Ink dates!

[Artgunner]

Japan must have taken note on repeated requests for time. Tubelite sold me ink that was chiped for 4/10 yesterday! The second ink cartridge was dated for the end of this year. They told me that they had been requesting additional time and was sending many cartridges back. Bet Japan reprograms those chips and back to the shelves they go.

Art

 

[Dice]

I read that Mimaki changed ink vendors and with the new vendor the ink has less of a shelf life. (Can't verify) It seems to answer why everyone is getting screwed on expiring inks and why we noticed the labeling change on the ink.

Rule of thumb nowadays is check your ink dates before signing off on them.

 

[Big House Signs]

wow...I never knew...never checked....what happens if you use expired ink? Just checked ink we have on the shelf....dated 4/30...and then grimco was having a special so i bought another set but that exp date is june 16th.

 

[Dice]

From what I've gathered, you have 30 days after it expires. After that I'm assuming that it will reject the cartridge. Hasn't happened to us yet, so i can't verify it.

 

[Artgunner]

Yes, it will shut down the ink cartridge. I had one that went 45+ days after date. Strange and I sure did not care at the time. I had a tech tell me that we all should demand more time from the vendors. After recieving the extended time and hearing what Tubelite reps were telling me, kinda shed some positive light on this issue. Now, if we could get 3M to come down on that 180C.
Art

 

[Artgunner]

Tubelite sold me ink that was chiped for 4/10 yesterday!
Art

This was year 2010, April. Not this year.

Art

 

[ChicagoGraphics]

I just recieved some inks that were dated for april 2010 to, as for outdated inks as the others stated there good for 30 days after expired dates. But last week I put in a cartridge that was dated Dec.08 and my printer has not stoped, according to my suppliers Is my printer shouldn't even be printing.

 

[ColesCreations]

Do the battery remove-replace-procedure, guys! No more worrying about the date on the cartridges. It works, and is a 15 minute job, tops.

 

[iSign]

I read that Mimaki changed ink vendors and with the new vendor the ink has less of a shelf life. (Can't verify) It seems to answer why everyone is getting screwed on expiring inks and why we noticed the labeling change on the ink.

Rule of thumb nowadays is check your ink dates before signing off on them.

I think what happened is the economy has hit us all at least a little... and when we print less, we order less ink... when all of us order less ink, our suppliers inks move off the shelf slower & stuff that was ordered to move in 60 days, sat 120 days or more, so it was 60 days further out of date when some of us got inks in late last year... then all those suppliers whoose ink sat on the shelves longer slowed down their normal order sizes or frequency... Mimaki had huge amounts of ink on their shelves & somewhere someone had to put the brakes on producing cartridges... Then when our suppliers shelves finally thinned out slower than usual... they ordered from Mimaki & were told the only inks they could offer was halfway out of date already, compared to the remaining shelf lives we were seeing a year ago...

...it's not that the ink has a shorter shelf life... it's just that over half it's useful life was already spent sitting on someone else's shelf before we bought it!

Do the battery remove-replace-procedure, guys! No more worrying about the date on the cartridges. It works, and is a 15 minute job, tops.

nope... no more $100 cartridge worries... only sludgy ink & printhead failure worries instead

I'm sure the ink doesn't break down into a thickened mass of pigment particles the day after the chip warning... so I fully agree that throwing away partial cartridges is throwing away good ink... BUT, I also believe the ink WILL thicken eventually, & particles WILL separate out and risk clogs.. so without built in chip driven time limits... I wouldn't consider disabling the warning mechanism to be a "worry free" solution... just a penny pinching solution, that creates an unquestionably higher risk of expensive consequences. Of course one could be careful to manage that higher risk... or one could be careful to buy fresh inks & not overstock (which I'm sure is much easier in 90% of other shops than it is out here in the middle of the Pacific... but it ain't that hard out here)

 

[sha]

You can use ink for 60 days after expire date. After that printer won't recognize cartridge.
For me the biggest problem that 15 % of ink is always remain in the cartridge when chip counter comes to 0.

 

[CL Graphics]

thanks coles. did the battery trick last week per your instructions on here. Works great. I doubt the inks are gonna gel up a month or two after they expire. I had a couple inks that expired in december and they worked fine.

 

[ColesCreations]

To iSign:
Maybe it's pennypinching, but it works, and I have not had any print heads clogging, even with ink more than a year out of date. Ink has been stored at regular room temperature, never in 100 deg temperature. I have shook the older cartridges pretty well before installing, just to be sure.

To ClGraphics- Thanks for the vote of confidence!

And to Sha- do you "add 30cc" to use up all the ink? If you do, I recommend getting an electronic scale, don't use below 400 grams weight on the cartridge.