HP 831 Latex Ink / STS

[wbruzzese]

We have an HP 310 printer and I recently got an email from STS Inks claiming they have an identical ink cartridge for the HP 831 inks. Cost for HP is $135 / cartridge. STS sells their 775 mL cartridge online for only $69.99.

Anyone tried it? https://www.stsinks.com/ink-types/l...tt-packard-hp831-latex-cyan-cz683a-11396.html

At that price, it cuts the ink cost almost in half. Of course they claim their regular price is $99, which is only about a 26% savings.

 

[P Wagner]

Large format printers are essentially ink delivery systems, and the life blood of the printer is the ink itself. As is the case with human blood with it's various blood types (A, B, O, +, - etc), compatibility with other components in the system is critical. Mixing different blood types in humans can be fatal to the patient, and in printers, major (read expensive) damage to ink trains can be the result in extreme cases.

The commonly made claim that any 3rd-party ink is ever 'identical' to the OEM ink is literally impossible (in my opinion). Colors will always be at least a bit different, and mixing inksets can be fraught with danger to system components like ink trains, filters, and printheads. In those cases, the 'savings' from the ink is more than compensated for by increased cleaning cycles, other consumables and printheads.

HP Latex inks are relatively new in the market (6 years or so), and the limited anecdotal evidence with 3rd-party Latex inks that I have encountered has not been positive. In every case that I know of (admittedly just a small sample), the users have quickly reverted to OEM inks.

I am curious to hear other end user experiences with 3rd-party Latex inks...

 

[BigfishDM]

I would ask for a list of current users you could speak to about the consistency of the ink.

 

[greysquirrel]

WHY WHY WHY
HP went to every media manufacturer and forced them to pay somewhere around $2500 per media for profiles that were guaranteed to work...your cost per sq' including consumables is $.22-$.23/sq'

no cleaning, instant dry, completely off gassed and ready to laminate...

there are so many areas that you can reduce your cost to produce goods...don't ever mess with OEM ink...

 

[MagnetStew]

STS has a good reputation with eco-sol. That being said it took 3rd parties a while to get the formula's down for eco-solvent so I would be wary of the latex this early in the game. Doesn't mean it won't work. Like BigFish mentioned, I would get a list of actual end-users. Make sure you quiz them fairly well to make sure they are doing the same things you are to know whether it will actually work for you and your shop.

 

[jawdavis]

I am currently running HP 789 inks from STS in an old L25500 we had sitting around.
We ran into these guys at SGIA and talked for a while and saw the 831 inks running in a 360 they had on the floor. We decided to start with the 789 inks so we could do some testing on it before going any farther with 831's. A little hiccup in the beginning but the service has been excellent. Only limited usage yet, but what I've seen has been good so far. While we don't print much color critical content, I will say I haven't noticed any difference (though I haven no empirical measurements to back that up.) We typically print raster content (photos/art, etc) so we're not trying to hit specific pantones day in and day out, that may be a bit more of a challenge. The jury is still out on drying/curing at the same temps as OEM.

My reasoning for trying out the STS inks was, in my mind at least, there was less risk involved than subbing in 3rd party ink in an eco-sol like we used to run. If we wound up with a clogged printhead on the Roland, we're looking at $1500 in service, with the HP we swap in a new $120 printhead and go back to OEM ink and say that we learned our lesson. Obviously there is some level of risk to the rest of the ink supply station, but I feel pretty confident that if something goes wrong, I can get us back into a printable state using OEM inks without having to make an HP service call.

We buy all of our substrates direct from manufacturers, we are in a pretty competitive market and we already have very low overhead, so there really aren't alot of other places for us to shave costs. According to our owner, we spent $60k in HP ink for just 2 HP 360's in 2015, so if we can shave $25k off that bill by switching to 3rd party inks that work, it's worth a shot for us. If not, then it's a learning experience and we move on.

Will report back with any updates on the inks.

 

[P Wagner]

I am currently running HP 789 inks from STS in an old L25500 we had sitting around.
We ran into these guys at SGIA and talked for a while and saw the 831 inks running in a 360 they had on the floor. We decided to start with the 789 inks so we could do some testing on it before going any farther with 831's. A little hiccup in the beginning but the service has been excellent. Only limited usage yet, but what I've seen has been good so far. While we don't print much color critical content, I will say I haven't noticed any difference (though I haven no empirical measurements to back that up.) We typically print raster content (photos/art, etc) so we're not trying to hit specific pantones day in and day out, that may be a bit more of a challenge. The jury is still out on drying/curing at the same temps as OEM.

My reasoning for trying out the STS inks was, in my mind at least, there was less risk involved than subbing in 3rd party ink in an eco-sol like we used to run. If we wound up with a clogged printhead on the Roland, we're looking at $1500 in service, with the HP we swap in a new $120 printhead and go back to OEM ink and say that we learned our lesson. Obviously there is some level of risk to the rest of the ink supply station, but I feel pretty confident that if something goes wrong, I can get us back into a printable state using OEM inks without having to make an HP service call.

We buy all of our substrates direct from manufacturers, we are in a pretty competitive market and we already have very low overhead, so there really aren't alot of other places for us to shave costs. According to our owner, we spent $60k in HP ink for just 2 HP 360's in 2015, so if we can shave $25k off that bill by switching to 3rd party inks that work, it's worth a shot for us. If not, then it's a learning experience and we move on.

Will report back with any updates on the inks.

Thank you for your input, please keep us appraised going forward.

With respect to the amount of ink that you are running through the 360s, you might want to look at the Latex 370, as it provides a much larger reservoir of ink (3L+775ml per color) for unattended printing, and the cost of the ink for the 370 goes down by over 25 percent, versus the 360.

Paul

 

[jawdavis]

I briefly considered it, but we were one of the first adopters of the 360's so the 370 wasnt even on the radar at the time. I'd like to think that I can run these 360's for the same 4-5 years that I did with the 25500's before needing new equipment, but demand may require an additional machine, who knows. Believe it or not, I've been told by two different HP people (one tech and one suit) that unless I'm running each machine 20+ hours a day, then upgrading a 360 or buying a 370 probably wouldn't be as cost-effective for us as it may be for others.

 

[jawdavis]

Circling back to this, we've just run most of the way through our first set of HP 831 inks from STS inks out of Florida. We tried the 789 inks on our old L25500's with mixed results, but I feel like I can blame some of those tests on the printer/printheads and not necessarily the inks. Still having trouble with light cyan, but further testing is required.

Anyway, we took a leap of faith and decided to try the 831's in just one of our HP L360's to see how it went and so far so good. We've been running them for about 4 full days with no side effects as of yet, and colors seem to be pretty spot on. I haven't seen any need to change curing temps, but it's very dry here right now so we'll see if that changes as humidity goes up. We had some inclement weather here also and the machines sat idle for 3 days in between printing with no issues.

I'm about to order another set to keep this particular printer going, but I'm going to continue running genuine HP inks in our other machine for now. So far I'm pleased, but time will tell and I'll report back later if anything changes.

 

[AF]

Excellent report.

 

[dale911]

HP Latex Ink

I've been running Budget Ink in my HP l25500 for the last several months and have only one issue. They sent me a cartridge that wouldn't read when inserted. They made it right immediately. Customer service is top notch. I think I have run about 15 or so cartridges through it so far. Colors are still great and my wallet is a heavier because of it.

 

[Scyan]

Circling back to this, we've just run most of the way through our first set of HP 831 inks from STS inks out of Florida. We tried the 789 inks on our old L25500's with mixed results, but I feel like I can blame some of those tests on the printer/printheads and not necessarily the inks. Still having trouble with light cyan, but further testing is required.

Anyway, we took a leap of faith and decided to try the 831's in just one of our HP L360's to see how it went and so far so good. We've been running them for about 4 full days with no side effects as of yet, and colors seem to be pretty spot on. I haven't seen any need to change curing temps, but it's very dry here right now so we'll see if that changes as humidity goes up. We had some inclement weather here also and the machines sat idle for 3 days in between printing with no issues.

I'm about to order another set to keep this particular printer going, but I'm going to continue running genuine HP inks in our other machine for now. So far I'm pleased, but time will tell and I'll report back later if anything changes.

Hi, I'd be curious to get your insight on this. HP says that running third party inks should do this to the 300 series printers :

- It should disable the ink level reporting
- It should disable the drop detector basically preventing the printer from compensating any missing nozzles if that happens over time

Have you noticed any of that so far ?

I'd be really curious to know how much ink you will manage to run through the printheads. Our average here has been around 11 liters per printhead but it's still climbing and I expect it will be much higher than this. If you manage less than that with the aftermarket inks or if it indeed disables the drop detector, it will make this ink much less appealing imho. Especially if the printer starts banding because it can't compensate for missing nozzles ?

I'd be very curious to know the scratch resistance of these inks vs the HP 831 ? Can you test that out by sliding your fingernails sideways (with the nail edge like a knife) and try to scratch the output on purpose ?

 

[jawdavis]

Hi, I'd be curious to get your insight on this. HP says that running third party inks should do this to the 300 series printers :

- It should disable the ink level reporting
- It should disable the drop detector basically preventing the printer from compensating any missing nozzles if that happens over time

Have you noticed any of that so far ?

I'd be really curious to know how much ink you will manage to run through the printheads. Our average here has been around 11 liters per printhead but it's still climbing and I expect it will be much higher than this. If you manage less than that with the aftermarket inks or if it indeed disables the drop detector, it will make this ink much less appealing imho. Especially if the printer starts banding because it can't compensate for missing nozzles ?

I'd be very curious to know the scratch resistance of these inks vs the HP 831 ? Can you test that out by sliding your fingernails sideways (with the nail edge like a knife) and try to scratch the output on purpose ?

I have seen neither issue as of yet, but time will tell I guess. Ink level reporting so far has been spot on, obviously disabling the drop-detector is not as easy to check. These both sound like HP scare tactics to me.

I did some rudimentary scratch tests and was unable to do any worse damage than I was able to do to the HP inks. I am going to be saving offcuts of STS inks and HP inks prints since I will be continue running them side-by-side for a while. I will then do some further testing on scratch-resistance and chemical resistance, etc.

I just ordered the 4th and 5th sets of ink from STS so I've run a good bit through the printer. So far nothing has been affected whatsoever from our perspective, YMMV.

In terms of the amount of ink run through a printhead, if running say 8 liters per printhead vs 11-12 liters per printhead is a dealbreaker, then I'd rethink your math on that. These inks are about 40-45% off OEM so a way bigger savings than a few extra printheads. That being said, I generally swap printheads when they get close to the 9-10 liter mark anyway, waiting until it starts banding and ruining material can be just as expensive.

 

[PrintLand]

I tried black and yellow and had to change back because the black ink would bleed into other colors as well as the media. To me, it seems like the ink is watered down and doesn't hold it's shape before the heaters get to dry the ink. It only happens on certain media like HP's professional satin photo paper where it has a smooth surface. I just noticed it after printing a poster for a client where it has a black background with white letters.

I tired to contact STS directly but all I was told was that it was my rip or settings. I bought the original inkset and after a job or two to flush out the lines, the printing on photo paper was back to normal.



I am just going to stick to original ink because the quality is just better.

 

[Split76]

.. and what if the ink fails in a year or two? you will replace everything?

 

[greysquirrel]

Production mode you are at $.23/sq'
if you create your own profiles on the 360...cut your density back to 80-90% where applicable and now you are under $.20/sq'...

stick with OEM...you are only going to end up in trouble somewhere...

as far as the 370...4-5 hours of printing per day makes the unit worthwhile...otherwise it will take you too long to recoup the added cost of the printer through the reduced cost of ink...

 

[DaVinci15]

don't

Large format printers are essentially ink delivery systems, and the life blood of the printer is the ink itself. As is the case with human blood with it's various blood types (A, B, O, +, - etc), compatibility with other components in the system is critical. Mixing different blood types in humans can be fatal to the patient, and in printers, major (read expensive) damage to ink trains can be the result in extreme cases.

The commonly made claim that any 3rd-party ink is ever 'identical' to the OEM ink is literally impossible (in my opinion). Colors will always be at least a bit different, and mixing inksets can be fraught with danger to system components like ink trains, filters, and printheads. In those cases, the 'savings' from the ink is more than compensated for by increased cleaning cycles, other consumables and printheads.

HP Latex inks are relatively new in the market (6 years or so), and the limited anecdotal evidence with 3rd-party Latex inks that I have encountered has not been positive. In every case that I know of (admittedly just a small sample), the users have quickly reverted to OEM inks.

I am curious to hear other end user experiences with 3rd-party Latex inks...

I would absolutely not recommend using third party inks for 3rd gen latex 831 inks. Beyond going into the science behind it, this simple answer should help you make your decision:
STS is manufacturing their own CMYKLcLM but NOT Optimizer. This is because they have yet to crack the code as to how to manufacture that pigment. They are buying actual true Optimizer from an HP distributor (who is quite unethical, might I add), and offering it with their 3rd party inks. If they cannot recreate the positively charged pigment of the Optimizer, what would ever make you confident in their recreation of negatively charged pigments in the CMYKLcLM?

 

[jawdavis]

Have you used any of the STS inks or are you basing this on conjecture? I, in no way whatsoever, work for or am affiliated with STS inks, I've just been using them on one of my 2 360's for the last few months. The first couple of months went flawlessly. I saw no difference in color at all, scratch resistance, chemical resistance, etc. A few times I ran out of STS inks before I got more in and I swapped in HP's on the fly and couldn't tell a bit of difference. The first issue I had was with a particular material that I've been printing to for years, General Formulations Graphitex 234. At first I thought I had a bad batch of material, because it seemed like dark inks were rubbing off the material way too easily. There were some other subtle differences in the GF material that made me think they'd made some changes to the topcoat or something. However, when I printed with HP inks, I didn't have the same issue. Strangely though, none of my other materials were affected this way by STS inks. I'm still printing on vinyl and wallpaper all day long with STS with no issues.

Issue #2, over the last 2 weeks I've begun getting messages saying that the Ink Level Sensor is not working properly. I've had this message for multiple ink colors and it's been rejecting some cartridges. STS says they're unfamiliar, but who knows. I'm still printing, however some ink level reporting has gone awry, while other cartridges seems to report just fine. A previous poster in this thread noted this as being a potential issue but I'm not certain of what the problem is. HP says this is a replaceable part and not super uncommon for it to fail, but I have no hard evidence to say that STS inks were or weren't the culprit. I will report back on how this plays out.

I am here to provide a non-biased opinion of my experience with STS ink. The potential savings were there for us to give it a shot and so far I'm still glad we did. Whether or not you use this information to dissuade you from using their inks is your decision not mine. However, I don't think that the argument that just because they don't make optimizer means their ink sucks will hold water. First off, companies have been reverse engineering latex ink since it was released in 2009. Optimizer wasn't even on the radar until 2014 so there's some catch-up there for sure. Also, I've always been told by numerous people that HP doesn't even make their own ink, including notable HP reps. I would bet that the only difference between the company making HP ink and STS ink is that only one of them was given the Colonel's secret recipe to go from. Again, if you don't want to try 3rd party inks, don't. I won't lose any sleep over your decision. But if you've never even tried them, I don't think you should trash them.

 

[iladi]

Hi,

Can someone provide updates regarding STS 831 compatible latex inks? Many thanx.

 

[Dukenukem117]

This one would be hard to test, but has anyone noticed it fading in the sun faster? I think the OEM ink is 3-5 years unlaminated.