[coastie65]

Hey SPIKEMAN, You know one thing that was never mentioned and it is a very important part of the manufacturing process. That is Q&A. In mass manufacturing, not everything comes off at 100% and it is the job of a good Q&A program to stay on top of what's coming off the line. I just recently bought a 42" HDTV. The first one they delivered was unpacked, setup, and plugged in. When they hit the switch........nothing. They ended up unceremoniously dumping the thing back in the box and taking it back. They brought another one out that did work. That first one should never have cleared Q&A, but did. What I'm saying is, before you trash the product, you might want to check and see if there have been a lot of complaints, or if a lot of people have been satisfied with the product. If the latter, then something might have slipped through Q&A.

Been a while since I've enjoyed the Vegas heat. Now that I got a new digital camera, a run through Valley of Fire State Park, would be nice place to get some pics. Got some shots from there with an old clunker camera. Also went down to Goodsprings to see the old Pioneer Saloon there. I think the Casinos have figured a way to turn up the heat to keep the people inside. :^0 coastie

[coastie65]

Hey byteguy, :D When it comes to printing Photos, I don't think it matters which brand of printer you have, they all blow through ink. :D coastie

[free2speak]

In the beginning.

I had an Amiga computer back in 1987 so I wanted to print color photos. Dot-Matrix ruled the day with a few people lusting for expensive laser printers. I had a choice of an expensive Xerox inkjet, or an expensive HP Paintjet. I purchased the HP Painjet for $1,120, and the Paintjet also had to use an expensive clay coated paper which prevented bleeding and fading. There was a significant difference between high quality HP coated paper and other papers. I used the Paintjet for at least 10 years before HP stopped making the ink. I replaced the Paintjet with a HP 952C for $365 which is also now near 10 years old. The HP 952C can use many different papers, but the ink is expensive. For me the print quality is always very high with HP ink since 1987. Two printers, 20 years, and zero failures is my HP inkjet experience, I treat my printer like a precision instrument which it is because high quality print means everything has to work together perfectly. Today manufacturers give away a cheap printer and charge you for expensive ink, but consumers don't really show up to ask for expensive printers with cheap ink do they? I read recently that Kodak has released its new printers with less expensive ink so maybe you should reward a company that is doing what you asked for. I recycle all of my ink cartridges. The viscosity and pigment would logically both make a difference in print performance. The oil to ink comparison does make sense on some levels. Too thin or too thick oil makes all the difference. The different additives that make an oil perform different too. But the most important thing is oil is a SAE standard to buy the correct oil for your engine. Any oil that meets the standard can be used, but the formula will be different. This is where printers are different because there is no ink standard. The manufacturers all use proprietary technology to maintain quality and keep the customers coming back for more ink. Until there is an ink standard I will continue to use the manufacturer recommended ink for my printer just like I use the proper oil in my car.

[SPIKEMAN]

You are correct! None of the duds should have ever left the factory!! However, As You know, big business will push the limit to the very edge to make the almity bucks! In Mfg, the bad thing is spot testing! Run the assembly line full tilt, check about one out of a given amount sometimes as high as 100. If it is ok, blast away man, keep it rolling. If not, a few more are checked for min specs! Soon as the min spec is achieved, out the door! In electronics, the bad thing is something can go wrong anywhere in the product line, from assy, to pkgng. Then, when it is delivered, anyone that can carry it is allowed to deliver. My new Mitsubishi 62" was delivered and sat on the cab. When ask to show me how it works, they turned it on and the screen lit up, that is as far as they could go! Had to drag out the manual and figure it all out myself! Glad they didn't mess with it, possibly could have done more dammage than good! Maybe this is what is happening in the ink industry! All the handlers need to be educated how to be sure everything is in normal condition before it is put in the box! Sure glad I went to the CISS unit! Don't have to worry about the cartridges any more, all the cost, mess, problems, etc. Gone! Saving Much more on it than refilled carts.

If you do get out this way, don't miss Bryce Canyon! It is very beautiful, lots of beautiful red spires, canyons and scenes only you can enjoy by being there! I have been there once, got some beautiful photos. Sent one to a contest, they refused it as they thought I had photographed an original photo somewhere! This sure ticked me off, one of the best scenes with proper tones etc and they rejected it on unchecked grounds!

Have a great 4th,

SPIKEMAN

[SPIKEMAN]

BARTBY,



This is a great forum, lots of info mostly correct. I agree, most of the mfg. is done without too much quality control. Would love to drop in on some of the big plants where there is a production line running and have a chance to inspect the quality of the workmanship! I have worked on Prod. lines and know some about the process. The line must run regardless! This is a waste of time, material, workmanship, money and who knows what else? I ask the Lead man about a bad part that came down the line without half the parts and not formed correctly, what was going to be done with the bad parts, Trash, lots of money lost there!

With the ink situation, most of the bad carts should be returned to place of purchase! Let them eat the bad ones! On my printers, I have proven which is bad when I was useing them!

More later. Happy 4th

SPIKEMAN

[coastie65]

Hey, If my memory serves, Okidata had a color printer (ribbon) around that time. I had a Commodore 128 at that time :p . Actually I still have that thing. I remember that the color printers were the ultimate thing to have at that time. coastie

[free2speak]

Coastie you are absolutely correct there was an Okidata color ribbon dot-matrix printer at the time. The dot-matrix would have been less expensive, but for printing computer graphics the inkjet was better. There was also a few expensive dye-sub printers too, but they were not good overall printers like the HP Paintjet. I used to print Amiga image processing 9x9 of z-fold sheets to fill my walls with images. I had fun and used a lot of ink and paper. Today I print what I need to, and settle for smaller higher quality images. I chose the inkjet because the print quality was better. The dot-matrix printer died and pretty much everyone uses color inkjet today.

[coastie65]

Hey SPIKEMAN, When I left the service in '69, my first job was with GE in their Numerical Equipment Control Division. We built controls to run machine tools. By todays standards, those things were primative. No floppies or CD's for storage. The programming was done by a punched paper tape or punched cards. There was the rare one that had reel to reel magnetic tape though. In those days, nothing left until it had gone through a complete testing that lasted for a week, or longer if a problem cropped up. In my last production job, actually my last job, I worked for a company that built trucks for utility companies. I was in Body Fabrication. They would always cut extra blanks (over run) for the body parts for "Set Up'" pieces. I would program the machine from the layout and then check the first piece. If it was right then I would save the program to a 5 1/4" floppy disk. Anyway, even with a "tried" program, you were still supposed to check the first piece and about every tenth piece thereafter. As is usually the case you had some that would just run the parts and not check squat, or as was usually the case, check it and say "close enough", even if it was too far out of spec. I have heard comments like "they can make it fit". It took me a while to convince the management that we needed an inspection process throughout the manufacturing process instead of just the final inspection before delivery. Parts that were no good went into a big tub, and when it was full it would go the the recycling place and we got so much per pound for the scrap. It only went a small way in offsetting the loss though. That is a problem when you get employees that could care less and are there to draw a paycheck, and is probably prevalent in manufacturing today. coastie

[coastie65]

Hey, I remember when Commodore bought Amiga. At the time, Amiga was considered the Top Of the Line Graphics computer. coastie

[free2speak]

Yes, Amiga was a magical little computer at the time. Computer graphics, animation, video, multi-media, multi-tasking, multiple co-processors, stereo sound, speech synthesis, all in as little as 1MB of memory. Over 13 years and 3 Amigas I had a lot of fun.

[coastie65]

Yeah, as I recall, the story was that Amiga was the computer of choice for the Hollywood SFX depts. coastie

[Bartylby]

"I ask the Lead man
about a bad part that came down the line without half the parts and not
formed correctly, what was going to be done with the bad parts, Trash,
lots of money lost there!"

Very true spikeman...

There is a huge amount of waste regarding quality control. OEM may recycle the plastic and other bits, but the energy has been spent and the plastic used cannot be remolded in-house. So all the energy is wasted which they still have to pay for and with today's tech is usually fossil fuel. When WE run into a "stubborn" cartridge, it simply goes back to the beginning of the process and most times passes. ALL our cartridges that fail any part of our process is recycled to its core. We sell the plastic and metal to companies that specialize in reclaiming these materials to be reused somewhere else. OH...and when you send the cartridges back to OEM in their little recycling envelopes, they may again recycle the materials, but the cartridge is taken out of service and destroyed...hence keeping the price of "new" ones higher because the energy, postage, man hours (or machine hours) it takes to keep them from the remanufactures market. I am not totally against OEM...just their wasteful practices at the EXPENSE OF US ALL. Believe it not...if OEM changed their thinking to a more green mentality and really, REALLY Reduce, Reuse and Recycle they would put third party remanufactures out of business...which would be fine by me. Think about that for a moment...OEM could recycle these easily, make a very good "HP GEN2" cartridge that would be cheaper to make, cheaper to buy and make them a lot more money. It would change the whole technology. You could even see "GEN5". People could have a choice...like with cars...buy new or buy certified used. They simply don't want to right now. This is a big problem with old fashioned businesses of any type that disregard the environment for profit. One day, we'll all look back and say "OOPS"! Including the people that let it happen or accelerated the process. This is why I remanufacture these things. This is why I even collect cell phones, PDA and old PCs...I don't want to say "OOPS!"

[SPIKEMAN]

Very interesting Bartylby!

As far as I have gone in working with cartridges is to try to clean them and decipher which chamber is at fault. Sometimes, I could get it to work properly. Most likely it would not. Just a lot of time wasted. I am very interested in seeing what is in the outlet section that meters the ink prior to the outlet tube. Appears to be some sort of material that allows slow movement of fluids. However, as I said above, I have not opened one to really find out. Once I started using the CISS units, I didn't have a need to continue so I dropped the reasearch that I was doing and never got back to it. Curosity killed the cat! I am still interested in the engineering aspect. I was planning on trying an experiment with tiny holes #60 or smaller. Just didn't get to it . Now I just wonder if it would have worked! If You know, would appreciate the info to satisfy my curiosity!. I'll never go back to cartridges again! They are a headache to me! My experience with CISS units have made a believer out of me.

I can understand why some of the posts are prone to keeping OEM inks, however, if that makes them a better output and no other interest is there, More luck to them! Some people, (My Son In Law for One), don't like to have to tweak a system to get it working just right. If it don't work first time, the interest is gone! I don't feel this way. If it was worth designing and maufacturing, at least it is worth giving it a chance to work! A few tweaks here and there always have worked for me! Sometimes I even get it to working better than the specs call for. This is what I try to achieve. With the changes I made to my CISS unit, it has been working perfectly for almost 2 years with out a burp of any kind! I print lots of photos etc.

I assume You are in the recycle cartridge business from the conversation of the posts. It must be a lucrative business! Most of the OEM cartridges are only about half used up when they are required to change them out. What goes with the extra ink? Could it be salvaged and reused? As long as it is not contaminated with any thing or other ink, it shouls be ok. It may not be legal to resell it but for home use, I have reused lots of "supposedly empty " cargridge remaining ink!

Is there a simple method to remove the tops of the cartridges and reseal them? I would think this would be a major task! As stated above, My curiosity runs wild sometimes! Now that I am retired and not active in anything, I like to do things just to satisfy my own curiosity. I'm sure if You have the time that You probably feel the same way about certain things and different functions which are unique.

Happy 4th, (rest of it)

SPIKEMAN

[gawami]

I like the Canon printers with 3rd party inks so much I bought three i860's and use them constantly. I also have been using Stratitec inks for all refills since I filled the first tank and have never had a problem such as the examples shown in this article. After 3-4 years, I had to buy 1 new print head and that's the only maintenance required on the three printers and they still print photos, letters, graphics, etc. beautifully.

[advoc8]

Yes, Canon printers are fine for refilling. As for your chosen brand of refill ink, how does it compare on color match to Canon inks and Have you put a print in the window with daily sun exposure of at least 5 to 20 days with foil over half to check it for fade resistance? Let me know your results so I don't have to buy the ink to test it myself. Of the three inks I tested from eBay sellers, Calidad is best in both categories (color match and fade resistance for photos) but some refill inks are horrible in one or both areas. The two other inks I bought on eBay which I tired were "D'Printer's Ink which is heavy on the red and faded terribly. Some inks with heavy red look awesome in many scenic shots but are a bit much for some skin tones. I added a shot of their red ink for sprinting a couple of scenic photos for a photo contest and they look great, but are printed double heavy on matte paper which will also help them resist some fading and they won't be exposed to light or air before the contest anyway. The other ink (I don't know who makes it, but I bought it from T.S.I.S. City of Industry, CA) but it comes in cartridges in a red and white generic glossy nice looking boxes with no company listed anywhere. It looks great on printing and photos even though not a perfect color match to Canon and the fade rate was not too bad but not as good as Canon or Calidad. Calidad just doesn't come in bottles for bulk refills or doing a CISS. How does your ink rate compared to this - I'm thinking getting a CISS (continuous ink supply system).

[gawami]

Advoc8, I haven't checked the color match with Canon ior any other nks, I just like the way these cheap ink pictures look - very true to life for me. Also, although I have pictures on the wall that are about 4 years old and still look great, I have not done a fade test. So, I just printed out a picture of fallen leaves with lots of green, yellow, brown and reds. I'll put it in the direct sun in a baggie for the next week to see what happens.... good suggestion. I'll report back at the end of the test and let you know how stable they look about the 12th of July. Unfortunately, I haven't had Canon ink in my printers for 4 years so don't have a direct comparison; this will just be a stand alone fade test.

[advoc8]

You're right - color match with refill inks may be nice, BUT, your prints having a pleasing look is the real key and bottom line. I notice the refills you use are universal ink, which can have viscosity problems for some printers, but obviously not with your printers for the last 4 years. This may affect print quality too. Another problem often present with universal inks is that they may fade more (more solvents to ensure high viscosity), but not necessarily. Behind glass/plastic and away from strong light those prints may do fine. Universal inks may work better and look better with one brand of printer than another. I noticed that the company you use breaks down their black pigment-based inks (thicker, can clog easier) by brand of printer (not universal inks) so as to be able to manipulate viscosity specifically for each brand.

[advoc8]

BTW, I did order one pigmented black ink, which my canon mp530 uses for great quality text rpinting, which cost extra since it is "Ultra Black," which I need for all the fliers I print. I want the lettering to look sharp, crisp black. It was garbage ink (from Atlas Copy) and was the grayest looking pigmented black I've tested. Canon is great for their PGI-5bk pigmented black, and Calidad is exceptional! InkTek is OK on their PGI-5bk ink, but their color dye-based inks fade badly even though they are a great color match to Canon inks.

[Bartylby]

I hope everyone had a great and safe Fourth!

Spikeman,

Unless you're not for profit (and then I even wonder) most businesses are in business to make money...I am glad that I can accomplish BOTH tasks...make some green while being green. I agree with the leftover ink thing. I have several theories about it. First and foremost being the ink "monitoring" system's low ink threshold is set in such a way as to keep you buying more ink (another wasteful practice) when there is still life in the unit. Just be mindful of the "burnout" factor. I have not done a comparison of the different OEMs monitoring systems and their respective thresholds for the "low ink alert" although it would be an interesting test. One thing I have noticed is that with tri color (multi tank cartridges) one color ALWAYS runs out before the others (usually magenta because red molecules are the largest and per a set volume runs out the quickest) therefore leaving plenty of good cyan and yellow in the tank. You would think OEMs after this many years would compensate for this. As for what happens to the left over ink...it usually starts to dry up once it is removed from the printer turning it into a kind of "sludge" that must be removed during remanufacturing. With current technologies there is no way to separate, save and reuse it :o(. As far as using cartridges to the "bitter end", I would have to advise against it. As in my earlier comment about burnout...running inkjets even with say the magenta being low can permanently damage the printheads making them unusable for remanufacturing. As far as the remanufacturing process...removing tops and whatnot...it's a trade secret I'm afraid. Most is done via machines and equipment that is very precise and powerful. I can tell you that the steps are: inspect and check cartridge and electronics, clean INSIDE and out, replace any worn components, prep for filling, fill, test again for nozzle clarity, seal and package for sale. We really do have only a 1% failure rate and offer a 100% guaranty. Many times rough handling, heat and pressures (air travel) through the mailing systems can cause problems and we even cover that too. There really should be no worries for consumers when buying from reputable remanufactures. We have even had praise for getting products out during the 2004 hurricane season here in Florida! As far as CISS and perpetual printing machines (PPM), they are a definite way to go for high volume printers and photographers. It keeps the cartridges always full of ink and the printheads lubricated and cool without the worry of burnout. However, the only drawback is that the cartridges will eventually clog if they are not cleaned no matter how well you store and refill the tank systems. Inks crystallize and pigments can settle out of emulsion causing internal components to clog. We have several PPM/CISS printers and photographers that send us their cores to remanufacture and then they hook them back up to their systems because we use a "standard" of ink that most good remanufactures use (or at least they are using the finest inks and pigments available on the market which can even out perform OEM) and so do the printers. When you get a "crappy" one, it is usually a drill and fill, clone with horrible inks or unscrupulous sellers of "almost empties". When you find someone you like, stick with them and support them. Most remanufactures (except the big ones...i.e. Staple, Office Depot and Nu-Kote, etc which send them overseas to remanufacture) help local economies by hiring and working in the U.S.A. Just all the fuel spent to send overseas and back makes them 2 times as expensive as ours. We are local, hire local people and contribute back to the local economies. We purchase our packaging materials locally from green sources that recycle paper products into the boxes we need. We test on recycled paper and then recycle it. 95% of our waste is recycled!!! We even collect rainwater purify it and use it too! We are about to install solar arrays and hot water collectors. We include pre paid recycling bags for customers to easily send their empties back to be used again and again. We offer collection drives for local schools, universities churches and businesses to earn some extra money for their causes while doing something to save the environment and making them feel good (the kids really love it). We're really trying to make a difference while keeping cost low for our patrons. I don't care where people buy their items, food or anything...just do it green! Do it with local economies in mind! Do it for future generations. Thanks.

[coastie65]

Actually, by using a "Thinning" agent and then running it through a centrifuge, you can theoretically separate the pigment from everything else, and use the pigment. It may not be efficient or cost effective, but could probably be done. coastie