3rd Party Inks - Why only Epson?

[msoomro]

In the market for printer and have been going thru the decision cycle all over again after I got burnt with Epson 4900. As I read, its quite interesting to note that the 3rd part ink solutions (inkjet Mall, MarruttUSA.com etc,) only cayter for Epson and not for Canon. Makes me think why? Is it because

1. Epson delivers better results and has bigger market share.
2. Epson printers are cheaper (factoring their deals and MIRs) leading to bigger market share based on cost vs quality.
3. Epson OEM inks are more expensive $/oz hence an incentive for 3rd party
4. Canon machines are more difficult to circumvent OEM inks.
5. other....


Any thoughts?

[Dave Rosser]

In the market for printer and have been going thru the decision cycle all over again after I got burnt with Epson 4900. As I read, its quite interesting to note that the 3rd part ink solutions (inkjet Mall, MarruttUSA.com etc,) only cayter for Epson and not for Canon. Makes me think why? Is it because

1. Epson delivers better results and has bigger market share.
2. Epson printers are cheaper (factoring their deals and MIRs) leading to bigger market share based on cost vs quality.
3. Epson OEM inks are more expensive $/oz hence an incentive for 3rd party
4. Canon machines are more difficult to circumvent OEM inks.
5. other....


Any thoughts?

Must be a US only thing, plenty of people selling third party ink for Canon and HP here in the UK.

dave

[KeithR]

From what I've read, i believe it has to do with the way ink is made per the print head requirements. One manufacturer requires the ink heated through the print head (I think it's Epson) and the other one does noes not. Therefore different manufacturing of the ink formulations.

[howardm]

Other way.  Canons are heated/thermal.  Epsons are piezo driven.

[deanwork]

If you do a quick Google search you will find plenty of aftermarket pigment inks for all of the major printer brands, complete with chipped carts, and refillable and single use options. They are all called “archival”, he he.

What you pay for with oem inks are primarily three things.

 1. Longevity ( browse the third party color inks( and even some very poor longevity for bw ) compared to the best oem sets on Aardenburg Imaging archives. Study those fade numbers.

2. Consistency of Production - cheap color inks like MIS and many others often vary in hue and saturation from batch to batch, which has the capability of driving you insane, having to reprofile everything over and over. Look there is no way some inexpensive Chinese made ink company is going to have a budget for the kind of precision quality control we constantly expect from Epson, Hp, and Canon. All I know is from my personal experience of making exhibition prints on a daily basis for 20 years, I’ve not once encountered an ink cart from the big three that is in anyway different from the one I just used up. If you think about it that’s pretty extraordinary. We take that for granted.  Issues with media, yes, but not inks. There are a lot of things I could and do whine about with these big companies, but pigment quality and consistency is not one of them.

3. Customer service reliability- I have to admit that I haven’t used many brands of these third party inks, actually only three, but the ones I have used not only exhibit  some quality control issues, but even worse is trying to find someone to replace the junk when it proves to be faulty or out of date. I know in the case of MIS I could never even find a way to talk to ANYONE about bad Ebony ink, bad ink carts that were junk, or color ink color drifts, the later being a long time ago. Last year when I bought some defective ink carts they wouldn’t even answer my email, if they even read it. I’m totally through with MIS and I wouldn’t expect most of these other newer 3rd party ink companies to be any better.

Now having said all this, Im sure there are some folks who don’t do work for other people and are perfectly happy to buy cheaper ink by the gallon and profile it, not worrying about how long the prints will last, and be perfectly happy as long as that batch of ink works. I’m just not one of those people.

John

Other way.  Canons are heated/thermal.  Epsons are piezo driven.

[lerxst]

Please stop trying to cheap out on ink and just pay what it costs. Life is much easier that way. If you can't afford OEM ink then do not buy a photo printer, use a print house instead.

[msoomro]

Thanks for all who chimed in.  I have printed for couple years then stopped and now printing bug has bitten me again. Never used 3rd party inks. But as I was researching to decide which printer to buy, most 3rd party I saw were supporting Epson hence the curiosity.

I am fully in agreement with lerxst. Printing for me is a fun hobby. I want to get the best possible output for my own personal gratification :-)

[Paul Roark]

Speaking only about black and white inksets, the Epson piezo electric heads are much more tolerant of viscosity and design differences than are the thermal heads of HP and Canon.  So, that gives me lots of flexibility in designing B&W inksets.  The more viscous inks can hold larger and more lightfast pigments in suspension longer.  I don't have to worry about cleaners in the ink to keep the heating element in a thermal head clean.  I can use Epson, Canon, HP, and third party inks in my designs.  Thus, while the Epson head is more expensive for them to make, for me it's way more flexible.  I experimented with a Canon once, and decided not to bother with the thermal head platforms.

The bottom line is that with Epson piezo heads and dedicated B&W inks, my ink costs are just over 1% of the OEM desktop ink in small cartridges costs.  The longevity of the carbon pigment is many times that of the best color inks.  For some lightfastness comparisons, see, for example, http://www.paulroark.com/BW-Info/7800-Glossy-Carbon-Variable-Tone-2016.pdf at page 13 (Appendix).

But I agree with the most of the other posts that for the best & most lightfast color, it's probably best to stick with the OEM inksets.  Note that I use Canon color pigments to "tone" my predominantly carbon pigment based B&W ink images.  (Also note that the Canon Pro inkset is not up to its Lucia EX inkset -- perhaps a sad commentary on the market.)  Those who care should pay attention to Aardenburg-Imaging tests.

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com
http://www.paulroark.com/BW-Info/

[Ferp]

This is one of those topics that is guaranteed to generate more heat than light. 

IMHO there are two classes of people who might consider 3rd party color pigment inks - those on a budget printing just for themselves who are unconcerned about longevity, and those producing high volume work for short-term display, which probably includes the direct-to-garment folk.  For the rest, OEM makes most sense.  I wouldn't print color for sale or for clients on anything other than OEM.  I wouldn't recommend 3rd party dye inks to anyone.

In the distant past I've made prints for myself using 3rd party color inks, and they're holding up fairly well.  I have no regrets.  My problem with 3rd party for the on-a-budget printer is not the inks but the carts.  It seems hard for the fabricators to make reliable refillable carts that don't infringe the patents.   You can waste a lot of time and money and materials if you get unlucky with refillable carts.  For such people, OEM will actually be cheaper.  Refillables are a gamble.

There's also the issue of specialty B&W pigment inksets.  A stronger case can be made for these, and I'm surprised that John didn't mention them.  There's still the question about whether their benefits are worth the battle with refillable carts.

[mearussi]

I find that a lot of my ink usage is in making the initial prototype prints. For this a color and density accurate 3rd party ink is useful as it keeps the costs down. Then when the print is finalized used OEM if you're wanting to sell it.

Of course, this requires having two separate printers, one for 3rd party and the other for OEM. For the larger printers this is not easy to do, but for the smaller less expensive printers this is not a problem as both initial cost and desk space requirements are less, the Canon Pro 100 is especially good for this. 

[pikeys]

I find that a lot of my ink usage is in making the initial prototype prints. For this a color and density accurate 3rd party ink is useful as it keeps the costs down. Then when the print is finalized used OEM if you're wanting to sell it.

Of course, this requires having two separate printers, one for 3rd party and the other for OEM. For the larger printers this is not easy to do, but for the smaller less expensive printers this is not a problem as both initial cost and desk space requirements are less, the Canon Pro 100 is especially good for this.

Yes,this is what I did..I bought the Canon pro-1 & the pro-10 ,and used PC inks,on the pro-1,OEM on the pro-10.
Anything I sold,was with the pro-10.,oem inks.
On almost every print I made,I'd do a very close comparison ,on what came out of both printers.
I found very little differences ,with my results.
Unfortunately,my pro-1 died a few months ago.so,I'm left with the pro-10,& love it.,an excellent printer.

[unesco]

For larger printers, A2 and bigger, answer is simple - Epson has direct ink lines from cartridge via pipes to print head. In case of Canon, there is a buffer in between, which would be very difficult to flush and clean once filled with OEM ink.
The story is different for smaller printers, and different type of print head technology plays more important role.