Why does my colour ink go down when I don't print in colour!!!?

[Arthur Entlich]

I'd be quite surprised that it is a cartel. They use very differing
technologies and designs and although there may be some collusion
regarding business model used, they seem to be fiercely competitive in
terms of technologies and designs.

Art

 

[Arthur Entlich]

Right now anyone who is making a lot of 4x6" prints at home (and I
question somewhat the logic of that since here in Canada the cost of a
downloaded digital print is between $.20 and $29 cents each from a real
wet lab) the best inkjet alternative is the Epson PictureMate. This
unit takes up almost no desk space, and is designed to take a printer
set inclusive of a cartridge and 100 sheets of 4x6 glossy paper for
about $39 US or less )or $.39 per print). It is guaranteed by Epson
that should you run out of ink prior to the paper, just send back the
extra paper to them, and they will refund you $.39 each blank paper.

The main advantage is this uses Ultrachrome inks, which are archival and
glossy.

The printer cannot print larger than 4 x 6" so that is what is designed
to do, and that's all.

Art

 

[Arthur Entlich]

Exactly.

Diamonds are sold by cartels. The stones are nearly a dime a dozen in
availability and can be produced synthetically so no one can tell the
difference... what keeps the price up is the very limited distribution
of the stones, advertising campaigns that suggest "diamonds are forever"
and should not be resold, that having stones rest and used by others is
"bad luck" etc.

If inket printers were produced by cartels, few of us would be able to
afford them.

Art

 

[Bob Headrick]

These generalizations are just that. Just about every Epson and HP printer
model use different ink cartridges holding differing amounts of ink. The
Epson inks should, in theory, go further per liquid measure, because they do
not need to be boiled or heated to be printed with.

This is a bit misleading - the ink is not boiled away in the HP design. A tiny
layer of ink is vaporized, pushing the ink droplet out the nozzles. The vapor
bubble very quickly collapses back into liquid inside the printhead.

The pages per ml will be more strongly impacted by the dye (or pigment) loads,
the dot gains of the particular ink and media, the print modes (how the ink is
applied, how it is layered to make millions of colors, etc). Servicing also
has a large impact on real pages out. Different systems have different method
and requirements for the amount and frequency of servicing required.

From the customer standpoint the important factors are not drops per ml but
pages per $ (or insert local currency here) and perhaps pages per cartridge
which takes into account the inconvenience of having to replace cartridges..
Currently this is a bit difficult to compare without some homework, as
different manufacturers use different test methods, samples and definitions.
One manufacturer specifies a 5% page, but the fine print notes that the
8.5"x11" page has 1" borders on all four sides - the are printed at 5% is only
a 6.5" x 9" page. There is currently an ISO standard being developed that will
allow more direct comparisons of page yields, with controlled standards and
reporting methods. This effort is currently expected to be ratified by the end
of 2005.

Regards,
Bob Headrick, not speaking or my employer HP

 

[measekite]

I disagree. Most of the non hobbiest users know little about
computers. They buy a printer that will not only print photos but
letters and other things they develop. They only want one printer.
They print photos because they want the convenience and they do indeed
pay for the convenience.

Those who have digital cameras are recognizing that they can get very
good pics by taking a lot of them. Then they only print the best of
what their ability can do. Most are printing 4x6 and putting them in an
album. Some do a letter size to hand. Keep in mind that these are not
the same type of people you run into in this newsgroup.

 

[measekite]

Exactly.

Diamonds are sold by cartels. The stones are nearly a dime a dozen in
availability and can be produced synthetically so no one can tell the
difference... what keeps the price up is the very limited distribution
of the stones, advertising campaigns that suggest "diamonds are
forever" and should not be resold, that having stones rest and used by
others is "bad luck" etc.

If inket printers were produced by cartels, few of us would be able to
afford them.

Hey now Arthur, well all buy gas for our cars that are controlled by
cartels who rip us off without a kiss. :'(

 

[Burt]

lArt - Precutting Costco Kirkland paper into 4x6 sheets (fairly fast to cut
a whole box while watching a dumb tv program or the evening news) and using
aftermarket refill inks is still much cheaper than the download or kiosk
print. Three 4x6 sheets per page = 5 cents US for the paper and a few
pennies for the ink. I have two i960 canon printers. One has the original
OEM carts and the other has MIS ink in MIS virgin carts (100% MIS ink). I
did a few of the same prints on both printers to see how the colors compared
yesterday and I virtually couldn't tell them apart. I like printing at home
for the control and immediacy. People are amazed at the quality of the
prints as they compare favorably in appearance with lab prints. Fading may
eventually be an issue, but the pictures we want to preserve are under glass
or in albums and will probably do well for a long, long time.

 

[Arthur Entlich]

I agree with most of your comments. Ultimately, we need a standard that
is agreed upon within the industry, and that should have happened long
ago, IMHO.

I was wondering, however, about one thing in your explanation, regarding
how the thermal technology works in terms of projecting the ink forward.
I understand that the ink is heated "behind" the most forward liquid
ink column to a point where the solvents are vaporized, to create an
expanding gas to propel the ink in front of it forward and out the
nozzle, but then what happens to that heated gas bubble? Does it have
enough time to get cooled so it goes back through change of state into
liquid form so there is no evaporation of the ink components? I could
see how that might work if the heating point is far enough behind the
ink column.

I find the description you provided on one manufacturer's 5% standard
amazing, well maybe outrageous would be a better term! The 5% (per
color) measurement is reasonable, I suppose, since many manufacturers
have used this as a standard, but I had no idea that anyone was
interpreting that 5% coverage to only be in a margined restricted area.
That seems quite "creative" shall we say, (I'd use the word
misleading). With those "standards" a manufacturer could decide the
area of 5% coverage could be as large or small as they wished. How
about a real 5% coverage over the full paper. Then, if some
manufacturer preferred to use a sample that was 10% coverage over 50% of
the area it would still be the same thing (or nearly so) if they felt
that more accurately represented the usage their clients would have.
Allowing manufacturers to decide the area of the paper that would
contain the 5% coverage of a letter sized page is not any sort of
standard, and makes the whole comparative process a bit of a joke.

And, as others have mentioned, some type of long range study should be
done to include and average initial purge, cleaning cycles, cartridge
change cycles, individual ink cartridges versus ganged cartridges,
quality of text or image, and so on, so we, as consumers, can get some
realistic numbers to evaluate.

This is similar to the problem that occurred with flatbed scanners and
"resolution" where some manufacturers would use outrageous interpolated
number to advertise the resolution of the scanner. HP was one of the
companies that handled this one properly and conservatively, using
interpolated numbers no higher than twice optical, and I commended then
for their honest use of the numbers. Some companies literally suggested
interpolated resolution values of 10 x the optical, which anyone who
understands interpolation, recognizes completely degrades the image,
since that type of interpolation brings in massive errors.


Art

 

[Arthur Entlich]

I regularly run into people who are trying to decide on a inkjet printer
in stores. I ask what their intended use is, and I often suggest they
buy a laser monochrome when they tell me they want to make photos at
home and have no knowledge of printing color images and aren't
interested in learning about it either. I suggest they use local photo
labs, and save some money doing so.

And, BTW, for the people who still want a color inkjet printer, I have
probably pointed them as often to other brands as to Epson, depending
upon their needs and proclivities.

Art

 

[Fablanta]

I own an Epson R200.

Over 90% of my printing is just black text.
I have printed less than 25 colour (colour & text setting on matte
paper) pages.
My printer is always on.

Three days ago my light cyan started flagging up less than 20% left
and today, after printing only in black during the intervening period,
my yellow has started to be flagged as running low so it can't be due
to startup usage.

I feel cheated. I might as well have printed everything in colour.

DkA

 

[Arthur Entlich]

Your printer does purge cycles if you turn it on and off or not. They
are times into the firmware. Your printer has one purge pump and one
cleaning station. All the heads are purged together. The purging
process uses less ink that printing "all your documents in color" but
you have a color printer there, and it is designed for printing in color.

The very first set of ink cartridges uses up a fair amount of ink on the
very first set-up purge. The heads are purged of both air and a special
liquid that is used to keep the heads in good shape while in storage.
Your next set of cartridges will last longer, but you might as well do
some color printing if you have a color printer. If you only print in
black and white, I suggest a laser printer for speed, cost and image
permanence.

You do mention you did some color printing. Photo images use up quite a
bit of ink.

Art