Refilling Canon with OEM ink

[martin0reg]

There are two new samples under the UV lamp, this time B&W prints, using all 4 colors, to see and compare the color shift of fading. BCI-1411 versus fotonic XG.
On the same paper (as always in one comparison)

Yes, the price comes at first for most refillers.. but there are more and more users, photographers in particular (and printer addicts here in the forum), who are aware of the fading problem, and who are willing to pay more if the ink would come nearer to the OEM results.
The fotonic XG is not cheap but still reasonable compared to OEM chromalife (15€ per 100ml at the shop linked in post #32).
I think the main downside is the non-color-matching. This ink is offered for older pixma with CLI-8 carts and full 8 ink channels (including red and green) like pro 9000. So many users may think, this is not for my 4 color pixma. And in fact I can use XG only after profiling.

Besides the BCI-1411 is also not cheap... and you have to pull out the ink.. For me the advantage is the better color matching and moreover the assumed high quality of canon inks, regarding ink flow and nozzle cleaning.
Yesterday the PK channel of my old ip4000, filled with XG, failed, the grey bar was missing completely. It was ink starvation from the cart, because after inserting another XG refilled cart the PK came back. But the starving cart was not empty... so I will have to pay attention to possible "clogging" of the sponge when using XG...

 

[The Hat]

@martin0reg, it’s all very fine saying the XG ink is a bit dearer, but I reckon no one in their right mind would pay 3 times the price for something they can’t instantly see, anyway pigment ink is cheaper than this dye ink is.

When it comes to ink most printer owners will buy the cheapest ink they can find every time, the only thing that matters to them is the price, so this fotonic XG will not do well in the market place for very long.

People in the know and especially photographers would never use any kind of third party ink because as you have tested, it fades far to fast to be taken serious, and if they wish to sell their prints they will use OEM pigment ink.

I buy and use the cheapest dye inks and the cheapest photo paper that I can find, I am not a skinflint but if it’s going to end up in the refuse sack in a couple of months then it makes a lot of sense to me, again like others if I want a print to last I switch to pigment.

The last word: if any of the inks that I buy gives the slightest problem, like clogs or down time, I immediately dump it in the nearest garbage bin and suffer the loss and then go elsewhere for my next purchase. (Caveat emptor)
I love all my printers...

 

[martin0reg]

...most printer owners will buy the cheapest ink they can find every time...
..photographers would never use any kind of third party ink because as you have tested, it fades far to fast to be taken serious....

Well this may be seen a bit too "black-and-white".
And I think my latest scan in post #39 shows one quite good result for fading.

Anyway... today I visited my friend who buys only OEM carts for his printer, so I can add a chromalife+ print to the now running B&W color shift fading test. We will see after 1 and 2 weeks.. and more if needed..

 

[martin0reg]

So here are the first results of B&W color shifting tests, after one week
Canon Chromalife+ / Lyson fotonic XG / Canon BCI-1411,
printed on the same aldisihl 280g semiglossy

The printer is using all 4 color inks, c-m-y-k, so the color shift is due to different fading of different colors of one ink set



Note the different color tones of the initial prints, so you can't compare the exposed samples across, but we can certainly evaluate the fading and color shift of each pair...


I'm curious to see how the XG dye - as the most stable canon compatible dye in this test - would perform against the well known and tested fuji DL - as the most stable epson claria compatible..

So for the week to come I put some color prints under the UV light, Chromalife / XG / fuji DL

And will continue the B&W color shift test next week, including a B&W sample of fuji DL

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

just let those printouts get some more UV so that differences become more obvious. As I was testing the Epson vesion of the XG ink I saw that the black ink was performing on par with the Fujifilm DL black, but the cyan was much weaker at the same time, I didn't test MY, they are less critical.

 

[martin0reg]

Yes, two weeks will show more evidence...
...and I'm still surprised how good a really cheap compatible cartridge with no name ink turned out in PeterBJ's test:
http://www.printerknowledge.com/threads/photo-paper-at-aldi-dk.10719/page-3#post-93537

 

[The Hat]

I will also post the test that I did with my Canon black ink in the next few days too...

 

[martin0reg]

After I've added a sample of fuji DL ink to the B&W color fading competition
here is a first direct comparison of fuji DL (epson R285) vs. fotonic XG (canon ip4000).
In addition to post #44 (same paper, same UV exposure of one week)

Both are not bad, the XG seem to fade very slighty to green, the DL even less to the bluish side. But the second week is running and then we will see the difference between XG, DL and chromalife more clearly I think.

 

[martin0reg]

Update of the previous, after one more week:

Color is shifting as expected, the XG very slightly more (to me... looking at the prints)
Both are fading much slower than all my other competitors.

At the same time there is no visibly change with canon OEM ink:

 

[The Hat]

You may need to leave it for a month or two, to see any significant differences..