1. Purchase & Installation . . .

Tired of paying through the nose for your printer inks?
Please add your experiences on this subject or ask questions about it.
Post Reply
Mike Hynes
Site Admin
Posts: 31
Joined: Mon Mar 24, 2008 8:10 pm

1. Purchase & Installation . . .

Post by Mike Hynes » Wed Apr 22, 2009 6:00 pm

Written by Peter Spring 22 April 2009
( but posted by Mike Hynes)

The Continuous Inking System

In February 2009 I finally lost patience with the increasing of cost of Epson R2400 inks. So I started thinking again about Permajet’s continuous inking system.

Fortuitously, Permajet had a stand at the 2009 Focus exhibition in Birmingham so with enthusiasm I gave them my credit card. Yes, they said, we’re out of stock here but we will despatch it from Warwick “in the next day or two”. Days turned into weeks. Very sorry, they said, but we’ve sold so many systems we’ve run out of ink.

About 3 weeks later it turned up. With advice from those who “knew of someone who had one and they weren’t happy” ringing in my ears I opened the box. It was like a bran tub. Plenty of polystyrene packaging and lurking in odd corners were the bits of the system. The instructions weren’t too clear and contained lots of warnings but I pressed on. I found all the bits and set to work.

The first job was to remove the printer’s injector lid. This was not easy and I’ve now got a broken lid held together with sticky tape! Then everything went smoothly, despite the warning from Permajet
“Please take care when doing this as if connected incorrectly there is NO turning back”. Needless to say I checked, rechecked and checked again before proceeding. In truth, apart from the broken lid, the system was very easy to set up.

So, on to my first test print. Using Epson paper I got results as good as with Epson inks. Cracked it, I thought. As I wanted to print 40 images of my Venice trip I immediately loaded Permajet’s Oyster paper and started printing. On the third print I noticed a distinct magenta colour cast. After a quick conversation with Permajet, I downloaded their test pages, printed them and sent them off by first class post to Warwick. By midday the next day a special profile had arrived.

This profile removed the colour cast. A far as I can see the results on Permajet Oyster with Permajet inks are as good as those on Epson ink/paper.

On the cost front, continuous inking seems a no-brainer. Currently 125ml of Permajet costs £25.95 or 21p per ml. The cheapest I can find for Epson ink is £9.99 for 13ml or 77p per ml which is 3.7 times more expensive than Permajet’s.

So, at the moment I think its been a very good purchase. I don’t worry (so much) when the ink reservoirs indicators go down and I don’t need a stock of cartridges “just in case”. If the system does fail I can always disconnect it and go back to Epson.

I’ll keep you updated but I’m a happy at the moment.

Mike Hynes
Site Admin
Posts: 31
Joined: Mon Mar 24, 2008 8:10 pm

Re: 1. Purchase & Installation . . .

Post by Mike Hynes » Sun Apr 26, 2009 2:29 pm

For details of Permajet Inkflow systems, see http://www.permajet.com/cat/66/Colour_I ... stems.html

Mike Hynes

peter spring

Re: 1. Purchase & Installation . . .

Post by peter spring » Mon May 25, 2009 12:38 pm

An update on the continuous inking system.

Knowing I was not going to use the printer for four weeks I put the continuous inking system "to bed". This requires all nine ink tubes to be closed with a (supplied) clip. Permajet recommend doing this if the printer is not going to be used for a few days, anyway.

Four weeks later I switched the printer on again, having left it connected to the power whilst I was away. The printer went through 2 head cleaning cycles and appeared ready. As I had to print 20 or so letters which I would normally do on my old 1290S, I decided to use the R2400. The first 5 pages did not print all the colours correctly, missing some out, but after that everything was perfect. I guess the ink wasn't reaching the nozzles. However, not to worry, the Epson ink is 4 times more expensive!

Peter Spring

Pamela Moncur

Re: 1. Purchase & Installation . . .

Post by Pamela Moncur » Thu Jun 25, 2009 12:46 pm

I have an Epson 3800 & originally bought a spare set of inks for it at vast cost. I think the 3800 is not as "hungry" for inak as the 2400 but nevertheless the cost of replacing the artridges is very high. As these are being used up I'm considering switching to the Permajet system when I'm running out of inks. I use Permajet Oyster paper most of the time & have found the company very helpful to deal with. I'll keep you posted.

Pamela

peter spring

Re: 1. Purchase & Installation . . .

Post by peter spring » Wed Aug 26, 2009 9:55 am

Time for another update on the Continuous Inking System.

It is continuing to perform as well as I hoped. I've just printed another 30 sides of A4 paper and I am very pleased with the results. Colour is very good and overall apppearance very pleasing.

The only query I've got is that one or of the prints did come out slightly darker than I was expecting. I've got to think whether or not to get my screen re-calibrated again or just to remind myself to tweak the brightness up slightly before printing.

As I sit here looking at the 125ml bottles of ink I see they are all about half full. So I've used approximately 5 sets of 13ml cartridges. Today the Permajet ink is £25.95 for 125ml and £9.99 for 13ml from 7 day shop. So that's well over £200 saved without any drop off in quality. And I'm using Permajet Oyster paper which is cheaper than Epson's.

Am I happy? Oh yes

Peter S

Murray

Re: 1. Purchase & Installation . . .

Post by Murray » Fri Nov 06, 2009 6:37 pm

After reading your article on the permajet CIS system I started doing the sums and came to the conclusion that I must be nuts to keep paying Epson vast sums of money, and the final straw is that even on 7 day shop the cartridges are now well over £10 each.
I took the plunge and bought the Fotospeed Quill system, mainly because the system is sold through a local retailer and he has the paper/ink I require in stock at the web prices. It took about an an hour and half to install, which included head check, alignment, 2 head cleans to make sure the ink was flowing ok and away I went.
It makes one feel quite liberated once you start using these systems.
Even using the epson profiles the results are pretty much the same, but I am making use of the free profiling service.
All I can say is that I should have done this a long time ago.

Murray.

Post Reply