Sorry To Brag, But It Took Me A Long Time

[Spindulik]

Please don't move this to Hardware world. It is already there. I just wanted to share my efforts. It took me a very long time to get the exact colors to match the original photo ink.

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Okay! Last week, I posted a question. "Can I dillute the regular color ink with water, and make photo ink, for a photo printer?"

Many of you didn't know an answer or just said NO, it can't be done.

The results are in! The picture below shows a BEFORE and AFTER color test-print. I waited until the original photo cartridge was empty. Then I filled it with my mixture, cleaned the nozzles 6 times with the cleaning cycle, then printed 8 full sized photos, to ensure that the original ink was replaced with the new ink in the cartridge tanks.

If photo doesn't appear, click here to see. (http://mysite.verizon.net/vze3nvj6/photoink.jpg)
http://mysite.verizon.net/vze3nvj6/photoink.jpg


I used special ink designed for Lexmark color printers.

Light Magenta = 30% regular magenta and 60% distilled water

Light Cyan = 10% regular cyan and 90% distilled water

Mixing formula may vary, depending on the brand of ink and printer that you have

[mogadishu]

interesting.

[that1dude]

congradulations

[Eugenius]

i did graphic design for 4 years...but still it's all over my head! :lol:

[Neil__]

could you be more specific as to "regular color ink"
or is that what it's called?
what's it's normal use?

Neil.

[denis123]

Lucky you wash it with Dreft ?

[Got_brains?]

Thats cool!

Were you just curious, or were you out of photo ink?

[neil1967]

:huh:

[insanebassman]

been using refills for awhile,
that is seriously impressive, I just buy refill ink.

[Spindulik]

@Neil The photo printer is a normal printer when using a COLOR cartridge (regular 3 color ink) and a BLACK cartridge. It becomes a "PHOTO printer", when you remove the BLACK cartridge and replace it with a
"BLACK - Light Cyan - Light Magenta" cartridge.

So the "regular" ink is the same ink used when not printing photos.


@Got_memory? I was out of ink. At $42.00 per photo cartridge, I wasn't going to buy a new one. If you are lucky, you get about 30 full-page color photos per cartridge.

@insanebassman 'refill ink' for Photo cartridges are hard to find, especially for Kodak Lexmark photo printers.

[Neil__]

cheers spindulik

I see clearly now.
How many times did it take you to get the mix right?

Neil

[Spindulik]

Originally posted by Neil__@11 July 2003 - 16:16
cheers spindulik

I see clearly now.
How many times did it take you to get the mix right?

Neil
For the Cyan, it took 5 tries to get it correct (or near correct). Just sheer luck.

But the Magenta is so dark and intense, I assumed the same ratio as the cyan, but it took about 30 tries to get it acceptable.

I used a paper towel as a test swatch for a drop of ink. Based on my visual guess and estimation, I matched the colors. I extracted ink from the original cartridge. using a syringe, and applied a drop to a paper towel, and let it dry. Then I added water to the regular ink and applied drops to the same paper towel and let them dry. Eventually, i came up with a match.

So far, it looks good.

I hope this information helps some people out there who want to refill ink for their photo cartridges. It is riduculous for companies to cahrge so much for a cartridge, just becaues the ink ran out. The head is still good and functions. They could have easily made printer cartridges that can hold a pint of ink.

[Proper Bo]

yes, and I had sugar puffs for breakfast, do I get a medal? NO! :P

[lynx]

I didn't think it would work, but well done.

Probably not good enough for professional quality, but if you wanted professional quality would you be using one of those rpinters in the first place ?

I remember seeing something about the cartridge makes being forced to make them re-cycleable (because of all the waste) which in turn would have brought the price down, but nothing seems to have come of that.