Time for a rethink on the use of refillable compatible for Canon..

[Smudger]

Yes, it took me hours.


I may decide to patent it.

 

[The Hat]

That's a beautiful, artistic print, Smudger. Is that how you got your screen name? Looks like maybe it's printed on the wrong side of the paper?

It does doesn’t it..

 

[Smudger]

The practised eye will note that the Smudge-O-Graph contains no yellow.

This was due to a blonde moment (I left the air-vent tape on the yellow cart) combined with a 'Senior' moment when I put the paper in upside down. I was printing test charts to determine why everything was being printed blue.

I was in France last week and brought back two cases of quite decent Champagne. I blame that.

 

[ThrillaMozilla]

...both of which are mistakes I have made, so I knew the symptoms right away.

 

[Smudger]

I should add that the pic should not be allowed to impugn the rep of my compat ink supplier.

I run a lot of ink through the 7250 and so far, have not had any problems with these carts. The machine prints about 150 A4 photo prints per week.

I just bought an MG5650 for home, so I'll use the same compats in that.

 

[ILikeCanon]

Smudger, could you confirm if PGI-550 from Go-inks is pigment? (water resistant and sharp)

 

[Smudger]

It is sharp on photo paper, but I cannot confirm its water resistance or its chemical composition. Both printers have Chromalife in them at the moment, so further checks are not imminent.

There are colour shifts towards yellow when using these carts for B&W printing on my Windows 7 driver (without the pg+blk) but they can be dialled out.

Certainly, they are OK for draft, general photo or office printing.

The Chromalife carts are much superior in every way for critical photo work,but with a matching price tag.

Note, I only print B&W.

 

[PeterBJ]

Some printers use both a pigment black ink for plain paper documents and a dye black ink for prints on photo paper. The pigment black ink gives a sharper and more waterproof print on plain paper but is totally unsuitable for printing on photo paper.

Some printers use only pigment inks for all prints, photos inclusive, but these pigment inks are different from the pigment black for plain paper.

There are a couple of tests you can do to determine if the "big black" compatible cartridge for Canon printers contains pigment or dye ink. Dye ink is transparent in near infra-red and pigment ink is opaque in near infra-red, this applies to both liquid ink and dried ink on paper. See the test in this post. And here is how to modify a cheap webcam to work in near infra-red.

I once accidentally printed a text document on photo paper, due to a wrong setting of the paper source switch. The text which was printed using pigment black ink on photo paper was neither water proof nor scratch resistant. This can be used to test if a black ink is pigment or dye.

So you can cut test strips from photo paper and use Q-tips, wetted with ink from the ink outlet of the cartridge, to apply dots of ink to the test strips. Dye ink is firmly locked in the paper and can not be removed by scratching or by rubbing with a finger under running water.

Here is a scan showing the test strips.

First is pigment black ink, notice that the ink does not wet the photo paper well in the untouched sample. 2 even if allowed to dry, pigment black ink rubs off under water. 3 Pigment black ink on photo paper is not scratch resistant.

4 is dye black untouched. Notice that the ink wets the paper much better than the pigment ink. 5 dye ink is firmly locked in the photo paper and cannot be removed by rubbing under running water. 6 Dye ink is on photo paper is also scratch resistant.