Inkjet ink running/fading

[y_p_w]

I'm kind of a laser printer fan myself, although toner has its own stability issues with toner sticking. Especially when placed against vinyl, like in a binder.

I remember ads for inkjets claiming that their factory ink would resist fading in bright light and wouldn't run. However, my dad loved his inkjet but didn't like the price of factory ink cartridges. Most of the ink seemed to run quickly if a page got wet. This could be an issue if it's a page used for something like a print yourself ticketing page (i.e. airline boarding pass) or some sort of voucher since there's always the possibility that it rains or something gets wet one way or another.

However, after their HP printer died, I helped them get a Canon MegaTank with enough ink to last them at least 5 years as long as it doesn't clog. But I got curious if the ink was stable. I took an old sample print page from it, walked with it in the rain, and it's not running. The paper gets all wavy, but if it was something like a bar code or QR code, I'd think it would still be readable compared to ink that bleeds when wet.

I suppose it was a matter of aftermarket remanufactured cartridges using cheap ink.

 

[ecotourist]

We have a Canon ink jet tank printer. Colour printing has become a complete disaster. It prints in noticeable sections about 1/2" wide. We now only print in black and white.

It's soon going into the round bin to be replaced by a black and white laser printer.

 

[Pew]

From what I remember what our two Managed Print Service vendors telling me, Canon upped the quality and maintenance of their ink after the purchase of OCE. I thought it was their enterprise-only copiers and large format plotters, as our Canon LFP inkjet also same the same rain-resistant ink but maybe it finally made it to their consumer lines.

I cannot say the same about HP, Brother, Xerox, and Epson printers as those seem to not be supported by MPS as much as Canon and Konica is.

 

[ecotourist]

...... I helped them get a Canon MegaTank with enough ink to last them at least 5 years as long as it doesn't clog.

One thing that kept ours going for a long while was printing a test page about once/month. We found it helpful to date and keep the test page.

If you don't do that you will end up with skips in the tubes and having to run a restore/clean cycle - which wastes a lot of ink (not to mention occupying an ever increasing part of the overflow pad).

 

[y_p_w]

Just random since I was searching for another topic. However, I remember an old Epson inkjet printing commercial about their ink. Something about someone in the background singing country music style riffs about how it didn't fade in the sun and didn't run when it got wet.