What is best way to store liter of ink for an extended period of time?

[joseph1949]

What is the best way to store a liter of ink for an extended period of time?

I have purchased three (3)one liter bottles of ink from InkTecUSA. The ink is for my yellow, cyan, and magenta carts (CLI-221carts). I will be using the ink in my PIXMA MX870 printer. I will like to keep the ink in their original bottles except for having a small amount (1 oz.) of ink in a 2 oz. squeeze bottle. This is for when I am filling a cart. What ink is left in the 2 oz. bottle will stay there.

I know that it would be good to store the ink in a cool, dry, dark place, but is there anything else I can do to extend the life of the ink?

Questions:

Would it help if I put the ink in the refrigerator?

Would it help to put a drop of bleach in each of the liter bottles?

Note: The cost of a liter of ink from InkTec--USA is $31.50/liter. At a Costco cost of $55.00 per pak of five carts we have a cost of $1.00 vs. $.0315 per ml of inkbig difference!!!!!!!!!

Thank you.

 

[pharmacist]

No, the ink contain preservatives and will keep for years without any ill effects. Just keep it tightly closed and sealed and place the bottles in a dark and cool environment.

 

[irvweiner]

Joseph, there are several suggestions I will offer to protect your investment and future printing sanity.
Unless you are printing several hundred prints daily or weekly my suggestions are:

1: Purchase 3 8 oz bottles (squeeze bottle preferred), fill each with each color.

2: Continue the use of the 2 oz squeeze bottles for refilling as I recommended in an earlier post.

3: When a 2oz squeeze bottle runs empty, wash it out thoroughly before refilling from the proper 8oz bottle.

4: When a 8oz bottle runs empty, wash it out thoroughly before refilling from the proper 32oz bottle.

The above steps will minimize the exposure of your inks to the environment containing mold, spores, dust, bacteria, etc. Our inks contain a reasonable quantity of organic chemicals--which is chicken soup for these contaminants, noticeably true for the magenta family of inks.

5: Do store your 8 and 32 oz bottles in the refrigerator, reducing their ambient temperature will slow down the basic first order chemical processes by a factor >4. This assumes a temperature change from ~70 F to ~35 F. The acceptable storage temperature for my 3880 pigment inks are stated as -14 to 104 F by Epson. Dye inks are a true solution, there are no 'dye' particles floating in the ink.

6: If you are storing pigment inks, in the refrigerator or the wine cellar DO follow a schedule for 'exercising' the inks to prevent 'clotting' or aggregation of the pigment particles which ARE floating in the ink. Just slowly turn the bottle up & down in your hand for ~30 sec each week.

The above protocols are based on simple scientific fact; items 2-3-4 evolve from the sanitary theories for the prevention and spread of disease and infection, (think wineries and hospitals).

Item 5 is a direct result of the thermodynamics of chemical reactions.

Item 6 springs out of the physics of suspended particles and 'Brownian' motion, collisions, etc.

I do hope these guidelines for ink storage and preservation are helpful to those with 'vats' of ink.

irv weiner

 

[Nifty]

I've been amazed at how long and well my Image Specialists ink has kept. I think I'm at about 6 years for some of the ink, and it still prints like the day I got it. I haven't done anything really special to extend the life... maybe I just got really lucky. This is especially true when I hear the horror stories of ink that gets all gummed up with algae growth, etc.

 

[l_d_allan]

What is the best way to store a liter of ink for an extended period of time?

I don't know if the following is the best way, but what I'm doing is ...

I have nine different colors of OCP ink that comes in 16oz bottles from R-Jet Tek (8 for CLI-8 die carts and 1 for PGI-5bk pigment for the iP4500). I purchased nine 8 oz empty bottles, and put half the ink in those, and put them in the back of the refrigerator with a date marking. I leave the 16 oz bottles with the remainder of the ink downstairs in a cool place, and those are the bottles I refill from. I may eventually get 2 to 4 oz squeeze bottles with needles, but so far a 20 ml syringe with blunt needle is working ok for me.

I expect the ink for the CLI-8R-Red, CLI-8G-Green, CLI-8-Black, and PGI-5Black will last a looooong time. I've been doing a lot of printing, and going through quite a bit of CLI-8PM-PhotoMag, CLI-8PC-PhotoCyan, CLI-8M-Magenta, CLI-8C-Cyan, and CLI-8Y-Yellow ... especially the PC and PM.

 

[stratman]

This is one of those topics in which everyone has an opinion. Even the newbie with a thousand posts in four days has an opinion, and it's as good as everyone else.

Refrigerate or not? No one knows what's best. Irv makes a good theoretical point on colder temps slowing first order thermal processes. Still, plastic bottles may allow for a tiny amount of dessication of the ink due to the mechanism of cooling in a refrigerator. Freezing of the ink does not sound beneficial from a purely intuitive view, so beware where you keep the bottles. I hope Irv's "-14F" was a typo because I've not seen that operating temperature on consumer inkjet printers, specifically Canon ink sets. Pharmacist's post is the logic I go by. I suppose if you have no cool and dry place out of direct sunlight then the frig may be the best choice. Pick a side and go for it. You won't know what's what for many months.

The choice of size of plastic squeeze bottle is multifactorial. First, and most important IMO, how often do you refill the dye ink cartridges? Do you want to be refilling a 2 ounce plastic bottle every week, month, whatever? This is the "hassle factor" worth figuring out ahead of time. Also, no one knows the optimal time ink can be kept in your bottle in the environment of your home/workspace. The more often you transfer ink the more opportunity there is for dessication and introduction of bacteria, fungus and particulate matter as well as potential for spills and increasing clean-up waste for the water table or soil. I use 4 oz squeeze bottles with Luer Lock tops and needles covered by the needle sheath. Ink has been stored in them, in my basement out of direct sunlight, for up to a year before used up. The ink appeared fine and had no printing malfunctions. Two year old sealed (never opened) MIS ink from Precision Colors seemed perfectly fine as well. (see point #4 below)

Second, another consideration on squeeze bottle size is how well they fit into your work flow, including your hand, where your store them at and how well they behave when you use them during the respite phase in the Durchstich Method (the phase after you initially fill the spongeless side and put the cartridge down "rightside up" with the needle still in it for the sponge to soak up ink). These are minor considerations for most, but an arthritic hand may prefer smaller bottles. Also, cost, storage space, and/or personal preference may be factors in in how many types of bottles you want around.

Third, I agree with Irv's recommendation to wash out the plastic bottles periodically to prevent contaminant issues, including any sludging of pure ink that might collect on the bottom of the squeeze bottles. I wash with tap water after the ink in the 4 oz bottle is used up, rinse with distilled water, dry or shake out most all water, and then fill with fresh new ink. If you use 2 oz bottles, I don't know if I would wash them out before each refill. Then again, I would not use 2 oz squeeze bottles.

Fourth, I have doubts that a six year old ink will output the same as when relatively new. There will be degradation but it might not be apparent to the naked eye unless two newly printed images with old and new ink are compared side by side. Best to use your ink well before then IF color fidelity is critical. Otherwise, it's all good.

There may be easier or cheaper ways of doing this but there is no definitive "right" way or one size fits all. Since there is little more than empiric proof to guide your decision, sum up your variables and do what feels "right" to you.

 

[ghwellsjr]

At a Costco cost of $55.00 per pak of five carts we have a cost of $1.00 vs. $.0315 per ml of inkbig difference!!!!!!!!!

It sounds like an even bigger difference if you say $1000 vs. $31.50 per liter.

 

[nche11]

I've been amazed at how long and well my Image Specialists ink has kept. I think I'm at about 6 years for some of the ink, and it still prints like the day I got it. I haven't done anything really special to extend the life... maybe I just got really lucky. This is especially true when I hear the horror stories of ink that gets all gummed up with algae growth, etc.

If you have the ink for that long you probably don't use it much. You may use it only once or twice a week. When an ink deteriorates the printer probably will print just fine if you only print a little at a time. It is when you print continuously with large print jobs and the print head needs consistent smooth ink flow to support its heavy printing that a bad ink will have the impact. I used Image Specialists ink many years ago. I lost an i950 print head from printing heavily. It was clogged and died. The ink wasn't too old at the time. I suspect that your old IS ink is till as good as new. 2 - 3 years is the max I will store an ink. Hey, if it really works then just use it, especially if you don't print heavy jobs.

 

[irvweiner]

Stratman, my reply addresses Joesph's situation and was not intended to paint a brush stroke over all refillers. We have responded to his previous posts and are aware that he is not printing in large quantity, desires to keep his hobbyist costs down and was searching for a good quality inexpensive ink.
When I read his latest post, I was surprised that he purchased such a large quantity of ink--3 liters or 96 oz total.
My goal here, based on good laboratory practice was to minimize the number of times the main bulk ink stock would be exposed to the environment. Instead of 16 (16x2oz) exposures, the number was reduced to 4, drastically reducing the probability of contaminating the main source. The 8 oz squeeze bottle was chosen only to service his 2 oz bottles, they too would be opened only 4 times. If an 8 oz squeeze bottle was not used it's opening/closings would increase to 20 times (4+1)x4. For most of us who do not buy 'vats' of ink a 4 oz squeeze bottle being refilled from an 8 or 16 oz bulk bottle is most adequate.

If the main bulk bottle can be fitted with a 'leur' type cap adapter, it would only be opened once! Going one step further--take a 6 to 12 in length of plastic tubing. Place a 'leur' fitting with your needle on one and connect the other end to the 'leur adapted' bottle cap. Insert your needle 'german' style or top fill style in to the cart and squeeze the bulk bottle filling your cart; with a plastic check valve inserted in series with the tubing there is no 'back' flush of ink.

Correction: the minus sign is proper, the temp is -4 not -14 F for my Epson 3880 ink storage. For my Canon Pro 9000 the storage range is 0 to 104 F. Both Mfgrs place a limit of 1 month at 104F. This info is contained in the User Manual of each printer.

Bottom line: I hope this back&forth will bring home to Joseph the needed care and feeding of his inks. I must urge him not to add any Clorox, disinfectants or medicines to his valuable inks just keep everything neat and clean.

Even though there is a nifty collection of optimization algorithms to compute the number and size of bottles needed to minimize repeated 'openings' the best result is KISS--keep it simple and smart!! Just buy enough ink to last until your next oil change for your auto!

Stratman, many thanks for your reply. irv weiner

 

[l_d_allan]

My goal here, based on good laboratory practice was to minimize the number of times the main bulk ink stock would be exposed to the environment.

I'd appreciate feedback on something I'm considering ...

R-Jet Tek has a 60 ml syringe , which is about 2 oz, enough for about 5+ refills of a CLI-8 cart. To minimize ink exposure, I'm wondering about this practice:
* Purchase OCP ink in 16 oz quantities (the minimum from R-Jet Tek).
* Divide into 8 oz bottles kept in refrigerator
* Use set of eight 60 ml syringe with blunt needles for refilling, and keeping left-over ink in this syringe between refills.
* So far, my practice has been to refill in batches.

My thinking would be keep ink in the 60 ml syringes between batches as a third level of storage instead of squeeze bottles. There would be little or no air within the syringe chamber during storage, which seems advantageous. Also no issue with "back flush". I'd put a needle sheath over the blunt needle to prevent leaking after refilling, during storage.

Some questions/caveats:
* I've got a 60 ml syringe ordered, but haven't actually held one in my hand. It may be too large/bulky to be suitable for refilling.

* I'm wondering if the rubber'ish material at the end of the syringe plunger will deteriorate by being in contact with the ink for weeks at a time. Would it be advised to let in a small amount of air when finished refilling, and store with the sheathed needle/syringe pointing down so the rubber'ish material isn't in contact with ink? Or does this make it too likely to have leaks? My mental image of this causes me to cringe.

* With my CLI-8 starter kit, there was a single 20 ml syringe, which came with a screw on plastic cap. I might get a full set of those and remove the needle between refill batches.

* With the Pro 9000-2, the eight colors have much different usage amounts. PhotoCyan and PhotoMagenta are used the most, with Magenta, Cyan, and Yellow less. Black less, and Red/Green even less. So different approaches might be appropriate (but keeping in mind KISS).