Anyone using an Epson Ecotank printer with pigment inks?

**tduell** · 10-26-2018, 04:10 PM

Hello All,
I'm interested in an Epson Ecotank printer, but it doesn't look like Epson provide pigment inks.
I see some 3rd party suppliers have pigment inks for the Ecotank printers.
Anyone tried these pigment inks and able to report on quality, problems etc?

Cheers,
Terry

grey03 · 10-26-2018, 07:51 PM

Terry,

I have an Epson ET-7750 (EcoTank) and am really happy with it. Very nice quality photos and will handle up to 11”x17” prints. One of its five ink colors is pigment based (“Photo Black”) but the other four are dye based. I’m just using it for home use, but definitely understand the desire for pigment inks all around if you’re printing professionally or planning on displaying in a gallery or otherwise need to ensure your prints won’t fade over the long-run. I have not tried any 3rd party pigment inks, but would also be curious what sort of experiences others might have. Probably would not be good for your warranty, though, if the 3rd party inks were to clog anything up.

There is one EcoTank model that I found which uses all Epson pigment inks (4 colors): Epson WorkForce Pro WF-R4640 (uses R12X DURABrite Ultra Ink Packs). One downside is it looks like it is limited to a maximum paper width of 8.5”.

Michael

**tduell** · 10-26-2018, 08:53 PM

Thanks for your response Michael,
It's a pity Epson don't support the pigment inks for all colours in A3+ Ecotank models.
Hopefully someone has tried the after market inks and can report their experience.

Cheers,
Terry

Bluesmozis · 02-03-2021, 01:02 PM

The magenta didn't work at all(5%), all else is fine!. Tried cleaning "power clean(big clean), started it again when i tried a small clean of print heads AFTER a nozzle print!, I was very insulted as the screen that said "information" didn't say what the printer was doing "In progress" but what is in progress(it was a power clean!!!. by the looks of ink used). Learned that its really not smart to use other than printer intended. I think, maybe if you don't buy the "precision" head of the 4760, other Ecotanks might work better. I'm thinking of putting dye in all, and selling my pigment ink(only ones i have), and switching to dye like i should off. Buying a bit of dye, until i sold the pigments would of been smart. Advice when buying a printer these days you have to know exactly what your buying... when i bought the 4760 it didn't even say it was dye, anywhere!. I'm strongly insulted this time and will do much more research before buying any other printer. The workforce 1200$$$ as pigment Ecotank ink. I'll wait for a Ecotank at a reasonable price, and more and more likely from other producers than all the ones we deal with now. I mean 1200$ to use pigment! ink. I wont forget. But i am leaning more and more on dye, which just clogs less(tired), Magenta on my old printer Epson stylus 4800 didn't work, bought the 4760 still doesn't work. They are very annoying, you would think a dye printer would say its dye...Yes it's my fault but its so hard to find "any info" before I always buy the wrong printer, every time!. Product descriptions never say dye or not. I'm getting very frustrated with these companies. The 4760 is the best but it uses precision!!! heads(always something wrong somewhere, be very careful and research any adaptations). Learned from experience that trying to fix magenta will break the printer!. I'll have to print without magenta, that i almost don't use anyway, that why it always failed(C

ut all colours in every page). If a colour breaks and you can't fix it, use the others but don't over clean(E.g. the ink pad might be saturated and your printer will stop! working). I threw away the 4800 and then realized that the error was probably small "parts replacements", but the dealer said he could not get parts anymore(a pad! maybe). My advice is don't play games with any printers they are made to break if not used as intended. E.g. magenta failed, tried to fix it too! much!, printer failed!. If i fix the Magenta I'll let you know how i got there. If not well...Realized that Dye works great also, pigment only works best if extra long storage life is expected. And dye don't clog much! so I'm thinking of going with dye if i can switch again somehow!. Recommended: USE dye! if long term 5Yover printing is needed use pigments

.

**jbinpg** · 02-03-2021, 05:29 PM

I do not have an Epson printer but do have the Canon G3000 with the refillable tanks. I have found that to prevent the ink draining from the black feed line, I need to do at least one print/day. So I made up a cron job from my linux box to print a short message at 10:15 am daily. So far it has prevented having to do a deep clean every time you leave the printer for a few days. Perhaps this also applies to the similar Canons.

Bluesmozis · 02-03-2021, 08:23 PM

Originally posted by Bluesmozis

The magenta didn't work at all(5%), all else is fine!. Tried cleaning "power clean(big clean), started it again when i tried a small clean of print heads AFTER a nozzle print!, I was very insulted as the screen that said "information" didn't say what the printer was doing "In progress" but what is in progress(it was a power clean!!!. by the looks of ink used). Learned that its really not smart to use other than printer intended. I think, maybe if you don't buy the "precision" head of the 4760, other Ecotanks might work better. I'm thinking of putting dye in all, and selling my pigment ink(only ones i have), and switching to dye like i should off. Buying a bit of dye, until i sold the pigments would of been smart. Advice when buying a printer these days you have to know exactly what your buying... when i bought the 4760 it didn't even say it was dye, anywhere!. I'm strongly insulted this time and will do much more research before buying any other printer. The workforce 1200$$$ as pigment Ecotank ink. I'll wait for a Ecotank at a reasonable price, and more and more likely from other producers than all the ones we deal with now. I mean 1200$ to use pigment! ink. I wont forget. But i am leaning more and more on dye, which just clogs less(tired), Magenta on my old printer Epson stylus 4800 didn't work, bought the 4760 still doesn't work. They are very annoying, you would think a dye printer would say its dye...Yes it's my fault but its so hard to find "any info" before I always buy the wrong printer, every time!. Product descriptions never say dye or not. I'm getting very frustrated with these companies. The 4760 is the best but it uses precision!!! heads(always something wrong somewhere, be very careful and research any adaptations). Learned from experience that trying to fix magenta will break the printer!. I'll have to print without magenta, that i almost don't use anyway, that why it always failed(C

ut all colours in every page). If a colour breaks and you can't fix it, use the others but don't over clean(E.g. the ink pad might be saturated and your printer will stop! working). I threw away the 4800 and then realized that the error was probably small "parts replacements", but the dealer said he could not get parts anymore(a pad! maybe). My advice is don't play games with any printers they are made to break if not used as intended. E.g. magenta failed, tried to fix it too! much!, printer failed!. If i fix the Magenta I'll let you know how i got there. If not well...Realized that Dye works great also, pigment only works best if extra long storage life is expected. And dye don't clog much! so I'm thinking of going with dye if i can switch again somehow!. Recommended: USE dye! if long term 5Yover printing is needed use pigments

.

I was so wrong, I compared dye pictures to the same pigments pics and wow the pigments won hands down, from the few pictures i seen!. I'm selling my printer as soon as the wrongly pigmented black or blues clogs. I'll professionally rinse and change it to dye, depending on the success to dye, I'll decide the selling price. Definitely NEVER buying a dye printer again. Sorry for the miss-information. Another thing is "i noticed that filling the cartridges to the fill line with pigments creates bubbles", I remember filling all other colours with less ink, and the magenta i let fill to full. Funny the magenta broke to 5%(could there be a tube on top that "the dye ink that doesn't bubble" would not reach, i don't want to make allegations but funny the magenta broke right! away! and its the only one that was filled! to the top. It felt like the ink was fuller than the top fill line and then the bubbles came down to be level over the fill line).

Bluesmozis · 02-13-2021, 04:04 PM

Major thing is to go slow everywhere to stop air bubbles: What i did: Used slow speed, waited to print more, Cleaning:"after reg clean,wait 5m,re-clean,don't nozzle check,wait12-18H,if nozzle check OK,keep,print,don't clean,if re-clogs,clean(if)(repeat as needed)". Balanced the printer to perfect level=noticed that a nozzle drops ink down, any angle will have one of the sides wetter and the other side drier. I print 26 pages per event (800 Pages recommended per month), and will not print more than 166 pages per day(5000 max monthly duty), so 6 events of 26 pages=166 pages max per day. Max per month=5000. After printing i always let the printer/ink rest about 15M. Every day i print at least 3 pages, because the printer was so fast i over printed, and finished my printing job too fast. Its 7 times faster than my old printer!, it was easy to print too much. Dividing your printing job to assure regular daily use is the lesson here^. Use ALL colours in every page was one of the most important discoveries i found, to stop Magenta from clogging since i never use magenta, it will clog. Used way more ink cleaning magenta than if i would of used it. Don't shake ink(stir OK). Clean ink containers and re-place ink in(many) non contaminated new container, clean cap every time, don't shake=to keep cap clean, air in the cap dries ink so don't let the cap ink touch the wet ink by using syringes(wipe off cap dry and wipe lower than cap up to ink), after the container is too dirty change to a new container". Lose a bit of ink from the transfer container=acceptable loss. Clean ALL caps to perfection after every use. Don't mix dye with pigment inks. Wait 12h after filling inks. The "nozzle checks" as been getting better and better and is now perfect!(100%), so something i did worked!. Note: I never noticed any differences in nozzle checks even if i used "fast or slow speed" printing! and Balancing the printer was the hard one to notice(the silent culprit)!. "Air in the cap" that is "drying ink" was a real problem(I wondered how to prevent this)...

10-26-2018, 04:10 PM	#1
tduell Loyal Site Supporter Join Date: May 2015 Location: Melbourne Posts: 1,514	Anyone using an Epson Ecotank printer with pigment inks? Hello All, I'm interested in an Epson Ecotank printer, but it doesn't look like Epson provide pigment inks. I see some 3rd party suppliers have pigment inks for the Ecotank printers. Anyone tried these pigment inks and able to report on quality, problems etc? Cheers, Terry

02-03-2021, 01:02 PM	#4
Bluesmozis New Member Join Date: Feb 2021 Posts: 3	Tried pigment in epson 4760 The magenta didn't work at all(5%), all else is fine!. Tried cleaning "power clean(big clean), started it again when i tried a small clean of print heads AFTER a nozzle print!, I was very insulted as the screen that said "information" didn't say what the printer was doing "In progress" but what is in progress(it was a power clean!!!. by the looks of ink used). Learned that its really not smart to use other than printer intended. I think, maybe if you don't buy the "precision" head of the 4760, other Ecotanks might work better. I'm thinking of putting dye in all, and selling my pigment ink(only ones i have), and switching to dye like i should off. Buying a bit of dye, until i sold the pigments would of been smart. Advice when buying a printer these days you have to know exactly what your buying... when i bought the 4760 it didn't even say it was dye, anywhere!. I'm strongly insulted this time and will do much more research before buying any other printer. The workforce 1200$$$ as pigment Ecotank ink. I'll wait for a Ecotank at a reasonable price, and more and more likely from other producers than all the ones we deal with now. I mean 1200$ to use pigment! ink. I wont forget. But i am leaning more and more on dye, which just clogs less(tired), Magenta on my old printer Epson stylus 4800 didn't work, bought the 4760 still doesn't work. They are very annoying, you would think a dye printer would say its dye...Yes it's my fault but its so hard to find "any info" before I always buy the wrong printer, every time!. Product descriptions never say dye or not. I'm getting very frustrated with these companies. The 4760 is the best but it uses precision!!! heads(always something wrong somewhere, be very careful and research any adaptations). Learned from experience that trying to fix magenta will break the printer!. I'll have to print without magenta, that i almost don't use anyway, that why it always failed(Cut all colours in every page). If a colour breaks and you can't fix it, use the others but don't over clean(E.g. the ink pad might be saturated and your printer will stop! working). I threw away the 4800 and then realized that the error was probably small "parts replacements", but the dealer said he could not get parts anymore(a pad! maybe). My advice is don't play games with any printers they are made to break if not used as intended. E.g. magenta failed, tried to fix it too! much!, printer failed!. If i fix the Magenta I'll let you know how i got there. If not well...Realized that Dye works great also, pigment only works best if extra long storage life is expected. And dye don't clog much! so I'm thinking of going with dye if i can switch again somehow!. Recommended: USE dye! if long term 5Yover printing is needed use pigments.

02-03-2021, 08:23 PM	#6
Bluesmozis New Member Join Date: Feb 2021 Posts: 3	Originally posted by Bluesmozis The magenta didn't work at all(5%), all else is fine!. Tried cleaning "power clean(big clean), started it again when i tried a small clean of print heads AFTER a nozzle print!, I was very insulted as the screen that said "information" didn't say what the printer was doing "In progress" but what is in progress(it was a power clean!!!. by the looks of ink used). Learned that its really not smart to use other than printer intended. I think, maybe if you don't buy the "precision" head of the 4760, other Ecotanks might work better. I'm thinking of putting dye in all, and selling my pigment ink(only ones i have), and switching to dye like i should off. Buying a bit of dye, until i sold the pigments would of been smart. Advice when buying a printer these days you have to know exactly what your buying... when i bought the 4760 it didn't even say it was dye, anywhere!. I'm strongly insulted this time and will do much more research before buying any other printer. The workforce 1200$$$ as pigment Ecotank ink. I'll wait for a Ecotank at a reasonable price, and more and more likely from other producers than all the ones we deal with now. I mean 1200$ to use pigment! ink. I wont forget. But i am leaning more and more on dye, which just clogs less(tired), Magenta on my old printer Epson stylus 4800 didn't work, bought the 4760 still doesn't work. They are very annoying, you would think a dye printer would say its dye...Yes it's my fault but its so hard to find "any info" before I always buy the wrong printer, every time!. Product descriptions never say dye or not. I'm getting very frustrated with these companies. The 4760 is the best but it uses precision!!! heads(always something wrong somewhere, be very careful and research any adaptations). Learned from experience that trying to fix magenta will break the printer!. I'll have to print without magenta, that i almost don't use anyway, that why it always failed(Cut all colours in every page). If a colour breaks and you can't fix it, use the others but don't over clean(E.g. the ink pad might be saturated and your printer will stop! working). I threw away the 4800 and then realized that the error was probably small "parts replacements", but the dealer said he could not get parts anymore(a pad! maybe). My advice is don't play games with any printers they are made to break if not used as intended. E.g. magenta failed, tried to fix it too! much!, printer failed!. If i fix the Magenta I'll let you know how i got there. If not well...Realized that Dye works great also, pigment only works best if extra long storage life is expected. And dye don't clog much! so I'm thinking of going with dye if i can switch again somehow!. Recommended: USE dye! if long term 5Yover printing is needed use pigments. I was so wrong, I compared dye pictures to the same pigments pics and wow the pigments won hands down, from the few pictures i seen!. I'm selling my printer as soon as the wrongly pigmented black or blues clogs. I'll professionally rinse and change it to dye, depending on the success to dye, I'll decide the selling price. Definitely NEVER buying a dye printer again. Sorry for the miss-information. Another thing is "i noticed that filling the cartridges to the fill line with pigments creates bubbles", I remember filling all other colours with less ink, and the magenta i let fill to full. Funny the magenta broke to 5%(could there be a tube on top that "the dye ink that doesn't bubble" would not reach, i don't want to make allegations but funny the magenta broke right! away! and its the only one that was filled! to the top. It felt like the ink was fuller than the top fill line and then the bubbles came down to be level over the fill line).

02-13-2021, 04:04 PM	#7
Bluesmozis New Member Join Date: Feb 2021 Posts: 3	All colours print perfectly(ET-4760 dye printer, subject:used with pigment ink) Major thing is to go slow everywhere to stop air bubbles: What i did: Used slow speed, waited to print more, Cleaning:"after reg clean,wait 5m,re-clean,don't nozzle check,wait12-18H,if nozzle check OK,keep,print,don't clean,if re-clogs,clean(if)(repeat as needed)". Balanced the printer to perfect level=noticed that a nozzle drops ink down, any angle will have one of the sides wetter and the other side drier. I print 26 pages per event (800 Pages recommended per month), and will not print more than 166 pages per day(5000 max monthly duty), so 6 events of 26 pages=166 pages max per day. Max per month=5000. After printing i always let the printer/ink rest about 15M. Every day i print at least 3 pages, because the printer was so fast i over printed, and finished my printing job too fast. Its 7 times faster than my old printer!, it was easy to print too much. Dividing your printing job to assure regular daily use is the lesson here^. Use ALL colours in every page was one of the most important discoveries i found, to stop Magenta from clogging since i never use magenta, it will clog. Used way more ink cleaning magenta than if i would of used it. Don't shake ink(stir OK). Clean ink containers and re-place ink in(many) non contaminated new container, clean cap every time, don't shake=to keep cap clean, air in the cap dries ink so don't let the cap ink touch the wet ink by using syringes(wipe off cap dry and wipe lower than cap up to ink), after the container is too dirty change to a new container". Lose a bit of ink from the transfer container=acceptable loss. Clean ALL caps to perfection after every use. Don't mix dye with pigment inks. Wait 12h after filling inks. The "nozzle checks" as been getting better and better and is now perfect!(100%), so something i did worked!. Note: I never noticed any differences in nozzle checks even if i used "fast or slow speed" printing! and Balancing the printer was the hard one to notice(the silent culprit)!. "Air in the cap" that is "drying ink" was a real problem(I wondered how to prevent this)...

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10-26-2018, 07:51 PM	#2
grey03 New Member Join Date: Sep 2018 Posts: 5	Terry, I have an Epson ET-7750 (EcoTank) and am really happy with it. Very nice quality photos and will handle up to 11”x17” prints. One of its five ink colors is pigment based (“Photo Black”) but the other four are dye based. I’m just using it for home use, but definitely understand the desire for pigment inks all around if you’re printing professionally or planning on displaying in a gallery or otherwise need to ensure your prints won’t fade over the long-run. I have not tried any 3rd party pigment inks, but would also be curious what sort of experiences others might have. Probably would not be good for your warranty, though, if the 3rd party inks were to clog anything up. There is one EcoTank model that I found which uses all Epson pigment inks (4 colors): Epson WorkForce Pro WF-R4640 (uses R12X DURABrite Ultra Ink Packs). One downside is it looks like it is limited to a maximum paper width of 8.5”. Michael

10-26-2018, 08:53 PM	#3
tduell Loyal Site Supporter Join Date: May 2015 Location: Melbourne Posts: 1,514 Original Poster	Thanks for your response Michael, It's a pity Epson don't support the pigment inks for all colours in A3+ Ecotank models. Hopefully someone has tried the after market inks and can report their experience. Cheers, Terry

02-03-2021, 05:29 PM	#5
jbinpg Site Supporter Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Prince George, BC Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 3,546	I do not have an Epson printer but do have the Canon G3000 with the refillable tanks. I have found that to prevent the ink draining from the black feed line, I need to do at least one print/day. So I made up a cron job from my linux box to print a short message at 10:15 am daily. So far it has prevented having to do a deep clean every time you leave the printer for a few days. Perhaps this also applies to the similar Canons.