Yet another fading test of dye inks - the last one (?)

[Ink stained Fingers]

I just see that Hongsam is offering as well HLF inks - High Light Fastness - for Canon printers, I'm not in the position to order 1kg min per color, but pricing looks very good - 20€/kg + transport and local taxes etc

https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/2021-HONGSAM-EverNew-High-Light-fastness_1600189325807.html

 

[nertog]

I just see that Hongsam is offering as well HLF inks - High Light Fastness - for Canon printers, I'm not in the position to order 1kg min per color, but pricing looks very good - 20€/kg + transport and local taxes etc

https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/2021-HONGSAM-EverNew-High-Light-fastness_1600189325807.html

Back in 2017 I ordered the Evernew HLF dyes for 12 USD/l and their K3 pigment inks for 25 USD/l. Shipping and taxes not included, of course. They seem to be ok with relatively small orders (0.5l/color).

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

The Fotonic XG (Lyson) is apparently still available

https://www.marrutt.com/find-my-pri...tylus-photo-p50-printer-ink#lyson-ink-refills

and I was gasping for air when I looked to the pricing - 42,44€ for 125ml , Epson bottled 106 ink runs at about 10€/bottle (incl. VAT) with 70ml, and the pricing for the GI-53 Chromalife 100 inks is pretty similar in Germany.

P.S. I'm not planning to do a test with these inks - the pricing is just too prohibitive

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

This scan shows how the color patches look after these 10 days - it's just 2 columns on the right of the complete patch sheet - left for the Epson 106 ink - for the Hongsam ink in the middle and the Inktec ink right - the column K contains a step sequence of gray patches , and the discoloration of the Inktec patches to brown is directly visible - this because one color is fading much faster than the other colors - the gray tones are mixed from CMY by the driver.

 

[The Hat]

This scan shows how the color patches look after these 10 days

My fade tests are coming along nicely and I am getting much the same results as you.. But I’m going to wait a little longer…

 

[Artur5]

Luckily I never tried Inktec dye inks...

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

What's wrong with Inktec inks - you probably know the American analog color TV transmission mode - NTSC - never the same color - so you can enjoy different colors every week with those inks. But seriously - lots of prints are thrown away after a short while so color changes wouldn't matter. I have a bigger problem here that a potential buyer is not made aware of particular ink properties and he is not given a choice , and this not just by most 3rd party distributors but by the Canons and Epsons as well - they don't tell their users about the mediocre performance of some of their inks - Epson 664 or 102 or Canon GI-50/51 etc - as tested whereas HP is shipping a very good ink - HP31 or GT52 - with all of their tank printers. And worse - there is not much of a price difference between the good and the weak inks so the pricing does not help for orientation.

 

[DirkColaert]

This scan shows how the color patches look after these 10 days - it's just 2 columns on the right of the complete patch sheet - left for the Epson 106 ink - for the Hongsam ink in the middle and the Inktec ink right - the column K contains a step sequence of gray patches , and the discoloration of the Inktec patches to brown is directly visible - this because one color is fading much faster than the other colors - the gray tones are mixed from CMY by the driver.

View attachment 14250

Am I interpreting correctly that the Hongsam performs best here?

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Am I interpreting correctly that the Hongsam performs best here?

The Hongsam L-column is slightly lighter than the Epson 106 L-column which gives a small benefit to the Epson 106 ink, but the Hongsam ink is pretty good indeed in comprison. And the top left patch - pure black is darker than the resp. black patch at the top of the Hongsam K-column. Inktec turned brown completely.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I started a very last fading test with the Epson U.S. 502 and 522 inks for Ecotank printers a few days ago and will report the findings here

https://www.printerknowledge.com/threads/epson-claria-standard-ink-502.15440/post-135291