My OCP K3 inks have finally arrived.

[pharmacist]

Hi Tin Ho,

The cartridge is OK: I have been using IRK4-nano in this very cartridge before. The OCP ink actually flows much better than the IRK4-nano, so this is not the issue, but the very initial colour itself (have done swab tests and magenta is dissapointing in hue......actually to my eyes it is dark red, not magenta).

 

[Tin Ho]

Pharmacist, you certainly are able to identify and pin point what the problem is. The swab test sure will get to the bottom of the issue. Please let us know what you hear from OCP.

 

[pharmacist]

Hi Tin Ho,

I have done tests and the magenta is really not pure, but more a saturated orangy red, causing a dramatic drop in gamut in the blues/magenta/purples. All printer profiles I made for several papers have that strange indentation in the area between cyan and red (difficulty to reproduce saturated blues/purples). After having this weak magenta substituted by a another magenta (Octopus Office own brand T0343 magenta for the Epson R2100/R2200: a printer of the K2 generation, only lacking the LLB) the problem was gone. This ink is equally priced as the OCP magenta.

So I am now using a combination of OCP K3: PK, LB, LLB, C, LM, LC and Y and from Octopus Office Magenta.

Have a look at this picture:

Note the strange indentation in the purple/blue area of the solid figure (OCP K3 only) compared to the wired one (OCP K3 + Octopus Office Magenta).

 

[jtoolman]

Do you think I could replace the Magenta with Image Specialists M from Precision Colors of from Inkjetcarts.us since I am in the USA it would be a lot more convenient.

I can not test on the 3800s yet as I have a ton of ink left in them. But I can run a test on my R2400 whicih is runing on OEM carts. I will test on a set of refillables and run parallel test prints on both OEM and the OCP and then OCP + IS MAGENTA. Using my Colormunki Photo to create a few profiles.

 

[pharmacist]

Hi jtoolman,

Yes you can. For the Epson Pro 3800: to purge the magenta ink line you can print 7 sheets of A4/Letter with a solid rectangular with solid magenta (R:255, G: 0, B:255) without any color management, so the printer will put pure magenta on your paper. This way You do not have the clean the printhead 5 times to have the lines filled with the new ink, if you only want to swap out the magenta.

For a fresh setup with a new ink set you will need to execute a cleaning cycle 5x to completely purge the lines and have the printhead primed with the new ink.

Did you read my other post at this link:

http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=7643

Please take care to see of the purples and blues are vivid and really purple (and not a reddish brown and not muted, including the blues), because you have a Colormunki too and will be able to see it immediately after printing the first patch chart.

P.S.: Did you already manage to print the charts on only a 1/4 of a sheet of A4 like I do to save paper ?

 

[jtoolman]

Thanks The Pharmacist.
I will likely order Magenta for a replacement this week and just begin with the IS magenta.
I will be testing the OCP with the IS M on the R2400 first, creating a couple of profiles with the CM using your single sheet method which by the way works great. Pure genious!!!

The situation is I have two 3800s on running on OEM at about 70% total inks. The second one is on refillables I am testing from a well known company ( he is not selling them officially just yet so I should remain silent till then ) using IS K3 inks. These are working great.
I also have empty 3800 carts from Inkjetfly plus a special ARC for the Maintenace tank so it can be reused, though at only $20 a pop per tank here in the US, it's not that much of an issue.

When I run out of one OEM cart I will swop the set with the Inkjetfly carts and OCP/IS M set up.

Thanks for your thorough testing DATA!

 

[Tin Ho]

Great post, Pharmacist. This proves that high quality pigment color inks are not trivial to produce. I have been on a quest of searching for a K3 ink set for a R2880 for a photography project. I am not in a hurry. I am so glad that I get to learn your experience before making the decision. Thanks a lot.

 

[Tin Ho]

I finally got K3 inks from Hobbicolors. I also purchased a set of 9 refillable cartridges from ebay for the R2880. I will soon find out if I am on a right course toward buying 9 liters of K3 ink.

 

[Tin Ho]

It has been a while and I thought I should follow up with some report back in here. So far I have been completely satisfied with the cheap refillable cartridges from ebay and the K3 ink set acquired through Hobbicolors. The only complaint I have is the slow printing speed of Epson R2880. The ink from Hobbicolors has worked exceptionally well. The R2880 is shared by almost 100 people. I don't get to watch how the printer is used all the time. So far there is no clogging issue reported by any one. The ink quality seems to be exceptionally well too. No one ever complained any color issues.

By the way Hobbicolors seems not retailing the K3 ink as they do for their Canon inks. I had to contact them to place my order to get the ink.