Question about Refillables for T007/T009 and T048 series

[Clinton]

Hello Folks!
I've recently started looking around at alternative options to OEM inks in my printers as a cost-saving measure, and have made the happy discovery that not only can I find decent inks, I can run pigments in my printers! (1280, R220, and R300)

I'm not ready to jump to CISS yet, and so for starters, I bit the bullet on the MIS starter kit from inksupply.com for my 1280, containing a set of their pigment ink in 2oz bottles, refillable carts, and sundry odds and ends to refill them with.

I'm looking at cartridges for my other printers, and am finding a whole variety of things out there. There are a number of different designs that I've found, and I'm a bit overwhealmed as to which I should choose. My luck I'd end up with the worst type and spring leaks all over my printer.

Is there a design/seller/link that work better than others?

(Apparently my first post can't have links in it, so therefore I'll post the links that were here in a followup)

I've seen sponged and spongeless bandied about, among other things, and I'm just curious what other folk have had luck with, or bad luck with.

Next up is another set of T007/T009 refillables. My goal is to have a spare set to keep handy and charged so I can just swap out and keep printing, and refill the spares at my leisure, so I'm still in the market. I don't do enough printing yet to worry about fiddling with a CISS for the moment. I figure I can deal with refilling purposely-designed refillable cartridges until my volume gets high enough.

Thanks in advance, folks!

-C

 

[crenedecotret]

I also have a 1280. It doesn't see as much use, mainly used to print from Autocad to larger paper so for this one I opted for compatible cartridges. Inksupply.com is a good choice. Their ink is good quality, but a bit costly. An alternative would be buying ink from Precision Colors. Mikling will probably chime in on this, but I think they use the same supplier (Image Specialists), and Precision Colors is less expensive

I'm a bit surprised their kit includes pigment ink, as i'm pretty sure the 1280 uses dye ink. Pigment will be more prone to clogging, so make so you print at least a full color page or two a week.

Why not simply get another set of carts from inksupply? The carts are pretty much identical to everything else you'll find, except that others seem to use auto-reset chips and MIS suggests a resetter. Since you want to alternate between two sets, carts with a resetter would probably work out just fine for you.

Precision Colors can set you up for your R220 and R300. The owner is a member here

 

[Clinton]

I'm a bit surprised their kit includes pigment ink, as i'm pretty sure the 1280 uses dye ink. Pigment will be more prone to clogging, so make so you print at least a full color page or two a week.

I'm going to be doing fine art prints, and longevity and quality is important for me. Some research told me that the 1280 can handle pigment inks with minimal problems, so long as proper precautions are taken in order to avoid clogging, about the same as any pigment printer, from what I've read. MIS has profiles for the 1280 and their pigment ink, and had the option to request it in their kit, so I went with it. It's not yet arrived yet, so I can't comment on it otherwise.

Why not simply get another set of carts from inksupply? The carts are pretty much identical to everything else you'll find, except that others seem to use auto-reset chips and MIS suggests a resetter. Since you want to alternate between two sets, carts with a resetter would probably work out just fine for you.

reading back over my post, it seemed I butchered it a bit more than I should've when I had to remove URLs from it to satisfy the anti-spam requirements (understandable, and I'm not complaining about it!) -- when I said "next up" I meant after I outfit the R220 and R300 with at least one set of cartridges! Accursed english!

I was looking at InkSupply's refillable carts, and they made me a bit leery. They're a bit spendy for me to want to blindly go forward on, and their instructions allude to them being a sponge design, which I'm not sure is a good thing. There are so many choices out there for different designs of T048 refillables, I'm just not sure what to look at, and there's precious little information out there to set me on my way.

Some background about what I'm doing -- I have some artist friends who have been making and selling prints either on colour laser printers, cheap dye inkjets on terrible paper, or colour copiers at copy shops. They're not happy about the quality, and I cringe when I see it. I know a bit about printing and calibration and whatnot, so I decided I'd see if I can do a better job for them. So far my tests have proven fruitful, and I'm gearing up for some light print production. I'm trying to give the best quality I can, without breaking the bank, and since there seem to be a lot of really good third party consumables out there, I figured I'd take the plunge.

I still have a lot to learn, and I'm certainly glad I discovered this forum!

-C

 

[The Hat]

Did you not consider a Canon printer at all because they can give you
that ease of use and the freedom you require to print and refill when you want?

Are they out of your price range?

 

[Clinton]

Did you not consider a Canon printer at all because they can give you
that ease of use and the freedom you require to print and refill when you want?

Are they out of your price range?

I've been using Epson printers since they were beige, and I've come to know, appreciate, and sometimes love their quirks. I'm not as current as I used to be with the inkjet world (last time I did any "real" printing, the R800/1800 were spankin' new) but back when I was a bit more in to things, I recall that Canon had thermal (i.e. a teeny heating element in every nozzle to boil part of the ink and send it shooting at the paper) print heads, which would clog with pigment inks, and would do oddball things to dye sub transfer inks. I remember that until I get into the high end and dump a chest of doubloons on a canon printer, I'd be stuck with dye inks, with pigment inks being an inadvisable swap. Please correct me if I'm wrong, my information is far outdated!

Right now, my volume isn't nearly large enough to justify a large outlay on new equipment, since the equipment I have produces excellent results (even in spite of it's advanced age!) -- It might sound like I'm "married" to a brand, but I'm not. I'm always willing to consider options, so long as I can maintain consistant high quality output, or improve on what I have. I stick with Epson for now, because it's better the devil I know than the devil I don't. My years of learning colourful and creative new combinations of swear words while restoring what seemed to be terminally blocked Epson printheads back to health has made me comfortable with the brand, but I'm no means blind to improvements. If there's something better on the market, then I'll by all means look in to it!

Since what I'm doing is more than casual, I haven't got much of a problem with the time commitment involved in keeping things healthy and flowing before setting up a run.

-C

<edit> I suppose I should clarify that I've been using Epson -consumer- printers since they were beige. The Pro series changed colour much more recently! </edit>

 

[Clinton]

Did you not consider a Canon printer at all because they can give you
that ease of use and the freedom you require to print and refill when you want?

Are they out of your price range?

Hmm. It seems like the current pigment-based A3 Canon is the i9500 MkII, and some googling has found that folks aren't as happy with its output as they are with it's epson contemporaries, though they are happier with the reliability. I'll have to look at some test prints.

Though it still seems that Epson is easier to find aftermarkets whatnots for.

-C

 

[The Hat]

I cant say one way or the other regarding output quality of an Epson printer but my 9500 is over 3 years old
and has printed thousands of sheets and I am very happy with its quality, thats why I bought it.

On reliability it couldnt be better and as for the Canon printers, you never use aftermarket anything in it just OEMs nothing else,
also these carts are the easiest to fill of any Canon printer to date using I.S. inks and a resetter.

The other thing worth noting is this printer uses pigment inks and unlike its Epson cousins
does not suffer from clogs and doesnt waste ink cleaning itself either, so plus plus..

 

[crenedecotret]

I'm a bit surprised their kit includes pigment ink, as i'm pretty sure the 1280 uses dye ink. Pigment will be more prone to clogging, so make so you print at least a full color page or two a week.

I'm going to be doing fine art prints, and longevity and quality is important for me. Some research told me that the 1280 can handle pigment inks with minimal problems, so long as proper precautions are taken in order to avoid clogging, about the same as any pigment printer, from what I've read. MIS has profiles for the 1280 and their pigment ink, and had the option to request it in their kit, so I went with it. It's not yet arrived yet, so I can't comment on it otherwise.

Why not simply get another set of carts from inksupply? The carts are pretty much identical to everything else you'll find, except that others seem to use auto-reset chips and MIS suggests a resetter. Since you want to alternate between two sets, carts with a resetter would probably work out just fine for you.

reading back over my post, it seemed I butchered it a bit more than I should've when I had to remove URLs from it to satisfy the anti-spam requirements (understandable, and I'm not complaining about it!) -- when I said "next up" I meant after I outfit the R220 and R300 with at least one set of cartridges! Accursed english!

I was looking at InkSupply's refillable carts, and they made me a bit leery. They're a bit spendy for me to want to blindly go forward on, and their instructions allude to them being a sponge design, which I'm not sure is a good thing. There are so many choices out there for different designs of T048 refillables, I'm just not sure what to look at, and there's precious little information out there to set me on my way.

Some background about what I'm doing -- I have some artist friends who have been making and selling prints either on colour laser printers, cheap dye inkjets on terrible paper, or colour copiers at copy shops. They're not happy about the quality, and I cringe when I see it. I know a bit about printing and calibration and whatnot, so I decided I'd see if I can do a better job for them. So far my tests have proven fruitful, and I'm gearing up for some light print production. I'm trying to give the best quality I can, without breaking the bank, and since there seem to be a lot of really good third party consumables out there, I figured I'd take the plunge.

I still have a lot to learn, and I'm certainly glad I discovered this forum!

-C

For your R220 and your R300, I would just go with this http://www.precisioncolors.com/E6aref.html I tried the MIS/Inksupply carts a long time ago when I still had my R220. I didn't like them. At least didn't like the ones I had at the time. The plugs were fuzzy to pull out for a refill and the carts eventually leaked. inksupply sells the R220 starter kit for 99$ and only includes 2 OZ bottles of ink. Precision Colors sells prefilled carts, and 6x4 oz extra ink for 54$.