grays, and it seemed that diluting it up to 50% didn't affect the color. However, these tests consisted of simply painting some ink on a scrap piece of photo paper with a Q-tip, after dabbing the Q-tip on a paper towel to remove most of the ink.

Like others, I have sometimes had a similar problem with getting proper feeding of the Cyan ink on a Canon i9900 (the first print was usually OK, but following prints looked like a progressively clogging Cyan head) and I decided to dilute the cyan to help this. I first diluted it by 10%, but when put into a small glass and swirled (like brandy) it still seemed to flow down the sides too slowly. I liked how it flowed at a 20% dilution (using distilled water), so that is what I used. When the refilled cart was first installed, I did a cleaning cycle and printed a nozzle check and everything looked good. I then printed (3) 8.5x11 sheets with a heavy color test pattern to further purge the old cyan from the print head, and found that I still had the same "clogging" problem. It was only after some playing around that I found that the vent on the cart was clogged (blowing into the vent did not push any ink out of the exit). This was cleaned with a quick blast of compressed air and the "clogged nozzle" problem went away.

Since the diluted cyan was already in the printer, I printed a color test pattern on 4x6 glossy photo paper to see what the colors looked like - all color management was turned off to get the "natural" performance of the printer/ink/paper combination. The test print showed that the "cyan containing" colors were now way off. A few more 8.5x11 sheets of the same heavy color test pattern were printed and the test repeated (to make sure that the print head was well purged) with exactly the same results. The same cart was then blown out and refilled with the original 100% cyan. The same purge process was repeated and the same test pattern printed on a 4x6 - the colors were now much better. Both test patterns were scanned side by side on the same scan, and the results are shown in "DilutedCyanTest". I also converted the image to CMYK and isolated the cyan channel, shown on "CyanChannel" in grayscale.

You can see that the diluted cyan did not affect the magenta, yellow, or red (which don't use cyan), but that it affected blue, green, cyan and black (all of which contain cyan). Not only did it affect the dark colors, it also affected the lighter colors in strange ways. For example, look at the second bar above the word "cyan". The diluted cyan even messed up the "white to black with cyan overlay" gradient, such that 30% point was lighter than 25% point! This can be seen better in the "CyanChannel" image, where most of the gradients containing cyan were now off. Look at the stronger color cast on the black gradients on the color image. These gradients are supposed to be pure grays, and the grays are usually the first place to show a color cast problem. As the color image shows, the diluted cyan changed a light pink cast in the middle colors to a strong red cast in the darker colors. The remaining color problems with the original cyan will be reasonable easy to correct. The color problems with the diluted cyan are non-linear and so bad that they can't be properly corrected even with a custom ICC profile.

To make a long story short - be very careful when changing the viscosity of inks with either glycerin or water, you may really screw up your colors. The ink supplier has to "get it right" - you will have trouble fixing viscosity problems yourself. This also points out how critical the manufacturing and Q/C are for the ink supplier - if your inks vary batch-to-batch, you will be forever fighting color problems.

http://www.nifty-stuff.com/img/files/DilutedCyanTest.jpg
http://www.nifty-stuff.com/img/files/CyanChannel.jpg

 

[osculate]

Just to confuse the whole issue maybe... As I tried to indicate earlier, my problem with the MIS cyan and to some extent magenta is that the first few vertical lines of the "first" nozzle test pattern is missing but also the upper "left" part of the colored rectangles are not printed.

I've had other tanks where the nozzle check rectangle was just fine at the left but gradually disappeared to the right.

Ink missing at the beginning or missing at the end of the nozzle check rectangle should indicate two different problems? Right?

 

[BlasterQ]

ink is probably too thick. it's having a hard time flowing through the printhead. printing may appear ok at the top because before printing, ink had enough time to flow down, but is not able to catch up once printing starts.
just a theory.

 

[neilslade]

Hmmmmmmmmmmm


Actually the missing first corner lines in the test patterns can happen with ANY brand of ink, this is a very common thing. My educated guess is that its actually related to sponge air--



MIS INK: Been using them for YEARS without ANY problem. Their ink has been excedingly accurate in color and in my use.
Using the inks daily still-- just got some new photo magenta, no problem.

ALthough Colorbat claims to get their ink from MIS suppliers-- I found their MAGENTA inks distinctly different-- too intense-and so I was always skeptical about this claim.


The viscosity issue came up because some people (Colorbat) started EXPERIMENTING and selling ALTERNATIVE DESIGN cartridges. I tried two different designs, both failed.

I NEVER had a Colorbat CFS system for my Canon that worked except for a short time. I gave up on the Colorbat CFS systems, and posted such on my web page. Then when I tried their alternative cartidges (modified sponge and spongeless cartridges) they leaked immediately. Colorbat (bless them for trying) THEN claimed it was INK VISCOSITY-- but I used the SAME INK in a standard cartirdge, and I have NEVER had a problem.

Colorbat for me didn't even realize these alternative carts were failing until I notified them of this fact.

I immediately went back to the STANDARD CART DESIGN, and using MIS ink was NEVER EVER an issue.

>>>>>>In my mind, it was NEVER an issue-- trying to use weird ass designed carts was always THE issue.<<<<<<

I would never hestitate to recommend MIS ink, and I still continue to use it without any problem.

I am NOT a paid endorser of MIS ink in any way shape or form. Nor do I get free ink from them.

I do, in fact, not like the MIS refillable carts. I refill either CANON or INKGRABBER carts or COMPUTER FRIENDS carts using the nice little blue Computer Friends Blue Plugs to seal the ink refill hole.

**************

HOWEVER, things change, so if I get some problems with MIS I'll report immediately.

The big problem with Canon printers (and all printers have their quirks) is that the cart system is one that is not infailable.
Often it is hard to pinpoint the source of a problem-- but I wouldsay that 90% of all problems can be traced to a failing cartridge. If ink is failing delivery to the printhead and paper- try a different cart. Even brand new carts can be faulty from time to time. Further, the print head foam inlet can become clogged, at which point you need to flush it with air or water. Recently a friend had this problem with his yellow on his 960-- new cart didn't fix it, he took it to our local Canon Repair Center, and they simply squirted water (or a cleaning fluid) through the yellow sponge inlet on the print head- voila- everything fixed and perfect printing commenced therafter.

 

[qwiksilver96]

I too am having the problem with ink flow and am wondering if it is a viscosity issue. I have the same symptoms as others here. The first few lines print ok, then I get very prominent banding and then the remainder of the print seems ok except where heavy Photo Cyan is to be used and I get dropouts at those locations. I have the same issue when printing and alignment sheet where the top left corners of the PC blocks don't print and it gets progressively worse further along the line.