Comments

Jay Gladwell wrote on 8/2/2006, 7:50 AM

I've tried to using off-brand inks, not had good results... if color is critical, that is.


Steve Mann wrote on 8/2/2006, 11:56 PM
Every time I've tried off-brand inks, something goes wrong. Mostly, the color is just wrong and its impossible to get consistent prints. If you print a few dozen discs, the first will be different from the last.
farss wrote on 8/3/2006, 3:14 AM
One explaination for that is it takes a lot of printing to clear out the old ink. I believe you can get special cartridges to clean the pipes but they"re kind of expensive.
Still I've never had any joy with 3rd party inks, not the color but things gumming up. To me the only viable cheaper solution is the system that uses big bottles of ink piped into the heads. Initial cost is not that great and from then on very cheap however you need to do a LOT of printing to justify the hassle of the extra space taken up and also I'd image the ink could dry out before you used all of it.

Bob.
Coursedesign wrote on 8/3/2006, 9:50 AM
Third party inks are great for business printing (CD/DVDs, covers, etc.), because you can save 75% even with good quality 3rd party inks.

There are top quality professional photographic inks for the higher end Epsons and others, these come in bottles and have measured performance that compares very favorably with Epson's money spigots (aka ink cartridges).

Inexpensive bottle systems are even available on eBay, they save a ton of money for volume production.