JV3 Mimaki Bulk Black Ink Recycle

[JTpro]

I was curious about this.

Can you use the waste ink as black ink? It's a mixture of all colors and so wouldn't it work?

I run a bulk ink system on my machine. That waste ink container is about 2 liters which is $170 worth of ink.

I know there could be possible contaminates in the ink, but what if I sent it through double inline filters prior to putting it back into the black bulk ink?

I think it would work, anyone done this???

Thank You
Jeff

 

[4R Graphics]

You could but your profiles will be wrong and no way to calibrate it. Also there will be posiblities of clogging a head @ $800 in parts alone not worth it. Besides if you are using bulk ink as do I you know that it is cheap and is by far the cheapest part of the print so why try to go even cheaper and destroy something or have bad profiles?

Do more prints make more money Dont be cheap.

 

[genericname]

You could but your profiles will be wrong and no way to calibrate it.

Not to mention that, depending on your setup, you've also got a good chance of having that mix diluted with solvent cleaner, which screws up the ratio of pigment to solvent. Don't bother. I think you're more likely to waste money in wasted material, than wasted hardware, but it's a waste either way.

 

[thewood]

If it makes you feel better, we've all thought about it. I know I have!

 

[ChicagoGraphics]

How cheap can you be?

You can do this though, make a separate bottle for each color and put your waste lines in each bottle to collect that color. You really don't save much on ink cost, but that's for the super cheapo's!

 

[Robert M]

Billboard printer

A customer of mine who worked at a place here in Colorado said they did recycle the waste ink. They add pigment to the inks to get the right black. With the 40+ printers they have, it would make sense to recycle rather then pay to have it taken away

 

[jhanson]

The problem with the ink in the waste bottle, among other issues mentioned above, is that there is clotted pigments, lint, fuzz, and other foreign gunk in there that you would NEVER want to put through a $1000+ print head.

If you have access to a ink manufacturer-grade ink filtration system and you can guarantee that particles will be filtered at the sub-micron level, then sure, reprocess and reuse it as black. But for the love of all that is good, don't just stick it in your black cartridge unless you like replacing dampers and heads every month.

If it's disposal that bothers you, get a bottle of cat litter from Costco or Sam's Club and pour the ink in there. When the cat litter is saturated, simply throw it in the trash. It's now classified as solid waste, not liquid hazardous material, and can be disposed of normally.

 

[elsignshop]

I have tried this before just to see what would happen :Oops: and all it did was cause trouble for me. it took me 2 hours to clean the heads and lines, i will never try this again!!!

 

[Charlie J]

Interesting...