Aftermarket Ink? Need Advice?

[Shadowglen]

What I find funny is that my dealer/ supplier told me that Roland printers recognizes a third party cartridge and run more frequent cleanings thus using up more ink. He also said they only sell Roland ink and you void your warranty if you use aftermarket inks.

All of that said I ordered some small sign blanks from them last month. They were packaged in a Triangle inks box!!

 

[SightLine]

What I find funny is that my dealer/ supplier told me that Roland printers recognizes a third party cartridge and run more frequent cleanings thus using up more ink. He also said they only sell Roland ink and you void your warranty if you use aftermarket inks.

All of that said I ordered some small sign blanks from them last month. They were packaged in a Triangle inks box!!

You could get the rep at your dealer in trouble over that. It is against Federal Law (Moss Magunson Act) to say that using a third party ink will void your warranty. Highly illegal to even hint it at. Would be akin to Honda buying Exxon and then saying your new car warranty is void if you use any gasoline other than Exxon....

As mentioned - lots of different people have lots of different experiences with aftermarket inks. I can say this with 100% certainty though. Those who have a problem most often those who will readily take the time to write about it. Those who are having a great experience are far far less likely to take the time to write about it. We have been running Triangle solvent inks for several years. Love it! I buy the 2 liter bulk ink boxes and it costs me about a quarter of what OEM ink does.

 

[royster13]

Where is the Magnuson Moss Warranty Act does it refer to "commercial goods"......As I read that act it means "consumer goods" which as far as I understand is a much different class of goods than "commercial goods"....Am I missing something?...

 

[chrisphilipps]

I don't know about anyone else but we do offer warranties with our inks. In fact we sell our own warranties with the Valuejet line and you are free to use our ink or Mutohs with it. We have been selling this ink for over two years and tested it before we started to. We have sold thousands of these cartridges now and there hasn't been any issues. Anyone with a Valuejet is invited to try it.

 

[SightLine]

Where is the Magnuson Moss Warranty Act does it refer to "commercial goods"......As I read that act it means "consumer goods" which as far as I understand is a much different class of goods than "commercial goods"....Am I missing something?...

Actually no you are not. I have never actually needed to "use" the law so I've never really looked into it in detail. But you are correct - it does not apply to products used for commercial use. Only consumer use. I'd just always seen it quoted many times - even in commercial use sites like here so I had assumed it also applied to us. I just read it though and apparently I was dead wrong.

 

[Shadowglen]

so does Roland void the warranty if you use aftermarket inks?

 

[TheSnowman]

I ran Bordeaux for years in my JV3, and no issues, bought a JV33 two years ago and ran Triangle right out of the gate and it's been trouble free. Just great pricing.

 

[Digital D-Signs]

Warranty

Chances are you won't loose your entire warranty even if your supplier somehow found out you were using 3rd party inks and reported you. Most printer manufacturers cancel the coverage only on the parts that are in direct contact with ink. I suppose this is because the manufacturer would have a very hard time proving that a third party ink caused a part like a main board or pf motor to go out if they were challenged legally. The reason for all of the warranty cancellation threats is obviously based around the fact that these are ink delivery devices for the manufacturer. They sell the printers on this level at a relatively low cost and then make the real money on the back end through ink sales. Regardless, the main consideration for anyone doing more than a very small amount of printing is the huge difference in yearly cost between the oem and 3rd party ink.

 

[Stanton]

Ink is pigment and anti-freeze.
Sometimes they add vanilla.

Buy the cheapest brew you can find.

It was, in ancient times, ground up bugs and special dirt.

Now it is chemicals. Standard chemicals.


Buy cheap. Same stink.

 

[StudioSignsInc]

We ran Bordeaux inks for a while in our Roland Soljet Pro III XC-540 - we eventually switched back to Roland inks because some of the Bordeaux cartridges wouldn't completely empty (it happened enough times for us to figure the lost in ink wasn't saving us any money).

Hearing about the success of others with their 3rd party inks got me wondering about trying new ones...

 

[gabagoo]

I just switched over to Jetbest and have one refillable cartridge loaded so far. I was given step by step instructions for first time loading and I guess I did it correctly as I had no air in the lines and the Mimaki has printed fine since....now I just need to wait for the other 7 to run low.....
My only concern is the way the bottles sit upright on the cartridges and my sometimes hap hazard way of walking around the machine. I just know one day I will knock a roll of vinyl into a cartridge and watch it fly across the room...lol :Big Laugh

 

[hanother]

two cents

I am going to put my two cents in on this. I am a long time Versacamm user having had one since 2007. I'm am on my second machine now, it is a 2012 model. The first VC was a sp300v I ran Roland ink for the first 3 years, on the fourth year I gave in to the local Fellers rep and switched to Triangle EDX ink. At first all was fine, then about three months into it the cyan/black print head started acting up. I chalked it up to being an old machine with a lot of miles on it. So I replaced both printheads. 3 to 4 months later C & K started up again. I decided this time to replace the machine all the while staying with the Triangle ink. I bought the machine I have now and switched it to Triangle. Same story 3 months bamm new printhead for C&K. All the while you have to clean the machine a lot more to keep the test print clean. This time I have decided to go back to Roland. I did this about two weeks ago. I switched back to Roland ink because it just isn't worth all the trouble. I ran my first versacamm for 3 years without any issues what so ever. I cleaned the heads at the end of every week. I don't know what it is about the Triangle and the cyan/black printhead but they just go bad after about three months. I have read somewhere the viscosity has something to do with it. I believe the down time, the cost of having to run stuff over and the constant cleaning and replacing parts in the end is just not worth the savings you get using 3rd party ink.

I hate paying a buck and a quarter for the Roland ink but I hate even more having a customer complain about the quality of the print because the damn triangle ink is taking out another printhead on me!

 

[Accentk54]

sts says their uv inks are the same as roland they even put roland on the cartridges

 

[premiercolour]

Roland ink is made in Japan. STS ink according to them is made in the USA.

 

[Ultraman]

Fatcat is right. I have been using third party ink without issue at all, dealership makes big bucks of their customers whether your business is good or bad ...no breaks and sometimes if you don't buy ink from them, they will not come to fix your printer.