Need Help How to change to third party ink?

[signmeup]

I want to change to third party ink (Ritemedia) on my Mimaki CJV150. (This will "void" my warranty on anything the the third party ink damages.) My tech told me to do a custody wash and then put in the new ink. This doesn't sound right to me. I thought I was supposed to wash out the old ink with cleaning cartridges or something? The maker of the ink says just swap the OEM cartridges for the new new ink and carry on. No washing. What do I do?

Reason for the swap is I can't stand the fumes from ss21 ink and I used Ritemedia ink for 10+ years on my old Roland printer with no issues. Ritemedia ink is sold by the company I bought the Mimaki from.

 

[Smoke_Jaguar]

Pretty much got it, a proper flushing is the way to go. Cleaning cartridges are usually the way to go, just purge the old ink until the lines look mostly clear. Then install ink, run a few more cycles and test to make sure all the channels are printing right. Might be a good idea to flush the capping station as well. Main issue is if ink isn't directly compatible, so good to check with the supplier of the aftermarket ink. Last thing you want is inks reacting and forming deposits in your lines or printhead.

 

[DL Signs]

Mimaki's can be temperamental with aftermarket anything.
That said, if you're doing it solely for the odor, you may not get what you ask for. All solvent inks smell, there's different formulas for different printers, so it might be less, better, just as bad, or worse, probably won't get the same result on a Mimaki as a Roland. If you're printing without adequate ventilation, whether it smells bad or good, there's still a health issue with solvent fumes, so good ventilation is a must. Personally, unless you have printers running at high enough volume where the cost benefit of aftermarket or bulk ink systems comes into play, I'd look into ventilation options or air scrubbers, keep any printer warranties in place, along with future warranties on replacement heads and other ink system components you have to service down the road. You can add a lot of ventilation for the cost of a print head alone that fails before warranty is expired. Just something to think about.

 

[signmeup]

Thanks.

I do use ventilation. The tech told me the Ritemedia ink for the Mimaki smelled the same as the Ritemedia ink I used in my Roland. I never felt ill running the Roland. I can't stay in the room with the SS21 ink.
I don't care about the cost difference. It's negligible.

I can't find instructions on how to flush the lines. The "custody wash" instructions don't seem to be correct. I'll have to ask the tech for clarifications I guess. Or find another tech.

 

[netsol]

an air scrubber (as well as an exhaust fan, like you woul put in a bthroom) should keep things under control.

a couple years back, we had a thread about building your own affordable air scrubber by bolting 2 units from

amazon together

 

[signmeup]

An air scrubber would be great too! (I've seen that thread) But what I really need is instructions on how to swap from OEM ink to third party ink on a Mimaki CJV150.

Anyone?

 

[Smoke_Jaguar]

I hate solvent ink smells with a passion, but I find Mimaki ES3 to be tolerable.

 

[MelloImagingTechnologies]

I’m about to start selling 3rd party inks for every Mimaki printer and you don’t need to flush the inks.
The inks are developed by extremely intelligent chemists and have never had a problem because the chemicals are the same.

 

[SGC]

If there’s a head wash option in the maintenance mode, that’s how you drain and fill up with solution.

 

[hybriddesign]

We swapped our JV150 over to Bordeaux ink and didn't do a flush. We've actually had a to swap back and forth between SS21 and Bordeaux a few times when we ran short of Bordeaux and could only get SS21 locally with no issues (other than a slight color shift). We've also given Bordeaux ink to a few other Mimaki friends who ran out of SS21 (the joy of living in Hawaii with limited local supply availability) and they swapped in a Bordeaux cartridge and then went back to SS21 with no issues.

Just like you mentioned, the SS21 fumes were horrible and after switching to Bordeaux it was miles better. We didn't have any performance issues but did notice that everything shifted slightly too magenta and we were only using Rasterlink so we had no way to correct it (we have Onyx for other machines but have had no luck connecting this printer to it). We don't use this printer much right now but if we did it again I'd definitely swap for aftermarket ink again. Funny thing is that we made the switch purely because we liked the aftermarket ink better than the oem and not for cost. We'd had three Mimaki printers before this and had kept all of them on the OEM ink.

One of our friends who has a CJV150 has had some issues with their machine and we've been printing for them on our Epson 60600 which is the main machine we use now. He was amazed at how much better the Epson ink was at not causing the edges of the vinyl to curl when cutting it full bleed. We never noticed it much but then getting back to thinking about it that was one of the other benefits I remember when we went from SS21 to generic.

Anyways, in my experience at least you can likely just swap inks out and go. If you're worried about the transition you might want to do an ink flush/fill until the new ink hits the head or just print some non-color sensitive jobs until then.

 

[netsol]

Mimaki's can be temperamental with aftermarket anything.
That said, if you're doing it solely for the odor, you may not get what you ask for. All solvent inks smell, there's different formulas for different printers, so it might be less, better, just as bad, or worse, probably won't get the same result on a Mimaki as a Roland. If you're printing without adequate ventilation, whether it smells bad or good, there's still a health issue with solvent fumes, so good ventilation is a must. Personally, unless you have printers running at high enough volume where the cost benefit of aftermarket or bulk ink systems comes into play, I'd look into ventilation options or air scrubbers, keep any printer warranties in place, along with future warranties on replacement heads and other ink system components you have to service down the road. You can add a lot of ventilation for the cost of a print head alone that fails before warranty is expired. Just something to think about.

I hate solvent ink smells with a passion, but I find Mimaki ES3 to be tolerable.

Some of the younger guys complain.

a few weeks back we did a lengthy print run, 3 machines running. FIRST TIME I can say I really found it objectionable

putting in a couple aircscrubbers

 

[signmeup]

I wonder why so many aftermarket ink brands say you can just swap to their ink without any flushing or other didoes? Maybe they are hoping you will ruin your printer with their ink... so you'll never buy more ink from them...

How many here have ruined their printers by "hot swapping" to aftermarket ink? That said I have 8 cleaner cartridges and am happy to flush this thing. I'd just like to find actual instructions on the procedure.

 

[signmeup]

I’m about to start selling 3rd party inks for every Mimaki printer and you don’t need to flush the inks.
The inks are developed by extremely intelligent chemists and have never had a problem because the chemicals are the same.

Thanks.

 

[DL Signs]

To do a full flush on a Mimaki you'll need 8 flush cartridges (part# C-FL003-Z-22-1), These are used to flush to swap between ink-sets, like SS21 to ES3, and can be used for power cleaning lines/ heads. They included a set of 8 with the last Mimaki we bought for some reason. You replace all 8 cartridges with those, flush, then switch back to ink and do your fill up. Don't use standard cleaning cartridges, they use a much hotter solvent that can damage things.

Many you can just swap and go, some might even back it up with a guarantee. I've just swapped and gone with them in the past, and didn't have any issues with them printing.

Just keep in mind, aftermarket inks can't use the same exact formula as OEM because it's proprietary, so they're not the same, just close enough to work. Differences you can expect are color variations, often they're subtle enough to not be an issue, some more. If so, some profiling fixes it. One thing that I've experienced that wasn't expected was a shorter head life, two channels always failed quicker, like 20% quicker (yellow was one, the other was either black or magenta, I try to put that out of my head). Not a problem that rears it's ugly head right away, but a potential issue to be aware of that I learned later was fairly common. OEM's make a boat load selling inks, they design their machines and inks to work together almost intentional enough to make it a problem to use anything else. It's like if they don't get your ink money, they'll make it up on selling you heads sooner???

 

[netsol]

I wonder why so many aftermarket ink brands say you can just swap to their ink without any flushing or other didoes? Maybe they are hoping you will ruin your printer with their ink... so you'll never buy more ink from them...

How many here have ruined their printers by "hot swapping" to aftermarket ink? That said I have 8 cleaner cartridges and am happy to flush this thing. I'd just like to find actual instructions on the procedure.

IF THE SOLVENTS ARE COMPATABLE, you can.
the friend i bought my sc545-ex from laughed at me when i asked him what kind of ink tonrun

"whatever s**t is the cheapest"

if you take an eye dropper full of the new ink & put it in the old ink & it doesn't coagulate, they could well be compatable. at your own risk, of course.

 

[netsol]

To do a full flush on a Mimaki you'll need 8 flush cartridges (part# C-FL003-Z-22-1), These are used to flush to swap between ink-sets, like SS21 to ES3, and can be used for power cleaning lines/ heads. They included a set of 8 with the last Mimaki we bought for some reason. You replace all 8 cartridges with those, flush, then switch back to ink and do your fill up. Don't use standard cleaning cartridges, they use a much hotter solvent that can damage things.

Many you can just swap and go, some might even back it up with a guarantee. I've just swapped and gone with them in the past, and didn't have any issues with them printing.

Just keep in mind, aftermarket inks can't use the same exact formula as OEM because it's proprietary, so they're not the same, just close enough to work. Differences you can expect are color variations, often they're subtle enough to not be an issue, some more. If so, some profiling fixes it. One thing that I've experienced that wasn't expected was a shorter head life, two channels always failed quicker, like 20% quicker (yellow was one, the other was either black or magenta, I try to put that out of my head). Not a problem that rears it's ugly head right away, but a potential issue to be aware of that I learned later was fairly common. OEM's make a boat load selling inks, they design their machines and inks to work together almost intentional enough to make it a problem to use anything else. It's like if they don't get your ink money, they'll make it up on selling you heads sooner???

I am never quite sure of the subtle differences between Roland inks, Mutoh inks & mimaki

 

[netsol]

First thing we do when we acquire a piece of used equipment, whose chemistry I am unfamiliar with, is request the "epa" sheet. I forget the terminology. This gives you a fairly good idea what the solvents are. Although not necessarily all the buffering agents. After the "cleaner" dissolves some hardened pigment, it has to stay suspended in something or it could end up in a worst place than where it was. The carrier allows it to stay suspended long enough to reach the waste tank forgive the layman"s terminology.

 

[signmeup]

Interesting stuff. Thanks to all who posted!

I'd be pretty surprised if any printer manufacturer actually makes their own ink. Looking at the cartridges from Mimaki and Roland being virtually identical reinforces this notion. My guess is some factory that specializes in the manufacture of ink sells to both(all?) printer companies. And possibly the third party ink outfits.

 

[netsol]

Interesting stuff. Thanks to all who posted!

I'd be pretty surprised if any printer manufacturer actually makes their own ink. Looking at the cartridges from Mimaki and Roland being virtually identical reinforces this notion. My guess is some factory that specializes in the manufacture of ink sells to both(all?) printer companies. And possibly the third party ink outfits.

i didn't say they make it. i just suspect they tweak the formulation always imagining they know better than anyone else
A DISEASE I HAVE LONG BEEN INFECTED WITH

 

[DL Signs]

I am never quite sure of the subtle differences between Roland inks, Mutoh inks & mimaki

Think paint. Every brand has it's own proprietary formula, most can hit the same colors, some outlast others, but everyone has their own, and they'll never tell you what's all in it. MSDS sheets give some clues, but never list everything, unless it's all regulated, hazardous, or flammable chemicals.

Inks are the same, except now you have a machine designed to work with theirs, so they can take it a step further and tweak things to work together. We all know there are differences in the same head, like a DX7 can't just be used across the board in any machine, they're pre-set for different manufacturers, run on different voltages, etc. Why? Who knows, maybe just so they'll work with the viscosity of their proprietary ink??? Change ink types (like ss21 to es3) you can't just flush & go, all parameters and voltages are changed to match, so I assume the formula matters quite a bit, and can't vary too much without some trade-off somewhere. Like in the Roland's I used to run, once the color variations were worked out on aftermarket inks, the heads didn't last as long. Fluke, or formula?