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‘Inks’ Category

  1. Photo Paper is taking too long to dry

    February 28, 2006 by Frank

    The time taken for a print to dry depends on several factors:

    • The amount of ink printed which in turn depends on the density of the image.
    • The type of photo paper used.
    • The humidity and temperature of the surrounding air.
    • The brand of ink and printer.
    • The air circulation in the room.

    For best results:

    • Use the same brand of paper as the printer.
    • If you use other brands of paper such as Ilford or Celcast, make sure it is suitable for your printer.
    • If you use generic or other brands of paper you may need to test several different types with your printer.
    • If using refilled or generic cartridges and the photos dry too slowly, try using genuine cartridges
    • Carefully remove the print from the printer once it has finished printing and place it flat in a warm dry environment with good air circulation.

    Category Inks, Photo Paper, Printing Digital Photos | Tags: | 2 Comments

  2. Epson chasing compatible manufacturers

    February 24, 2006 by Frank

    Epson has announced a new lawsuit against another 24 companies which manufacture Epson compatible ink cartridges. Epson alleges copyright infringement of their cartridge design. Epson has for several years been adamant that they are not against aftermarket cartridges for their printers per se, only aftermarket cartridges which infringe copyright. The newest batch of companies targetted by Epson includes companies that manufacture in China, Germany, Korea and Mexico, as well as some U.S. companies that import cartridges.

    Manufacturers include Butterfly Print Image, Ink Lab, Mipo International, Nine Star Image, Zhuhai Gree Magneto-Electric, Tully Imaging Supplies, Wellink Trading Co., Ribbon Tree (Macao), Artech GmbH, Ink Tec (Korea) and Master Ink Co.

    Importers include some very well known companies – Glory South Software, Nectron International, Mipo America, Nine Star Technology, Town Sky Inc., MMC Consumables, Inkjetwarehouse.com, Ribbon Tree (USA) Apex, Inc Tec (America), Dataproducts USA, Rhinotek and Acujet.

    If Epson is successful these companies may be liable for large damages payouts to Epson, as well as lost sales in the millions of dollars. It is unlikely that end users will be involved any sort of litigation for using these cartridges, however consumers that use these cartridges and are happy with them will need to use different brands which don’t infringe copyright.

    As can be seen from the list of importers and manufacturers, if Epson is successful they will effectively remove some of the best performing compatibles from the market, making the remaining non-infringing aftermarket cartridges the only substitute to genuine. Of course the non-infringing designs are vastly inferior to the genuine Epson ink cartridges , making the genuine product much more attractive.

    Whether we see Epson taking action against Australian importers of non-genuine cartridges remains to be seen.

    Category Inks, Printers | Tags: | No Comments

  3. Replace Epson ink cartridge straight away

    February 23, 2006 by Frank

    One of our regular very happy customers called today for some advice. Her colour ink cartridge was empty in her Epson printer, but she didn’t need to print for a while so she had taken the empty cartridge out of the machine and thrown it in the bin. She was asking if it was OK to leave the printer without the cartridge for a couple of weeks. Our advice is pretty well standard on this every time…

    This is a no-no on Epson printers!

    Removing your old empty cartridge and not replacing it with a new cartridge immediatly runs the risk of nozzle blockage. Because inks dry with contact with air, any remaining ink in the print head area may dry out and cause a blockage. This will result in one or more colours not printing out when you do finally replace the cartridge, a banding or streaking effect may appear on the printed page. The common mistake is to think the new cartridge is faulty. 9 times out 10 a simple print head clean will fix the problem, however your printhead may be permanentely blocked.

    Always have a new cartridge to hand ready to put into your Epson printer when the old one runs out. This will keep your printhead from drying out or clogging.

    Category Inks, Printers | Tags: | No Comments

  4. HP Consumables Price Rise

    February 7, 2006 by Frank

    Last month Hewlett Packard announced an across the board price rise of 5% for all HP inks, HP toners and papers. While we have been lucky over the past 2 years with our appreciating dollar causing great price drops in consumables, unfortunately things are now going the other way and we are going to have to start paying more. The vast majority of printer consumables coming into the country are paid with US dollars, so any changes in the exchange rate are reflected in the prices end users pay. With the US dollar rising, this means we will be paying more for consumables.

    Category Inks, Photo Paper, Printing Digital Photos, Toners | Tags: | No Comments

  5. HP, Epson, Lexmark and Canon to take action?

    February 6, 2006 by Frank

    Following on from the post last week about Canon’s lawsuit against a refiller, it seems to me that we are going to see a lot more aggressive legal action from the big four printer manufacturers. Last month Lexmark reported a nearly 50% drop in profit, due mostly to price discounting. Epson has also reported a loss of over $120 million because of poor performance in their LCD division. Epson expects sales in their printing division to be lower this year.

    While the companies don’t say that refilling has hurt their businesses, they must be thinking how to get back the 15-20% market share that refilling and compatible cartridges has. In the past both Canon and Epson have for the most part ignored refillers, with HP repeatedly saying it’s the ‘consumers choice, but HP is better’. Lexmark has been aggressive with their actions against toner remanufacturers (see info on their DMCA lawsuit) but has left ink refilllers alone.

    Epson has taken action against manufacturers of aftermarket ink cartridges but only on a small scale. With the huge profits at stake these actions will only increase as it makes it worthwile for the printer companies to win back market share and badly needed revenue. With the explosion of digital photo printing expected to take place over the next year or two the market, and potential profits, will get bigger and bigger. The big four will not want to relinquish a bigger piece of the pie to refillers – in fact they will want to make the pie, and their piece, bigger.

    It would be far better the big four used the consumer education carrot rather than the litigation stick to increase their market share. Refill inks are cheaper for a reason – refillers do not spend millions of dollars a year on research and development to make better inks, but the printer manufacturers do. Genuine inks last longer, work better and are better for your printer. Refill ink cannot, by it’s very nature (because genuine is patented so cannot be exactly copied), match genuine.

    Category Inks, Printers, Toners | Tags: | No Comments

  6. Canon Refilling is Illegal (well, in Japan anyway)

    February 3, 2006 by Frank

    While we seem to be on the Canon theme this week, it was reported in the press on Tuesday that Canon has won a lawsuit in Japan against a company refilling their ink cartridges. The company, called Recycle Assist, was recycling used Canon cartridges by cleaning and refilling them. Canon alleges that Recycle Assist was infringing their patent as a special leak-preventing structure of the Canon cartridge was being re-used. The Intellectual Property court agreed with Canon even though a a lower court had ruled that what Recycle Assist was doing was technically ‘repair’ and was allowed.

    The judge ordered all the refilled cartridges be destroyed and that no more may be imported. Recycle Assist plans to appeal the decision.

    It appears that this judgement only affects Canon against one company in one country, however an ultimate win by Canon may mean that no company anywhere in the world will be able to refill Canon cartridges for sale to consumers. Of course, if Canon wins the other manufacturers won’t be far behind with their litigation too. This will have major repurcussions not just for neighborhood refillers but companies like Cartridge World who are expanding worldwide on the premise that refilling ink cartridges is legal. While I am not a great fan of refilling due to quality issues, I think if people want to get their cartridges refilled they should be allowed to do so.

    I doubt though that this judgement will affect home users who do their own refilling, although Canon may take action against those selling inks and giving instructions to customers on how to do it. Those companies may be stopped just as companies instructing people how to download illegal mp3′s have been stopped. Let’s wait and see. If you have a comment you would like to add, please do so!

    Category Inks, Printers | Tags: | 5 Comments

  7. iP 4200 PIXMA Cartridges

    January 31, 2006 by Frank

    Canon has released new PGI-5 and CLI-8 cartridges for the Canon Pixma iP4200. These cartridges have a special chip in them which tells the printer how much ink is left in the cartridge. The cartridge numbers are

    PGI-5BK – Black pigment ink
    CLI-8BK – Black dye based ink
    CLI-8C – Cyan dye based ink
    CLI-8M – Magenta dye based ink
    CLI-8Y – Yellow dye based ink

    Unlike traditional dye based inks, these inks from Canon are highly resistant to fading from light and gases in the air. Canon claim a 100 year life from these Chromalife inks.

    These cartridges are also suitable for Pixma iP5200, iP5200r printers, MP500, MP800 and MP950 multifunctions

    Compatibles are not yet available for the PGI5 or CLI8 inks probably for 2 reasons:
    1. The ink formulations are quite complex – refill ink manufacturers need to make sure their inks will perform equivalent to the original Canon inks; and
    2. The on-board chip has a patent from Canon on it so compatible manufacturers will have to be very careful not to infringe that patent, which could leave them open to litigation.

    At the moment it is best to buy genuine Canon cartridges.

    Category Inks, Printers, Printing Digital Photos | Tags: | 3 Comments

  8. The 2 different types of inkjet – piezoelectric and thermal

    January 25, 2006 by Frank

    Did you know that there are 2 different kinds of printheads? One uses the piezoelectric method of ejecting ink, the other uses thermal (or heat).

    Piezoelectric printheads are usually found in Epson printers. The ink is fed into each individual nozzle by suction. There are hundreds of small nozzles in the printhead, and the printer software sends a message to each nozzle with information on on when to fire and how much ink to eject. The piezoelectric printhead relies on a squeezing action to eject a droplet of ink onto the page – basically a physical method of forming an ink droplet. When the ink is squeezed out onto the page this forms a vauum in the printhead nozzle, bringing in more ink to repeat the process.

    Thermal printheads are typically found in Canon, HP, Lexmark, Olivetti and most other brands of printer. The nozzle containing ink is superheated for a minute fraction of a second, causing the ink to boil which makes an air bubble which forces the ink droplet out of the nozzle. This is why these printheads are more susceptible to burn out if allowed to run out of ink.

    Each ink droplet is extremely small and thousands are fired from a printhead per second. It is a miracle of technology that a printer can work so quickly, and why the printhead is the most important (and most fragile) part of your inkjet printer.

    Category Inks, Printers | Tags: | No Comments

  9. Clogged Printheads

    January 24, 2006 by Frank

    If your inkjet or bubblejet printer has clogged printheads there are 2 possible reasons:

    1. Ink has dried in the nozzles; or
    2. Foreign matter has blocked the holes in the nozzles.

    If 1, it is important to note that although genuine inks have anti-clogging agents in their formulation, if you have not used your printer in a long time the ink will dry up in the printhead. With genuine inks a couple of head cleans will usually get the ink flowing again. If you are using refill or compatible cartridges more aggressive head cleans may be necessary. You may need printhead cleaning solution like this. The best way to stop ink drying in the printhead is to use your printer every week. Just print out a test page which will use black and colour.

    If 2, this is caused by foreign matter in the ink – always from small unfiltered particles from refill ink or lower quality compatible cartridges manufactured in a dusty environment – or the printhead collecting paper dust from poor quality paper, or the printhead picking up muck in an overfull parking station.

    What is a parking station? This is where the printhead sits when the printer is not printing, usually on the right hand side inside the printer. There is a small rubber cap here which sits under the printhead to protect and prevent it drying out. On most printers it also provides a cleaning function and there is a lot of waste ink in this area- so it is the perfect place to collect dust and muck. You can get a cotton bud in there and clean it by switching the printer off then on, and then when the printhead moves away from the parking station switch the printer off at the wall. You will then be able to access this area for cleaning.

    If foreign matter in the ink has blocked the printheads and your printhead is fixed into the machine, put new original cartridges in your machine as this will usually dissolve any particles in the printhead. If your printhead is removable, take it out of the machine and sit it in about 5ml of very hot (not boiling!) water for a few minutes. Dry thoroughly and re-insert into the machine and do a couple of printer head cleans. Repeat until the nozzles are unblocked. Always use good quality inks or compatibles in your printer – original inks are always best.

    If you open your printer and you can see a fine white powder inside the machine, this is paper dust. This is getting into the print nozzles! Always use good quality paper and once in a while use compressed air to clean out the inside of your printer (use a can of compressed air, not compressed air from a compressor – or you’ll blow away the electronics in your printer!).

    Category Inks, Printers | Tags: | No Comments

  10. Printer Database

    January 20, 2006 by Frank

    A new site, www.whatcartridge.com, has been launched which bills itself as the world’s largest free database of printers and supplies. I have to say that this site is huge, although by no means exhaustive. There are printers and brands in there which even I haven’t heard of. Most of the stuff though is very up to date, and with manufacturers bringing out new models so often it can be confusing as to which cartridges go with what printer. I have bookmarked it and am using it every day to look up various cartridges. Try it out yourself and see.

    Category Inks, Photo Paper, Toners | Tags: | No Comments

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