Re: Third-party ink manufacturers

On Thursday 22 July 2004 22:36, Kenneth P. Esler Jr. wrote:
> Hi all,
>       First, I was wondering what the collective experience has been with
> third-party ink manufacturers.  Are they safe for the printer, do they
> produce good quality, etc?  Any recommendations specifically for the
> R300?

I've replaced every Epson cartridge in my R300 with Inkrite cartridges. My 
opinion is:

1. Build quality of the cartridge is noticeably poorer than Epson's. It simply 
doesn't "sit" in the location very well. 
2. Output quality is not noticeably different. I suspect there _may_ be a 
slight green cast introduced but I'm partly colour blind and don't have the 
equipment to confirm this. YMMV etc etc.
3. I have no idea how this affects the lifespan of the prints produced. Epson 
quote 25 years for their own inks on their own paper.  I've printed test 
images using all combinations of Epson/Inkrite Ink and Epson/Ilford paper and 
I'll report back in 25 years.  (This may turn out to be a substantially 
shorter timescale if the images fade quickly).

Price wise, here in the UK the genuine Epson cartridges are around £10-12. The 
Inkrite ones are around £3.  I'll put up with a fair bit of hassle for a 75% 
saving.

>       Secondly, would it be worth collecting from users profiles optimized
> for these alternative inksets for the cases in which the ink doesn't
> match the OEM ink precisely?  It seems these inks can reduce costs by
> 40%-50%.

And the rest!  

Great idea, but given the vast numbers of printers/ink combinations out there, 
this could become a mammoth list in a very short time.  How do you go about 
accurately calculating a colour profile?

James.

-- 
"If I forget things I usually don't remember much"
  - Victoria Chapman, still with all her marbles.


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