Two kinds of inks are used in Roland, Mimaki, Mutoh: eco-solvent and mild-solvent
Mild-solvent is also called low-solvent or lite-solvent. There are no industry-wide definitions but I consider mild-solvent, low-solvent, and lite-solvent all similar.
These are all different from eco-solvent. Eco-solvent requires more coated media (which is more expensive). Mild-solvent requires less coated material, so is lower cost to use. The best known examples of mild-solvent inks are the current Seiko ColorPainter printers and their earlier versions (rebranded as the HP Designjet 8000s, 9000s, and 10000s).
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Here is a photograph that shows the hp 9000s in Sam Ink. |
Since Sam-Ink already successfully makes mild-solvent for the HP Designjet 8000s, 9000s, and 10000s, it was relatively easy for Sam Ink to make a similar ink for Roland, Mimaki, and Mutoh. This mild-solvent ink also works in most other printers which use DX 5 printheads from Epson.
I went to Singapore to evaluate several new inks. One of them was this ink being used with Epson DX 5 printheads. This ink was being used in a Chinese printer from AStarjet. These are essentially the same Epson printheads as used in a Roland, Mimaki, or Mutoh printer, as well as in several other Chinese printers.
I made a rough count of the brands of inks which already offer a comparable ink for Roland, Mimaki, and Mutoh. All you have to do is visit any sign printing expo, anywhere in the world, and you will see several of these companies. If you go to the larger international expos you will see about 75% of these at a single trade show.
The after-market ink companies that I know the best are AT Inks and Sam Ink, for several reasons. First, I have been to the ink factory of AT Inks in India, and I have visited end-users, both in India and in Guatemala. In both cases the end-users preferred AT Inks over the big-name brands that came with the printers.
I know Sam Ink because I have visited their headquarters, ink factory, R&D facilities twice. Plus I have visited about four or five end-users who utilize their inks. In all cases they prefer Sam-Ink to the original inks.
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Sam ink diverse ink products. |
Sam-Ink (Singapore)
AT Inks (India)
Jetbest (Taiwan)
Chroma Ink (Taiwan)
Inktec (Korea)
Sunflower (Sun LLC, Russia)
Inkwin
Tech Ink
Inkmill
Limei
Bordeaux Ink
Triangle ink
Mega Ink
InkBank (unsure whether manufacturer or distributor)
Lyson Nazdar
For an evaluation of inks we need to know the company, the inks, and to visit end-users. Several ink companies have offered to pay to advertise on the FLAAR site. We appreciate their recognition of the clout we have with our huge international readership, but we should not advertise an ink that we do not know. We need to fly to the ink company and inspect the ink in their demo room, and then visit end-users.
One difference among some bulk ink companies, when you switch to an after-market ink, the ink company hopes you will just keep buying their ink (without them actually providing tech support). Here is where Sam Ink is different. The franchise staff in each country are trained in the ink factory how to handle each ink and each major printer. So it is more than buying an ink, you are acquiring an ink partner that will assist your company.
We heard about one ink company in China that offered solvent ink for $8 a liter. But a distributor who tried it said “it lasted only a few weeks outside before the colors faded.” In other words, for every dollar you got about one week of outdoor longevity. You get what you pay for. As a side comment, however, there are one or two good ink companies in China. FLAAR hopes to visit more of them during 2011. But in the meantime we have already found two good quality ink companies: Sam Ink and AT Inks.
Sam-Ink is made in Singapore, a high-tech area of the world.
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Sam Leong (in the middle) hosted Dr. Nicholas Hellmuth (at left) to evaluate the inks for the DX 5 printheads. Vincent Eu (at right) First Media Supplies, using Sam Inks. |
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Here is Nicholas inspecting the ink being manufactured. |
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Here is a photograph that shows the success of the ink company: they ship out tons of ink every week. And I estimate their ink shipments have increased since the FLAAR Report recognized how acceptable this ink was judged to be by all the end-users we interviewed. |
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First posted, December 8, 2010 after our second visit to Sam Ink in Singapore.
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We are adding new pages and new features every month so it is not always realistic to update old pages from past years. All the old equipment is still available on eBay, so we keep even our old pages. If you wish only the more up to date product reviews, these are in PDFs (not in the web pages, but in PDFs which are linked in the columns at the right of every page). Please realize that we tend to update a page (or a PDF) primarily when it is clear that our readers ask about this brand or model frequently. With over 45 brands of UV printers and over 200 models in the past ten years, it is not realistic to update pages on obsolete brands or unpopular models. If you prefer to speak with Nicholas Hellmuth in person about a printer, you can bring him to your company anywhere in the world as consultant. By later in 2012 more of our web sites will be in 36 different languages with instant translation (and better than old fashioned web page translators of several years ago). So far all the languages are available on www.FLAAR.org and www.3d-scanners-3d-software-reviews.org. Next will be our www.large-format-printers.org. |
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