Ausjet Inkjet & Laser Supplies Blog
New High Frequency ultrasonic cleaner
'Custom built to Ausjet Specifications for our industry'
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68Khz Ultrasonic Cleaner |
120khz Ultrasonic Cleaner |
What has happened with inkjet printheads in the last few years?
A) Smaller nozzle size. example HP60 printhead has nozzle diameter of 8.5 micron.
B) More nozzles per square inch.
C) More complex drive circuity to compensate for the increased nozzles per printhead.
D) Smaller resistors/ heaters.
Why high frequency ultrasonic cleaners?
Most of the ultrasonic cleaners available are all based on 40khz frequency. This is not unusual as 40khz is the defacto standard for general purpose ultrasonic cleaning. With modern inkjet cartridges having nozzle diameters between 7-15 microns a higher frequency ultrasonic has many beneficial properties that makes it a much better solution:
The beneficial properties of Ausjet high frequency ultrasonic cleaner
A) Higher frequency produces smaller cavitation. Smaller cavitation can clean smaller diameter spaces more effectively. ie inkjet nozzles.
B) Higher frequency is much less abrasive. Even though ultrasonic cleaners are by nature a very gently cleaning solution, a higher frequency dispels any doubts on the cavitation nature of cleaning.
C) Heating is commonly used to make cleaning more effective. eg. Heating the bath increases the cleaning nature of most water based fluids and also increases the cavitation power of the ultrasonic.
D) Can be used as a heating bath eg. soak the cartridge printheads at a set temperature over a longer period of time, commonly used to recover very difficult to recover inkjet printheads.
For additional information on the
2L 68khz Ultrasonic click here
13L 120khz Ultrasonic click here
New Compatible Lexmark 100XLs Available!
Finally an alternative option to OEM Lexmark #100 Cartridges!
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New Products : Procolor 103s plus more
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Procolor 103 Series* The 103 series is a new range of 'extra large' cartridges released from Epson . The Procolor Black cartridge holds 32mls of ink and the colours 12mls. The basic design is the same as the Procolor 73N series but the black cartridge is double the width to accept the higher quantity of ink. For those companies offering a recycling/filling service the Procolor 103s like the 73ns can also be reset with the 9 pin resetter and are extremely easy to fill. With the right tools they can also be filled in a vacuum filling machine. More info |
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* Resetter is not supplied with USB cable |
New Products continued
Remanufactured Lexmark 43 / 44 Cartridges Now Available - More info
Remanufactured Dell MK990/MK991/MK992/MK993 Now Available - More info
New Premium Alternative Toner Cartridges for : Now Available
Canon 318 B/C/M/Y
Dell 3130 B/C/M/Y
HP CE278
HP CE285
HP CE250X
HP CE251/2/3
HP Q6460/1/2/3
Lexmark T620
Lexmark C534 B/C/M/Y
Samsung D209L
Xerox 3100
Click here to see our complete toner cartridge range
Point Of Sale Products
By popular demand many of our point of sale products are now available again. From USB webcams to solar powered 'flip flaps'. POS (impulse buy) products are a great way to add extra $$$ to your invoice. More info
New Printer and Cartridges Models
Technical Bulletin 6th September 2010
Recently Brother, Canon and Epson have all released new inkjet printer / cartridges combinations. Below is a quick list of the new printer models and cartridges that are available.
Brother
LC-39 Black, Cyan, Magenta and Yellow
New Individual ink tanks
Models: DCP J125
Canon
Pgi-525 Black, Cli-526 Colours
New Individual ink tanks
Similar design to previous Pgi-520\Cli-521 but opaque casing (can't see through it).
New Chip (existing resetters will not reset this chip)
RRP $23.95 each
Models: IP4850, MG8150, MG6150, MG5250, MG5150
Epson
103 Black
New individual ink tanks
Is sold as 'extra high capacity' cartridge. Can be used as a High yield replacement for 73N Cartridges on some models.
Pigment Inks
Rated at 995 Pages by manufacturer
Models : T40W , TX600FW, TX610FW, TX550W
* Procolor 103 Compatibles available Soon (Procolor 103N Black 32mls)
103 Cyan, Magenta and Yellow
New individual ink tanks
Is sold as 'extra high capacity' cartridge. Can be used as a High yield replacement for 73N Cartridges on some models.
Pigment Inks
Rated at 815 Pages by manufacturer
Models: T1100, T30, T40W, TX510FN, TX600FW, TX610FW, TX550W
* Procolor 103 Compatibles available Soon (Procolor 103N Colours 12mls)
132 Black, Cyan, Magenta and Yellow
New Individual 'standard' cartridge.
Pigment Inks
Available on new range of printers. N11 is a entry level printer RRP $69.00
Models: N11, NX125
133 Black, Cyan, Magenta and Yellow
New Individual 'High Yield' cartridge
Pigment Inks
Can be used as 'high yield' replacement for 132 cartridges on some models.
Models: N11, NX125, NX420, Workforce 320, Workforce 325
We are in the process of performing r&d on these new cartridges and we endeavour to bring you a cartridge recycling/filling solution soon. Stay tuned!!
Shane
New Products: Koala Inkjet Papers
The new Koala range of Inkjet Papers is a Premium range of coated Inkjet papers that will bring out the best colours from your inkjet printer. Irrespective of what printer brand these papers will bring the inks to life!
Not all inkjet papers give the same results. Koala papers are manufactured in a ISO4001 and ISO9001 factory and provide papers for some of the largest distributors in the world. They have been developing inkjet papers for 15 years and have the very latest in state of the art multi-coating equipment. The factory has also attained 100% green certification.
Some of the advanced properties you will find in Koala Papers are:
- Bright White Base Coating
- Unique Advanced Inkjet Coating
- Up to 7 Layers of Coating Per Sheet
- Quick Dry
- Water Resistant
- Acid Free
- Designed to work with all brands of inkjet printers.
- The Resin Coated photo papers are universal for Pigment and Dye printers. (Traditionally its quite difficult to get a true photo paper that works well using dye and pigment inks)
The Koala range covers Matte papers(high resolution), Photo Papers in single and double sided (in Matte, Hi Gloss, Semi-Gloss and Soft Silky), Sticker Papers and Magnet Papers available in A4 and 4x6(A6) size. Their is a wide range of gsm(thickness) and different coatings to suit everybodies tastes.
Click here to see the complete range of Koala Papers
Technical Bulletin - Reciclamais Expo
Reciclamais Expo
olá!, I was lucky enough to attend the Reciclamais show in São Paulo, Brazil on June 8-10th 2010. This Expo is regarded as the most important show within Latin America and is associated with Recharger magazine.
Flying to Brazil
As you can expect the flights from Australia to Brazil are not short, I started to count the hours including all the stop overs on my itinerary: After counting with all my fingers and toes I still hade many hours to go, so decided it was best not to know. I wasn't really that worried about the long flights, because I had a plan: The plan was to learn Portugese, I figured I could learn the language and be fully up to speed by the time I got there. There's nothing better than leaving things to the last moment they say! I had this really nifty program on my phone, which speaks Portugese to me and then I would try to repeat it. After getting a few weird looks during the flight I decided ummmm...... maybe better to watch the in flight movies instead.
Santiago
Santiago airport was great fun, a 5 hour delay and three gate changes all without any notice. Luckily I ran into some fellow Australians and Brazilians who have been studying English in Australia. I sometimes play a game, I must admit this is not a normal game but maybe this is because I'm not normal; anyway enough of that, the game is 'Pick the Nationality': Its not always the easiest game, but when you see some young guys wearing board shorts and tee shirts you know they have to be Australian. For some reason our nationality has decided that board shorts and a tee meets international travel standards. Outside temperature in Santiago was 6 degrees and it's winter in Australia, right!
The Expo
The expo was located at the Expo Centre Norte, Yellow Pavilion. Luckily between my pointing and basic Portugese I was able to get the taxi driver to the correct pavilion ... you know, the yellow building. The same could not be said for many other international visitors: I heard horror stories of some people driving around for hours looking for the building. My plan was working, my Portugese was coming in handy, and talking to yourself in the plane has its advantages!!
The expo had 126 booths and at many of these booths were companies that we had never had contact with before: It took three days to fully get around to all the booths. With a large number of the exhibiting companies from Brazil it was very interesting to see what products were available to the local market. I must mention that the remanufacturing industry in Brazil is very large and there were many international companies at this expo trying to gain some market share. There are two trade associations in Brazil: ABRECI and AGRECI, which is the equivilant of our ACRA. There are over 20,000 remanufacturing companies registered with these trade associations: Thats 20,000 registered, and I wonder how many more are not registered!
I was pleasantly surprised that at most booths somebody had the skills to speak to me in English, sometimes translators were used but all up the language barrier was not as big a problem as I first expected it to be. It was not that uncommon during my travels to hear of young Brazilians coming to Australia to learn English. In fact, just like Brazil and South America seem an exotic tourist destination for us, it seems Australia and New Zealand are also well regarded as great holiday destinations for them as well. The local distributor of Sensient ink in Brazil has a phone with a AC/DC ring tone on it and he was quoting lines from Crocodile Dundee to me. I guess that's what we are famous for!!
As well as the Brazilian companies at the expo, there was also a wide range of international companies.: Many companies from China, Taiwan, Korea and some European companies were showcasing their products. You also had the major industry brands at the show, including Sensient, who were there assisting their distributors. In Brazil there has been lots of issues with the Formulabs name which is the previous name for Sensient inkjet ink. A few companies were selling ink under the Formulabs name even though it was not ink from Sensient, which is pretty naughty! This just shows you how well regarded Sensient ink is in South America.
We discovered different and unique products and we are investigating their suitability for our market. Many of the filling machines, centrifuges, etc. were slightly different to what we have seen before. It's interesting to see how people attack the same problem from different angles around the world... We continually try to source the best products suitable for our market from around the world and this is one of the main reasons we travel to these expos.
My opinion is that the Brazilian remanufactured market is very similiar to ours in many ways, with remanufacturing (recharging) stores making up the majority of the market. A quick walk from my hotel and I discovered a small remanufacturing store with a locally made vacuum filling machine offering a while-you-wait service. We then tried to start a conversation, and I must say their Portugese was very good and so was my English: Lets just say it wasn't a long conversation. We exchanged business cards and I took a few photos and the adventure continued...
Sensient There were three representatives from Sensient at the expo and we spent a great deal of time discussing various details about their inks, future ink releases, different markets, marketing materials and many other topics we hope will strengthen their brand and help you, our customers. I'm not sure if you know but Sensient is not a small company, their turnover is 1.4 billion US dollars a year and have been manufacturing inkjet inks for over 30 years. They have a very long manufacturing history and their doors first opened in 1893 under the name 'Meadow Springs Distillery'! This does not mean you can drink the stuff!!
We have existing inks compatible with the HP564/HP920/Pgi-520/Cli-521 cartridges, however, Sensient has recently developed a dedicated inkset for these models which offers 100% colour match with the OEM. Another soon to be available inkset will be the pigment inks for the HP940 CMYK cartridges.
Our current H4WL4 is a patented high density pigment black ink and we have received great feedback. Sensient is soon to release another HP Pigment ink which pushes ink chemistry to the limits again. We have samples of all the new inks and will commence our own in-house testing soon.
Sensient has also recently increased their inkjet ink range to cover a wide range of exciting new markets using new inkjet technology: We are researching these markets and will endeavour to bring you the information and inks neccessary to enter these lucrative markets.
The Lift!!
It seems no matter where I travel some object is trying to take me out, in this case it was my hotel lift. If you're on the 22nd floor of a hotel the lift is the way down, but it seems one particular lift had a mind of its own! In the morning I entered the lift and the door closed, I pressed 'ground floor' and nothing happened. Pressed 'ground floor' again - still nothing - and then silence... so there I was in Brazil stuck in a lift! Fortunately after a few minutes and a few prayers the lift started going down. Score: Lift 1, Shane 0.
Round 2: After a long day at the show and a few local beverages (Brahma) I headed back to the hotel: I arrived at the hotel and jumped into the lift which was empty and ready to go. It had been a long day and I had forgotten about my earlier adventures with lift No.5, but I soon remembered... All was going well, at Floor 22 the lift door opened and, I'm not sure if it was my lack of speed caused by an excess of brahma consumption or not, but, upon exiting the lift, the doors tried to eat my bag! However, using my brahma-inspired, new-found confidence, I managed to free my bag and outwit the lift. However, I never used lift no.5 again, even though it was always there waiting ominously to devour me!!
I was happy to call it a 1-1 draw!!
Football, Brahma and did I say Football!
The Reciclamais show started at midday and ran to 8pm at night for three days: Tuesday to Thursday. I believe this is a good time schedule for this type of expo for a number of reasons: The first is that it gives you time in the morning; the second is it does allow local businesses to attend the show after normal business trading hours; and the third is that, thanks to three generous sponsors, Brahma was available free everyday at the expo. I'm not sure what the plan with the free beer was - maybe they thought it would help them close business deals easier.
Did I say football (...soccer)
As you have probably heard football is basically a religion in Brazil. I was looking forward to seeing a local football game, but due to the fact that the World Cup was on, no games were played during that time. It's incredible that everybody you talk to knows about the Brazilian team. Everyone had two things in common - they all didn't like the coach as his formation is not attacking enough and they don't like their arch-rivals: Argentina.
I heard that if you are in Brazil when Brazil is playing the streets are like a ghost town: Everybody is watching the game on TV. São Paulo is a large city with around 12 million people and you can imagine getting from one side of the town to the other could take a while... I heard from one local that if they know they have to travel to the other side of town, they would wait for a Brazil game!!!!
Obrigado
Shane
Technical Bulletin 29-06-10
Technical Bulletin 29th June 2010
Stocktake!!
This Friday the 2nd of July we will close early at 1.00pm for our stocktake.
Compatible 73n Cartridges - Very Important Information!!
As part of our research into compatible 73N cartridges we have discovered a brand on the market that
claims up to 90% more printing than OEM. We have investigated this claims as we like to compare our competition cartridges against our Procolor range. We have found that this claim (in our opinion) "Apples ain't Apples"
When you read the fine print on these cartridges you will find that there is only about 6 printer models where the cartridge would actually print more ink. The reality is, that even though the cartridges are sold with large print emphasising % more printing the reality is that there would not be many printers on the market today that would allow the excess ink to be used. Most of the models listed on the fine print are out of date.
Changes in Design of Procolor PB-37 / PB-57
You may notice that the design of the Procolor LC-37 and LC-57 cartridges have changed recently. This is a change of shape to the new style which is similiar to the Procolor LC-38/LC-67. This new shape is quite different to the OEM cartridges and therefore further protects the cartridge from OEM patents. The other advantage is that these cartridges are now a very easy proposition to fill, a simple removal of a clear silicon plug allows access to the fill hole. These cartridges are much simplier to fill than the OEM.
Patent infrigments in Europe with Compatible CLP-300 Cartridges
At the Reciclamais show I heard the news that many compatible brands of CLP-300 cartridges were infringing Samungs Patents in Europe. It would appear that the patent issue is on the internal workings of the cartridge.
New PGI-5 / CLI-8 Battery Powered Resetter
We have recently received a new type of resetter for the PGI-5 / CLI-8 cartridges. The resetter is light blue in colour and has some good properties. It will automatically identify the cartridge model and detect whether the chip on the cartridge is in a good state or not before resetting the chip. Since the resetter is operated by a small replaceable battery, it can easily be replaced by removing the four screws on the bottom of the resetter. The resetter will also reset the Procolor Pgi-5 / Cli-8 cartridges but has a slightly different reset procedure to the included instructions, the Procolor instructions will be available as a download from our site.
Foaming of inks - Why is this?
I'm sure you have all seen some inks that foam(froth) up more than other inks and you may ask yourself why this is so. Over the years I have seen some inks that foam up substancially. Long, long ago the first pigment 29A ink I tested was just terrible. Because the ink was filled under pressure the ink would foam up badly making it virtually impossible to fill the carridge with the equipment available. Recently I have heard complaints from some new customers that they were having filling problems because the ink they used (non Sensient)would froth up. You may wonder what is in the ink that causes it to froth up? The simple answer is that the wetting agent(surfactant) and/or dye/pigment is what creates the froth.
Obviously from a filling point of view we all require inks that are low foam in design. Foaming of the ink during filling can lead to slower filling time, less ink volume in the cartridge and/or air pockets in the cartridge sponge(foam). There is a few tricks to help reduce foaming. In vaccum filling machines, a lower vacuum and decreasing the fill speed will help. This is why a vacuum filling machine with adjustable speed and vacuum is an advantage which is a big feature of our Sage range of refilling machines. With manual filling, adjusting the filling speed to a slower speed and positioning the needle to touch the side of the cartridge will help reduce the foam (just like pouring a beer).
Inkjet ink manufacturers should use the right quality surfactants and dye/pigments which will make the inks as low foam as possible. In this way refilling cartridges will be a whole lot easier and quicker. I have spoken to Sensient at Reciclamais about the foaming of other suppliers inks and they mentioned that they understood this problem in depth and that all their inks are designed as a low foam solution with manual and machine refilling in mind.
Dreaming about inks
I would like to say 'Sweet Dreams' to Sue (my boss) who apparantly reads my technical bulletin to help her to go to sleep!
Latest News 28th May 2010
Sensient Revive Tonic
It seems to be a well kept secret that we stock Sensients most powerful printhead recovery fluid. The revive tonic will work with both dye and pigment based inks and can be used in permanent printheads or as a soaking solution for integrated printheads to clear jets. It is highly recommended to rinse the printhead after soaking with pure water, as this is a very powerful cleaner.
The price is now only $12.75 per litre and extremely good value for money.
Cartridge Citi - Qld Independent Retailer of the Year 2009
Congratulations to Col and the team at Cartridge Citi at Victoria Point Qld, which is a stone throw from our doors. Qld independent retailer of the year as voted by the Australian Retailers Association is a huge honor and shows the quality and service of work that Cartridge Citi provides. We are very pleased for Col and its great to see a customer of ours win such a prestigious award.
Laser Revive - 20 Years of remanufacturing/refilling and still going strong!
Congratulations to Bill and Jan and the team from Laser revive who have been providing outstanding products and service to their customers for 20 years in 2010. As you can imagine with working in this industry for 20 years they have a great deal of experience. With their permission we hope to bring you more details of their story in a future release.
H4WL4 Ink
In the last newsletter we mentioned that we are now official distributor for Sensient Inkjet Inks in Australian and New Zealand. We have been supplying Sensient ink for many years now and we have been very surprised by the feedback about our new H4WL4 (HP PIGMENT) ink. It's normally not usual to have people excited about inkjet ink, but our patented H4WL4 has become our 'star ink'. See what some of our customers are saying about this ink:
'H4WL4 is Fantastic! excellent sharpness, extremely versatile'
B.S, Cartridge World
'I have been using H4WL4 for all Lexmark and HP Pigment Cartridges for several months and have never had a problem. I recommend it and have changed over to all Ausjet inks (Sensient) now.'
P.E , Cartridge World
More DIY refill kits to our range
We have added the following DIY refill kits to our range. Refill kits have traditionally been very messy to use and not well designed, these kits are very professional and we believe a step up over most other kits available.
Smart DIY HP564 Large Black kit
Smart DIY Hp564 Cyan kit
Smart DIY Hp564 Magenta kit
Smart HP564 Yellow kit
Smart HP564 Photo Black kit
Procolor Lexmark 32 Black kit
Procolor Lexmark 42 Colour kit
Click here to see our complete range of premium DIY Refill Kits
Technical Update and Latest News
Sensient USA Announcement
We are pleased to announce that Sensient USA have granted Ausjet Inkjet and Laser Supplies (in addition to Australia) the sole distribution rights for inkjet inks for New Zealand.
Update on Development Of Chips
From earlier technical bulletins you would of heard about the new Lexmark 100/105 chip that uses RDIF(Radio) type chips. This type of chip is now also found in the Dell Series 21 cartridges , I had a quick chat with a chip manufacturer that we work very closely with, they mentioned that a solution is still quite a while away and in fact they have labeled it 'as a very difficult r&d project'.
Good news in that they expect a chip to be available for the HP564/HP920 by July/August. Which means that compatibles for these models should be available around the same time.
Internal Promotion
We are pleased to announce that Shane Foreman has been promoted to Manager of our technical support division. As most of you that have dealt with Shane will know that he is passionate about all things inkjet. His major responsibilities with be customer technical support, product/benchmark testing and aquisition. He will also act as our technical liason with our suppliers. Unfortunately his duties will also include attending overseas technical and printer consumables exhibitions. (He cried for days when we informed him). His next big trip will be to attend Reclaimais in Sao Paolo in Brazil. Well done Shane, it looks like your passion to get down and dirty (with ink!) is paying off!
We are after 'Incompatible printers' !!
Advancement of chip technology and constant firmware changes from OEM printer manufacturers is making it more difficult to produce fully compatible chips. The most difficult chip in the last few years for the compatible chip manufacturers has been for the 73N cartridges, this is due to numerous firmware changes in the printers. The latest version from Procolor is Version 6.0N which has been very reliable with less than 2% overall return rate, but due to the numerous firmware printer versions we are encountering 'incompatible issues with some printers'. We have been spending a great deal of time discussing this issue with the chip manufacturer, but we need your help.
In our industry if we really want to solve these problems, we need to work as a team. If you do have any 73N cartridges returned due to incompatibility issues - we really need the printer model and the serial number which is located at the back of the printer. I do understand how hard it is to get this information from many customers, but as I mentioned before if we don't supply this information we are not moving forward.
The chip manufacturer has asked us if possible to send them any printers that are incompatible. It is a very strong possibility that the Australian/NZ market has some different firmware versions than other market areas, the only way we are going to solve this problem fully is to supply the information and printers they require to fix the problem. I know many customers once they realise that their cartridges can't be refilled or a compatible not available may look for a new printer which is lower cost to run. This could be a good way for us to get our hands on a 'incompatible printer', we really need to be proactive with this.
The problem is not as straight forward as you would imagine, for example it seems that the TX110 model seems to have more 'incompatibility issues' than other models. But we know a very high percentage of these printers will work with the Procolor V6.0N cartridges. We also know through testing that newer models are also compatible, in fact a model we purchased the other day works fine with no issues. But there is a select group of printers out there that aren't compatible, nobody can tell me exactly why. Rumours that upgrading the printer driver would cause the problem was tested by us and the chip manufacturer and all models after upgrading worked fine. Upgrading to Windows 7 was also a possible cause, but the chip manufacturers have tested this on over 15 models without any problems.
We also know that the cheaper model printers that use these cartridges have also known to have manufacturing faults. Its not uncommon to hear genuine OEM cartridges not been recognised. Has the OEM gone so far that even their cartridges are not recognised in some instances!!
If you have any further information on this issue, please don't hesitate to share the information with us. We all work in this industry, its my job and as part of your support team we want to find solutions for you, its also your business so lets be proactive and work together.
To clarify, if you find a customer using Procolor 73N and it is incompatible with their printer, we need the printer model and the serial number which is located at the back of the printer. If it is possible that your customer no longer requires their printer then it could be sent to us so that we can organise to send it to the chip manufacturer. This way they can analyse the printer and find out what is going on!
Recicilimas June 8th-10th, Sao Paulo Brazil
Over the last few years we have been noticing many new innovative remanufacturing/refilling products coming out of South America. This year with all going well I will be attending the South American expo in Sao Paulo Brazil. The expo hosted by the recharger magazine will be in its 9th year and I'm really excited to be able to attend this event. The expo will cover 8000m2 in size which covers 120+ exhibitors and the technical lecture area. Each year the show is growing from strength to strength and forecasts are a minimum of 10000 visitors over the three days. For you our customers, we really hope to find new innovative products and new solutions. If you are also attending this expo can you please contact me, it would be great to catch up for a drink in Sao Paulo. Just remember this expo is a gathering of remanufacturers and if you have any specific problem, product or information you require please drop me a line and I'll do my absolute best to find out what I can for you.
Who is your printer talking to?
With the internet been standard these days on most computers, many of the printer manufacturers have decided that collecting information on the usage of their printers is now a possibility. With this information they can better understand how most customers are using their printers and hopefully use these statistics to design better printers for us. Of course OEMS are only collecting information about the printer so don't worry and this is very well explained. This is all above board and common these days for software programs to send information to the manufacturer to analyse problems etc . When installing printers I have always noticed a tick box, you can tick the box if you want information from your printer sent to the manufacturer. But when installing one of the latest printers, this option was no longer an option and was part of the installation agreement. So if you wanted to install the printer driver to use your printer you also have agreed to this option. Is this information so important or irrelevant that we don't even have the choice anymore?
Dermot and Shane
Ausjet News
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We are pleased to announce that Sensient USA have granted Ausjet Inkjet and Laser Supplies (in addition to Australia) the sole distribution rights for inkjet inks for New Zealand. a proud member of:  Phone: (07) 3823 5433 Fax: (07) 3823 5422 Email:sales@ausjetinks.com.au Web:www.ausjetinks.com.au | |
New Product - Smart DIY Refill Kits
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Ausjet is a proud member of: Phone: (07) 3823 5433 Fax: (07) 3823 5422 Email:sales@ausjetinks.com.au Web:www.ausjetinks.com.au | |||||||||||||
Technical Bulletin 14-04-10
Technical Bulletin 14-04-2010
HP Introduces new 'Plug and print technology'
This new technology from HP enables customers to begin printing in as little as two minutes by connecting a netbook, notebook PC or desktop PC to the printer with a USB cable – no CD required. The software is installed on the printer and once the USB cable is connected installation starts on the computer. 'Smart Install' will be available on the new laserjet pro range, a video of the technology from HP is available click here to view
New HP564/920 Transportation clips now available
We have two new clips for the HP564/920 series cartridges, these clips look very similar to the OEM Pgi-5\Cli-8 clips. The two clips are the HP564 Pigment Black (large) and the other is for the cyan, magenta, yellow and photo black cartridges. The two clips are D6 (Large) and D7 (colours and photo black). These clips are a 'twist and push' type.
Thoughts on differences between ink brands
I have often been asked what is the difference between ink brands. Unless you know what formulation and colorants everybody is using its almost impossible to know. But its very important to use the best quality ink you can get your hands on. I once heard a mechanic say if you have an old clunker, don't use the cheapest oils - use the best you can get your hands on. He pointed out that due to the condition of the motor, a better oil will give you much better performance and the motor will most likely also last longer. He pointed out that this may be the best insurance you could have to keep 'old reliable' working well.
This saying can also be used when talking about 'intended for single use' printheads as well. We are all reusing a 2nd hand product and a product that does have an end life. We can't expect an ink cartridge to last forever and why should we! But by running the best available ink through the cartridge we give our customers a much better chance of getting more reuses out of that cartridge.
You may be wondering what is or isn't in the ink that can possibly effect the life of the cartridge? The following is a quick list of what I am aware of:
Ink starvation
The viscosity and surface tension of the ink affects the flow through the cartridge. An incorrectly formulated ink may result in 'ink starvation', when all of a sudden white appears on the page instead of the print. This is because the ink is not flowing to and through the printhead at the correct rate. While the cartridge is not printing ink the heaters/resistors are still firing which is overheating the area and could possibly be causing a weakness to the heaters/resistors.
Purity of the ink
Recent documented evidence has proven that damage to the resistors/heaters over time can be caused by using lower grade dyes and pigments. Of course when selecting dyes and pigments you have various grades you can choose from, this is purely a cost decision. OEMS use high grade pure pigments and dyes and so should you.
Drying of the ink
When the cartridge inside the printer is not used, it is capped. The capping system is designed to prevent the ink from drying inside the cartridge, but its not a perfect system. The longer the printhead is not used, the more likely the ink in the printhead will clog. Its critical to have the right percentage of glycols(humectants) in the ink. Lower percentages of humectants will increase the chance of the ink drying and blocking the nozzles. Depending on the severity of the blocked nozzle, the built in cleaning systems of the printer may not be able to recover it. These blocked nozzles will obviously then cause printing flaws and the heater/resistor will continue to fire without any cooling caused by the ink running through the nozzle.
PH
The correct PH range of the ink is also critical. Over time an incorrect PH may result in de-lamination and damage of the inner printhead seals.
Kogation
Kogation is the term used to describe a phenomenon whereby residues are deposited over time on a heater/resistor element. Kogation effects the volume, shape and velocity of the ejected ink drop. Kogation results in inaccurate placement of the drop and therefore affects print quality. Higher grade inks will often contain additives that are designed to remove kogation or prevent kogation as the ink runs through the printhead.
As you can see there is many factors that can affect the life and print quality of the cartridge once the cartridge has been collected from your business. With most ink cartridges containing between 5-15mls of ink these days, the cost of the ink per cartridge is approx 20 - 68 cents per fill using Sensient inkjet inks. The ink is the main component but when you look at it this way it is also probably a very minor cost of the filling process. Oils aint Oils - Inks aint Inks.
Why Sensient Ink?
Sensient are a billion dollar US company that specialises in premium inks and have made ink for the printer OEM's. This indicates why they are held in such high regard by their peers. We have been supplying Sensient ink for over 20 years and in that period of time can honestly say that we have yet to be disappointed. In any industry you will find products that cover the complete spectrum from rubbish to premium. When it comes to premium inkjet inks, Sensient are way ahead of the pack with premium quality, higher reliability and more refills per cartridge. Our new H4WL4 black pigment is an excellent example. We recommend H4WL4 as it has a higher optical density than the OEM equivalent and once you try it you will never go back to an inferior product.
Paper can make a big difference
The type of paper your customers uses also has a very big influence on the print quality. Factors such as ink bleed, dry time, feathering, bleed through, rub resistance are all factors that can be improved with a better quality plain paper. A open standard called Colorlok developed by HP is a big step forward for inkjet printers. For more information on Colorlok click here
I hope this information is useful to you.
Shane
