Purge unit clogs with Hobbicolors pigment black ink

[ghwellsjr]

1. Inks develop over time so ink X from 2006 may not be ink X 2012 (especially if you don't have supplier, batch, order code info')
2. There can be batches of ink that can have a "bad day"
3. Environmental factors exist (heat, humidity)
4. Additional factors such as time between prints, whether the bottle was shaken (to reduce settling issues) or similar have not been discussed..

Agreed. And I would add another, a user factor. Not everyone uses their printer the same way in terms of light, heavy and intermittent use of the printer. Also how the user refill by which method. Is the cartridges refilled correctly or else.

I also can think of a possibility in terms of ink formulation. Good ink is definitely contains full strength of dyes or pigments. Cheaper and lighter inks contain certainly less to reduce cost. The richer and better ink then naturally has a higher tendency to dry up, to clog or is harder for the purge unit. The ideal user would be one who uses the printer regularly and frequently.

In my experience whenever there is a problem 95% of the time (estimate of course) it is wrong to blame ink. Rather, it has something to do with all the 4 above and what I add here. Ever notice that every time someone came in and reported a clog or something that person was unexperienced every time? Refilling cartridges is not a feature designed for the printer. Not every mom and pop can jump in, start to refill without some training before running into problems.

These are all good reasons to explain why some users have a bad experience while others don't with the same brand of ink. I mentioned some of these plus others in post #21. One more factor: a printer that is working perfectly will continue to print even when the purge system is clogged as long as air doesn't get inside the print head. In fact, when I was first having my problems with these printers, I could take a print head out of a bad printer, put it in a good printer, do some head cleanings and nozzle checks until it was working perfectly, and then put it back in the bad printer and it would work just fine. Furthermore, when the tubing in the purge unit gets clogged (a side effect of the ink absorber pads getting clogged), then you can reset the ink tank full counter as many times as you want with no danger of the ink absorber pads actually ever becoming saturated to the point of ink leaking out of the bottom of your printer.

But my test eliminated all those factors. I used Canon ink from BCI-3eBk cartridges to establish how a good ink would respond and I used the Inktec ink designed for those cartridges for how a bad ink would respond. (I had to postpone the test for a long time because I had used up all of my supply of the Inktec ink and Inktec had taken it off the market. Fortunately, I had sent two 1-liter bottles to my sister in Africa and I had her return one of them to me.)

My test consisted of measuring how well the ink would soak up into several layers of the ink absorber material over a period of many weeks. Clearly, my test easily separated the Inktec ink from the Canon ink, as well as all the other samples that I tested. The only factor that my test didn't eliminate was the possibility that the sample I used from each manufacturer was not representative of ink available from that manufacturer over a long period of time.

My test showed that Inktec's Ink for PGI-5 ink had the same problem but their ink for the even later cartridges was different. I was glad learn which inks to avoid without actually damaging a bunch of printers in the process.

Everyone is free to consider my test in their choice of refill ink or to ignore it. And everyone is free to repeat my test or devise their own test. But no one is free to misrepresent the history of what happened which is the only reason why I started to contribute on this thread. By the way, unlike in some previous threads on this subject, everyone is well-behaved and cordial, in my opinion.

 

[Harvey]

All I can add to this thread is Hobbicolors clogged my purge system, and the new ink is far away from the UW-8 colors, some rich tones are missing, and as a previous poster stated it was a day and night difference.

Now I only use OCP for my pigment ink and zero problems, never had a problem with dye ink until the dye inks Dave sells have a different formulation, I too agree with ghwellsjr ink with this supplier is a moving target.

For me Tin Ho and Dave are the same their conversations just make me laugh until death and Tin Ho comments are always biased.