B40W ink problem

[Mattie]

I'll be fine now with B1100 and other printers, hopefully don't get any problems with B1100 haha

Thanks for all the help guys!!!!!!!

[bms]

Perhaps they should look for another entry-level A4 printer to support, then?

Or, failing that, they could support an entry-level A4 printer that doesn't rely on chips and doesn't need a CISS ... like, say, a Brother printer? :biggrin:

They already do - the Ricoh GXe3300n

All the new Epson printers are using the same chip set so it's not specific to the B42WD. Also, with the B1100 not being a great deal more expensive that the B42W and offering much more then I suppose there isn't huge pressure to get the B42WD supported!! Seriously though there is a huge after market for compatible cartridges so it won't be too long before some company manages to crack the code (and then Epson) will change the chip again and off we go again...

Canon never used to chip their cartridges, nor did HP, but do now so I wonder how long it will be before Brother follow suit.

[Ian M]

The S22 has the same problem & if you follow the link it will show how it has been overcome. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0252bmYCnvw

I'm with Jonathan in that Brother would be the way to go now.

[bms]

Good link Ian. It's getting more and more complicated with the Epson printers. Thankfully the Ricoh printers are easier to use.

[JSR]

Good link Ian. It's getting more and more complicated with the Epson printers. Thankfully the Ricoh printers are easier to use.

It's all well and good hailing the Ricoh "use someone else's ink and we'll hang you out to dry" Printers as the saviour of the industry, but that's avoiding the issue - not solving it.

Waving around Ricoh printers is like throwing a drowning man a life-preserver. Sure, it'll save his life, but he'd rather not be drowning in the first place! If Ricoh hadn't brought out their gelsprint printers, where would we be now? What printers would we be able to use our expensive Sawgrass ink in?

Most OEM printer manufacturers take the profits they make from the ink to develop and evolve their printers. That's why inkjet printers today are so much better than they were 15 years ago.

But the profits made from Sawgrass ink do not go into developing anything. We're still using the same ink in a B40W that was used in a 3000 some ten years ago - that's why the same ink can be used in all "supported" Epson printers of the last dozen or more years - there's no dye-sub ink that's been designed for a specific printer (if there was, we wouldn't need profiles). The printers have improved and been refined, with ever increasing quality of output, while the ink has stagnated.

And this brings up the other point - the reason for blockages. It's nothing to do with the printer, and everything to do with the ink. My own experiments have proven to me that dye-sub ink is quite a bit thicker than regular dye ink - that's why Epson printers have trouble pulling the ink through so frequently.

It's easy to see why this is. Back when the most popular dye-sub printer was the Epson Stylus Colour 3000, they used a fixed droplet size so big that, unlike today, they didn't specify it. Some say that it was over 20pl - presumably with nozzles in the printhead so big you could drive a bus through them. Today, even the most budget-end printer has a droplet size below 2pl with more nozzles on the printhead than you could wave a stick at.

It's a wonder they don't "clog" more often - most often the "clogging" isn't clogging anyway, it's an air lock caused either by the (large) ink particles settling or the inability of the tiny ink pumps to draw the sludge that is dye-sub ink through the printhead. Ramming the ink through the printhead at a much higher pressure (which is essentially what the Ricohs do, I believe) isn't the solution to the problem, it's hiding a problem that'll come back to bite us real hard when Ricoh printers become as difficult to "adapt"/"support" as the Epson ones are becoming.

If those who held the monopoly on dye-sublimation ink, those who make the vast profits from it, designed their own printer suited to their own ink we wouldn't be in this situation. We wouldn't be held ransom to Epson and their tricky chips; we wouldn't be a slave to Ricoh's whims; and we wouldn't all be at the mercy of printers that are not suited to the ink.

Ideally, we'd have a choice of three printers designed for dye-sub ink - 8.5", 13", and 17" - each with large chipless and refillable stationary cartridges (of 100ml capacity), all capable of handing roll-paper, and all with user-replaceable affordable printheads.

If that happened, dye-sub for small businesses would become a proper industry and not this mickey-mouse situation we're currently kept in by a monopolistic supplier of dye-sub ink.

[bms]

Quite agree, but back to reality...

[JSR]

Quite agree, but back to reality...

Sadly, most of the above is reality. It's no wonder more and more people are seeking alternatives outside of the restricted boundaries imposed on us.

There's a discussion on another forum about Sawgrass' patent being due to expire within a few years. Apparently in the US, the patent only lasts for 17 years from issue (or 20 years from filing these days). Soon we'll be able to "legally" obtain ink from whomever we like at a price that doesn't cripple us.

I bet it won't be that easy, though. Sawgrass have so many patents that they'll muddy the waters for as long as possible. I just hope there's some enterprising dye-sub ink manufacturer out there who's on the ball, waiting to pounce when the day comes. Who's betting that, if/when that day comes, Sawgrass will suddenly stop producing dye-sub ink - because it won't be profitable enough (instead they'll focus on ChromaBlast, or whatever others they're working on).

That'll be handy for everyone who's bought Ricoh printers that can only have Sawgrass' cartridges used in them. At least those who are using Epson printers, or that are working on alternatives, can just "fill up a cartridge/CISS and print". How "easy" will Ricoh printers be, then? Maybe Ricoh isn't such a wise investment for the long-term user after all... Tying yourself to one supplier doesn't make business sense because your business dies with theirs.

The silly thing is that I wouldn't mind the huge cost of Artanium ink, if I knew we were getting something back for it. After all, paying £20 a cartridge for my Epson Stylus Color 600 back in the 90s meant that we eventually saw printers as fantastic as the Epson R1800 and Ultrachrome inksets. The profits went somewhere that benefited us all. The same isn't true of dye-sub ink.

[Ian M]

Good link Ian. It's getting more and more complicated with the Epson printers. Thankfully the Ricoh printers are easier to use.

Thanks Martin. I have to agree that it does seem more & more people are now using the Ricoh printers & most do seem very happy with the results they are getting from them.

I do however have to agree with everything Jonathan says & I'm another one that is wondering if time will come fairly soon when Sawgrass decides to just go down the gel ink route. This leaves me to think that if they did this it might be a bit difficult for them to uphold their patent in a court. The reason being is if they were just supplying ink for the Ricoh printers & not supporting the printers that use a more viscous type of dye sub ink that would then bring doubt into their case. As we all know the only way to any successful prosecution is to prove beyond all reasonable doubt to the court.

As most will know I have been using a very good third party ink for sometime now with stunning results but, the best bit is since using this ink I haven't had one blockage ever. The company I get it from says they have other customers who report the same as me too. This does make me now wonder if their ink has advanced much more that the ink from Sawgrass.

I think we all have to admit that Epson are changing their printers at what to me has become quite an alarming rate & I can understand why as they want to try to keep ahead of the third party ink & cartridge suppliers. As Jonathan says it is the replacement ink that companies such as Epson make their profits with & no company wants to see their profits deminish. It was about six years ago when I spoke to an engineer from HP & he told me that they were looking at ways that if you refilled one of their tri-colour cartridges one of the colours would become blocked rendering that cartridge useless. Let's face it Epson will know what some models of their printers are being used for & will be only to aware of the patents Sawgrass have. Thing that gets me is why Epson & Sawgrass don't work together on a couple of printers just for the dye sub market.

As for someone getting around the new S22 chip problem with that USB device that poses a couple of questions for me. The first is how many more USB ports are we going to need on our PC's to connect all this hardware up? The second one is if they have a third party system such as on the link I posted working why haven't they done the same for the B42W as it was released some 7 months ago. No doubt they'll be someone in China right now trying to come up with something.

I like Jonathan do think the time is now right for a company such as Brother to step in with their printers. Let's face it they have been producing some quite good DTG machines for a number of years now. It is time we did move forward & looked at a new alternative to what we have been using for such a long time now.

[JSR]

The S22 has the same problem & if you follow the link it will show how it has been overcome. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0252bmYCnvw

I've just watched this.

It's clear that someone has put a lot of effort into working out how to get the CISS to work. I just wish we saw as much enthusiasm to help the customer from the manufacturer of "supported" ink.

Personally, I prefer a system where no CISS is required but, if I didn't, it's reassuring to know that there are people with the ingenuity and desire to give us options. And they're the ones who don't make vast fortunes from over priced expensive ink.

[Matt Quinn]

My main business is video production - I'm a broadcast cameraman/producer by 'trade'. That grew out of an interest in stills photography, and I've come 'full circle' to the extent of being involved in commercial, editorial and fine-art photography for many years. The latter of course being an industry that has seen MASSIVE changes with the advent of digital cameras and the near-disappearance of the traditional darkroom.

Many of the above issues surrounding printers affect the photographic industry too... Though it has been far easier for third-party manufacturers to produce inks that properly exploit the capabilities of 'inkjet' printers in that context; you'll find both photographers and artists involved in gicleé printing agonising over the many of the same issues of compatibility, profiling etc...

Having very recently decided to explore Dye-sub techniques to see if they offer anything for my own business I have to say I've been disappointed by the ink suppliers... My main interest is in printing to glass and ceramics. And I'm left wondering how serious Sawgrass actually are about the future of their technology.

I bought my first batch of (third party) Dye-Sub ink the other day. And visually it's clear that it will have severe limitations. Apparently closer to the erroneous 'primary school primaries' of Red Blue and Yellow rather than proper process colours obviously colour gamut will be seriously limited... Likewise the viscosity of the inks DOES seem highly likely to cause issues. - To the point I wondered what solvent might be added to thin it slightly.

I've examined the 'raw' Sawgrass inks too, and subjectively they look worse... That's no scientific opinion of course; but I DID wonder what the heck I am buying into! the stuff looked more like something you'd put in a fountain pen than an inkjet printer!

Indeed I was reminded VERY much of the early days of colour inkjets when we first explored printing our own short-run VHS sleeves, and the difficulties we had rendering 'decent' phototographic images comparable with what you'd see on a mainstream commercial product. - My recollection is that progress was made via the interaction of people from the printing industry, electronics enthusiasts and photographers to find ways of refilling cartridges, 'fool' the electronics and develop mixes of existing dyestuff that eventually evolved into useable systems... Quickly picked up by those involved in traditional print and photography.

I'm really NOT convinced by the argument that the profits from ink sales have driven improvements in printer technology. On the consumer side it's VERY common for an inkset to cost almost as much (if not more) than the actual printer. The net result is that these machines become pretty-much disposable with all that implies in terms of wasted resource, pollution etc... More savvy consumers go for the after-market third party inksets with varying results...

The net result of all this is an esentially self-anihilating market for printers... I also lecture a couple of days a week and it's surprisingly common to find that students don't have a printer at home - or if they do the cost of ink prevented them refilling it and it langushes under a desk. Likewise I can think of no acquaintance, who uses their computer only in a domestic context, that actually has a working printer...

The ink is too dear generally and, by the time the user gets round to replacing it the machine is often apparently 'dead' due to dried out ink paths or damaged (dirty contacts usually) cartridge connectors.

- Of course there is a demand from the entusiast/semi-pro/professional market. And I believe progress lead by people within those sectors coupled to demands for improved machines have primarily forced the hands of printer manufacturers to 'keep up'. Even so, we are all, in general, ill-served by the rip-off cost of ink, attempts to railroad us into using only OEM cartridges and the largely irresponsible avenue of building and selling entire printers that are more or less meant to be disposable...

There must then surely be a market for more robust, modular 'semi pro' printers designed to last, be economically repairable, and able to be fed with a variety of specialist inks? Though well beyond the limits of my own knowledge of electronics and fabrication skills it is not unfeasible for a good engineer to Construct such a device. - Or for that matter develop replacement electronics that worked with an existing printer chassis.

At the end of the day we seem to have TWO issues... Sawgrass, who cornered the market, used it as a cash cow (by bleeding it to death) and (IMHO) deserve everything they get from the competition. And printer manufacturers who have no interest in a sustainable market.

The sooner alternatives are found for both the better! The reality is that none of these outfits are there to do anyone but themselves any favours.