So, what Canon 3rd party ink is good? Totally confused...

[Inky]

Everyone seems to have a favorite inks, and for each of those someone else says it's color is off, or it clogs, or something. So, what inks are people using and happy with?

Also, are there custom profiles for the ip4000 or ip5000 (or other 4clr BCI-6) with any 3rd Party Inks?

I've tried Alotofthings Arrow carts, which printed too magenta and muddy. Didn't produce greens well at all. Also, the difference in darkness between black and color inks which causes posterization, i.e. very visable step between black and darkest grey. The print driver assumes the blended dark tone is much darker, so it never gets dark enough to transition to black smoothly.

Is there any compiled wisdom on which inks print with the best color accuracy, and without technical difficulties?

* Formulabs bulk ink?

* BulkInkJets prefilled carts?

* Acujets prefilled carsts from AQX/ebay?

Appreciate info. Thanks

 

[drc023]

I've used a fairly wide assortment of inks and cartridges over the past several years and most were very acceptable. I've never experienced any problems with clogging and for the most part the color match was identical to or almost identical to Canon. Alotofthings sells ArrowJet cartridges, but doesn't make them. Of all the prefilled cartridges I've tried only ArrowJet has had any problems and that was with the BCI-6bk dye black being filled with a pigment ink (which caused very noticeable bronzing on gloss paper), the cartridges didn't seem to fit quite as well as other tanks and a few of the tanks had feeding problems due to inadequate vent openings. I also had an OEM Canon tank that leaked badly which contaminated the adjacent cartridges. Alotofthings does sell Formulabs ink which is quite good. Recently I've started using ink from HobbiColors.com and have done a bit of testing of HobbiColors inks against Canon, Formulabs and some prefilled cartridges (ArrowJet, Rainbow and who knows what from inkforsale.com). Personally I feel that HobbiColors inks are a little better than Formulabs and Canon and also better than what came out of the cartridges. All produced good results, but a comparison of the same photos and ink scales is what made me switch over to HobbiColors. The prints were a nearly identical match to the original (scanned portrait photo) and digital photos simply looked better. The step scales I printed showed a clear definition between steps on colors using magenta and cyan. The other inks (including Canon) tended to plug up the steps especially with blues. I guess muddy would be the best term to describe the differences. I didn't see any muddy results with HobbiColors inks and did see it with the others. When it came to photos, Hobbicolors inks produced better skin tones without the pinkish tints seen with the other inks. For this (unscientific) testing I used three different Canon printers - s820, iP3000 and iP4000. In each case the iP3000 and 4000 produced better results than the s820. I was expecting to see a noticeable difference in output quality between the iP3000 and iP4000, but that wasn't the case. If I didn't know which printer produced the samples, I would have thought the same printer did both of them. Profiling either of the bulk inks would possibly produce better results which should negate the differences I noted, but there aren't that many applications using ICC profiles. Photoshop is the only one I have that is ICC compliant, but I choose not to use it for printing. One of these days I may go the Qimage route and also get a profiling application, but for now the results I get using HobbiColors inks more than satisfies me. Had I not switched over to HobbiColors, I'd still be very happy with Formulabs ink. Both are very good and it probably comes down to personal preference more than anything else.

 

[Inky]

That's a pretty positive review for Hobbicolors. Any idea who makes the actual ink? They're just a reseller I think. And how do you even order from them? The site has no shopping/sales capability I see.

I was unsure where to order from and reluctant to start refilling without more 3rd party ink data points, so decided to try some cheapies from Bulkinkjet. If nothing else it should broaden my experience with 3Rd party inks...

Thanks

 

[CanonPhreak]

I use weink.com ink in their camelflo crs of which I own three, I also manually fill cartridges for a fourth machine.
I use these printers primarily for printing large quantities of brochures and flyers for my business, about 1-2k pieces per week.

I recently purchased an R200 printer for CD printing and am using weink inks for that printer, I am manually filling the weink blanks.

Their inks are manufactured by image specialists and they distribute for image specialists as well.

I have been very happy with the quality of the inks as well as the fact that I can actually talk to a live person for support. They have an 800 number, 1-800-559-3465, ask for John Mills.

You can get refill kits and continuous systems from weink at www.weink.com
You can buy additional bulk ink from that website or if you pint size or larger they have a self service website with big discounts: www.getinkexpress.com

That's a pretty positive review for Hobbicolors. Any idea who makes the actual ink? They're just a reseller I think. And how do you even order from them? The site has no shopping/sales capability I see.

I was unsure where to order from and reluctant to start refilling without more 3rd party ink data points, so decided to try some cheapies from Bulkinkjet. If nothing else it should broaden my experience with 3Rd party inks...

Thanks

 

[fotofreek]

Hobbicolors inks are available on ebay at http://search.ebay.com/hobbicolors_W0QQfkrZ1QQfromZR8 .
They were supposed to have set up their website for sales but just haven't gotten around to it yet. I bought a starter set for my i960 (six color) printer for the carts alone as the price was right. I am so happy using MIS inks - no clogs in a year and excellent color balance - that I am reluctant to change. drc023 has posted excellent results with hobbicolors inks and I would definitely trust his judgement on inks.

Starting with prefilled carts is an easy way to go, but the risk is that prefilled cart vendors aren't always forthright on what ink is in their carts from one batch to another. When you refill from a bulk supply, even two ounce containers, you know from the first refill that you will have a stable supply for the remainder of the inks you have on hand. I've now used two sets of ink from MIS and had uniform results from both batches.

 

[Nifty]

Personally I like the idea of knowing who is making my ink.

I don't know who my favorite manufacturer is yet, but I'm guessing that it will either be Image Specialists or Formulabs. Either way I'll probably go direct to the source, find a distributor that sells for them, or do a group buy.

 

[Inky]

CanonPhreak - thanks for that recommendation. Will look into them. Have heard pretty good things about Image Specialists ink.

Does anyone have a comparison between IS and other popular inks, such as Formulabs for example?

fotofreek - are MIS and IS the same? So, you bought the hobbicolors carts, and then refilled them with MIS ink? How was the color from the hobbicolors carts originally?

Mods - do any of the moderators have ink recommendations?

Thanks

 

[Inky]

nifty-stuff.com - Yeah, I agree and would generally prefer to know who the ink maker is, unless of course the prefilled generic carts are consistantly good, and cheap.

I'd invest in refilling bulk ink, if I knew what to buy. $50+ for 20oz of ink, before I even know if I like it... And if I don't, then it's another $50 somewhere else, and the time spent to refill... That's a lot of time and money to experiment and possibly be no better off than cheap carts.

Too bad there's no way to preview ink quality or get samples sizes.

Does anyone have scans of Formulabs prints vs Canon OEM prints? Personally, I'd really appreciate any hard info on color quality. It's difficult to know what people mean when they say the color is "good enough."

Thanks again.

 

[panos]

I think scans would be better than words on this subject. Words simply cannot convey quality measures.

 

[Nifty]

Does anyone have scans of Formulabs prints vs Canon OEM prints? Personally, I'd really appreciate any hard info on color quality. It's difficult to know what people mean when they say the color is "good enough."

In my opinion a scanner isn't going to give you a good feel unless the colors are really off.

Either my eyes are bad, I've had great ink and/or I've had great luck, but of the inks I've used almost all of them provided excellent results that were close enough or an exact match to OEM that people couldn't tell the difference. I did have one ink set that had a tiny bit more of a magenta cast then OEM (I think it was Formulabs) but a little tweaking in the driver / color management fixed that right up. Honestly, even with the tiny bit of magenta cast, my pictures looked really good to me and to my family. Maybe we're just not picky photo snobs like a lot of you out there!

Color match is important, but so is cost, and quality (so you don't get leaks or plugs). The importance order of these preferences will vary from person to person which is even an additional reason why some people will like one ink over another.