® Tip: The cheapest ink for your printer
Saturday, 31 October, 2009
OLDER QUESTION
I noticed the huge number of reader posts on the HelpStation question
® Poll: Is ink cartridge refilling good or bad?
 I've been using numerous Canon printers for many years. I have found a really cheap alternative to refilling ink cartridges. FOOD COLOURING. Yes the stuff you buy in the supermarket. Yellow, rose and blue.
I've used this stuff for at least six years and never had a problem with it. I'm always printing photographs. The end result is always as good as the proper ink, with no hint of fading or colour reduction. At a cost of approximately $1 per bottle, which lasts for at least 20 refills, it's the best thing since sliced bread.
(Originally posted February 2006)
Brenda Madrid, , Australia
 That's the silliest thing I've ever heard. I was tempted to throw your suggestion in the bin until I had a think about it.
Here are some of the reasons why it's a silly idea.
- There are different types of ink, depending on the type of inkjet system, The two main types are dye and pigment, which are incompatible with each other. You'd have to get the right type of food colouring.
- You say you print photos. If I want to print photos, I'm inclined to use the original ink because my experience is that even brand name "non-original" inks simply aren't the right colour and give a colour shift to the photo. There's almost no way that your food colours would be close to the right colours.
- There are all sorts of variables that have to be just right to ensure that a printer works, and keeps working. The ink must flow smoothly, dry quickly on the page, not clog the head by drying out, not interact with the other colours and so on. How likely are your food colours to do this?
- You say the food colouring doesn't fade. But what happens when it's exposed to sunlight? That's an area where many inks fall down.
- I assume you mean separate bottles of food colour and not the little "four pack" that most supermarkets sell. Even so, can you really get that many refills from a bottle?
- How do you do the refilling? I guess you have an old refill kit or you've picked up syringes from the local council health centre. (I believe you can get those long balloons there too.)
But as I said, I thought about it some more. I realised that there IS a chance that your idea could work in some situations.
- Everyone has an old inkjet printer (or can get one) so you can afford to experiment.
- If you CAN get it to work, even though the colours wouldn't be any good for photos, they could be fine for some things such as printing "Lost dog" posters.
Now I'd be very keen to hear from any other readers who reckon they use this technique. Don't be shy - we need brand names and everything. Paul Zucker
 Reader solutions
MikePPosted: 02/11/2009 re: ■ Tip: The cheapest ink for your printer Possibly not as silly as it sounds. Food colouring was the norm in slide photography for Etch-Bleach techniques, where you montage a bleached positive/negative over a slide, the positive being coloured to give some fantasitc effect. We used to use it all the time.
My questions would be what drying time does food colouring give on high gloss and what's the colour density like? Also what kind of colour bleed would you get? RyanPosted: 01/11/2009 re: ■ Tip: The cheapest ink for your printer I have started buying compatibles from Dealspot.com.au, its actually cheaper for me to buy cartridges from them for my Canon printer can to refill. ColorprintPosted: 27/04/2009 re: ■ Tip: The cheapest ink for your printer "Silly Idea"?
"You can get those long balloons there"?
"Wont work on photos"?
You are sorta a POS arent you?
Ram TudorPosted: 29/01/2009 re: ■ Tip: The cheapest ink for your printer There are a lot of people with severe allergies who would love to know this. Somebody could easily capitalze on it. inkaholicPosted: 30/08/2008 re: ■ Tip: The cheapest ink for your printer Do yourselves a favour and grab a CISS (continuous inking system? from Rihac ( available thru ebay australia search for CISS )- been using this on my Epson printers for last few years and I do commercial printing - saving about 60% on my printing costs Ed ForthPosted: 13/07/2008 re: ■ Tip: The cheapest ink for your printer Printer Ink is water based. Adding a mineral dye to distilled water produces ink suited to most printer cartridges. (A fast check on the 'Patents Register' will prove the foregoing.) Food colouring will produce provide a similar effect but not a passable photo. Many users are adding odd -ball materials to their inkjet cartridges such as Glow-In-The-Dark additives. Others use Invisable Inks that only show up when printed paper is heated. I use a watermarking solution that instills a designe into my paper stock that shows only upon holding the paper to backlight. So anyone can have their own watermark embedded within office paper for little or no cost via their own ink-jet printer. VTNPosted: 17/04/2008 re: ■ Tip: The cheapest ink for your printer Dear Brenda,just forget about what he said. Yes! Even the syringe pick up from local council health centre is enough to do the refill. I was used dye food colours for my too; Do you ever tried these: E-102 for yellow, E-127 for Magenta, E-133 for blue. michaelPosted: 12/11/2007 re: ■ Tip: The cheapest ink for your printer I was looking for a way of printing edible icing sheets so i found this page. I use an epson c61 which i have a chip resetter and refill kit and to my amazement the the yellow rose and blue works fine and is cheap. Ive used it for photos yes some colour shift but isnt their between every different brand of printer anyway. The only problem is i have to run the head cleaner if it sits for a while. I have even found Black food dye it works but a bit dotty so i used black epson ink and it still works out cheap.You will find it has the same consistancy and stains your hands the same as ink.Expensive
Ink is a scam
(What a hoot. I hope the Epson black ink isn't poisonous though. -PZ) Posted: 08/02/2007 re: ■ Tip: The cheapest ink for your printer I found the best ink is from 123inkjets.com.au
The price is great and the ink is good.
(Remember, one free ad per customer. -PZ) CathyPosted: 04/03/2006 The cheapest ink for your printer The cheapest ink for your printer can be found at discountink.com.au i have been using this stuff for a while, i i never have any problems with it, food colouring is a rediculos idea, you cant get pigment food colouring!! Micky ShiptonPosted: 17/02/2006 re: ■ Tip: The cheapest ink for your printer i rahter you buy brand new ink at wholesale factory or go officework it not bad price better than cheap refill ink bec i have use 4 times but gave up bec it go damaged my printer.. so i went officework and brought epson printer it wonderful printer and cost you to buy ink it cheap between 12 to 14 dollars each ink there is four ink box for example blue, yellow, red, black .. so it printed out over 200 pages not bad sometime more depend on your work
also i would like support australia made ink dont you think??
i hope might help you and make sense ??
cheers
Micky the Revhead Troy VenaskiePosted: 16/02/2006 re: ■ Tip: The cheapest ink for your printer I had some customers that used a version of food colouring in their printer but it was mainly just edible ink so they could print designs on rice paper to lay on cakes, etc. With that in mind i think that it is quite possible that food colour could work just as long as the printer was looked after.
(Now that's a clever application. -PZ) |