Durabrite ink, compatible durabrite ink and ciss

[jimsters]

hi,
i have a printer that takes durabrite ink, epson dx7400

im trying to find out about durabrite.
can you get compatibles with durabrite ink in?
can you buy big refill durabrite inks?
can you run durabrite inks through a ciss (if you can buy the big refills?)

or do you have to get the epson originals?

thanks

[jimsters]

hi, just to add, this is for printing onto printable flex and it says to use Durabright or Ultrachrome inks.
durabright seems to be listed as durabrite and there seems to be inks for the s22, dx7400 etc.
ultrachrome inks seem to be more expensive and for more specific printers?

[DREAMGLASS]

Durabrite is a pigment ink, that it supposed to have a print life of several decades, although the substrate it is printed on will have a significant impact on the print life.

There are compatible inks available from third parties and whilst Epson will say other inks can damage your printer, they have indeed taken some of the other ink manufacturers to court for producing formulations that are virtually identical, so figure that one out. I have always used third party inks, that have created good results and never damaged any of my printers. The ones pushing the virtues of OEM inks are usually the ones selling it.

[jimsters]

thanks for the reply. so are all compatible inks pigment inks, and therefore just the same as durabrite inks?
ive used compatibles for years in a number of different epson printers, however im still not sure on the durabrite issue

thanks

[DREAMGLASS]

No some inks are dye based. Pigment ink is generally thought of as being more waterproof, although having said that I have printed up test pieces of inkjet transfers using both pigment and dye based inks with no difference in results after a dozen or so test washes.

If you need the archival quality of something lasting for decades, then go for high quality inks, for regular print work though. a decent quality pigment ink should tick all the boxes.

[bms]

Durabrite is the name Epson give for their inks in these particular printers and most compatible brands of cartridges tend to use dye based ink. A printer designed for printing with durabrite (or pigmented inks) will print happily with dye based inks and for ordinary printing compatibles are fine. If you print on to printable flex with a dye based ink then the image will look like it been printed on blotting paper - it will go fuzzy at the edges so don't use compatibles for that product.

Ultrachrome ink is a pigmented ink but the Ultrachrome generic name is often used in the larger format Epson printers, but not all Ultrachrome inks are the same. There are K3 Ultrachrome inks for Epsons, Ultrachrome, Ultrachrome Pro and so on.

The problem with buying a general pigmented ink is that it might clog your printer (and very quickly), hence the reason why most compatibles use dye based inks.

[jimsters]

hi, so just to confirm, if i want to print onto printable flock then its best to use genuine epson durabrite cartridges that come with the dx7400, s22 etc and not to use a ciss or compatibles.

thanks for the help

[bms]

hi, so just to confirm, if i want to print onto printable flock then its best to use genuine epson durabrite cartridges that come with the dx7400, s22 etc and not to use a ciss or compatibles.

I don't think there is such a thing as printable flock - there is sublimation flock where you print onto sublimation paper and heat press that onto the subli-flock. If you're going to use printable flex then yes use the genuine durabrite ink cartridges.

[jimsters]

hi, sorry yes i meant printable flex.
thanks

[JSR]

Pigment inks generally have a smaller colour gamut (range of colours a given number of inks can produce) than dye-based inks because pigment ink consists of resin-encapsulated solid particles.

To make multiple colours from dye ink, you can lay ink on top of each other. To make multiple colours from pigment ink, the droplets have to sit next to each other (so a tiny droplet size is required for best results).

Durabrite was originally Epson's pigment solution for office printers to replace dye-based ink - primarily because dye ink has notoriously short fade-resistant properties while pigments have inherently long fade-resistant properties. Durabrite wasn't really any good for photos and it had a bad habit of clogging. Epson received many complaints which made them reformulate the inks into Durabrite Ultra, which clogs less and is better for photos.

Durabrite was a subset of Ultrachrome. Ultrachrome was where Epson's real R&D into pigment inks was going. Ultrachrome comes in two varieties - Ultrachrome HiGloss and Ultrachrome K3.

Unlike dye inks which soak into the paper, pigments tend to sit on top of the paper. This has traditionally caused a gloss differential between the gloss of the resin-encapsulated pigment particles and the inherent gloss of the paper. To eliminate this gloss differential, "Ultrachrome HiGloss" inksets incorporate a gloss optimiser, which is effectively a transparent ink laid down in areas of little/no ink coverage. This gives the whole photos a consistent gloss.

"Ultrachrome K3" is an inkset that incorporates several shades of black ink to produce the best and most neutral greyscale prints. The inkset doesn't have a gloss optimiser and so is best suited to matte prints. The lightest black ink can be used to perform the same task as the gloss optimiser for black & white gloss prints.

To make up for the relatively small colour gamut of pigment inks, the Ultrachrome HiGloss inksets include additional non-standard colours to combat the weakest areas of the gamut and tiny droplet size to negate the requirement for the traditional "light cyan" and "light magenta" inks that are used in a dye-based inkset. "Ultrachrome K3" uses the traditional light inks and a larger droplet size.

Durabrite inks were not originally intended for photographic printing and, although the inkset was improved after complaints, Epson quickly moved back to a dye-based inkset with their much improved Claria inkset for their mid-range printers, leaving Durabrite only for the entry-level printers. With the advent of Claria, I'm surprised Durabrite is still around.

I hope this helps clarify the differences between the inksets in Epson printers.