Ink About
Ink
An ink is a liquid containing various pigments and/or dyes used for coloring a surface to produce an image, text, or design. Ink is used for drawing and/or writing with a pen, brush or quill. Thicker inks, in paste form, are used extensively in letterpress and lithographic printing.
Ink is a complex medium composed of solvents, pigments, dyes, resins, lubricants, solubilizers, surfactants, particulate matter, fluorescers, and other materials. The components of inks serve many purposes; the ink's carrier, colorants, and other additives are used to control flow and thickness of the ink and its appearance when dry.
Cartridges
An ink cartridge or inkjet cartridge is a replaceable component of an inkjet printer that contains the ink (and sometimes the print-head itself) that is spread on paper during printing.
Each ink cartridge contains one or more partitioned ink reservoirs; certain manufacturers also add electronic contacts and a chip that communicates with the printer.
Ink cartridges are typically expensive, sometimes a substantial fraction of the cost of the printer. To save money, many people use compatible ink cartridges from a vendor other than the printer manufacturer. The high cost of cartridges has also provided an incentive for counterfeiters to supply cartridges falsely claiming to be made by the original manufacturer. Another alternative involves modifications of an original cartridge allowing use of continuous ink systems with external ink tanks. Others use aftermarket inks, refilling their own ink cartridges using a kit that includes bulk ink.
Some printer manufacturers set up their cartridges to interact with the printer, preventing operation when the ink level is low, or when the cartridge has been refilled. One researcher with the magazine Which? over-rode such an interlocked system and found that in one case he could print up to 38% more good quality pages, after the chip stated that the cartridge was empty. In the United Kingdom, in 2003, the cost of ink has been the subject of an Office of Fair Trading investigation, as Which? magazine has accused manufacturers of a lack of transparency about the price of ink and called for an industry standard for measuring ink cartridge performance. Which? stated that color HP cartridges cost over seven times more per milliliter than 1985 Dom Perignon.
Consumers are often surprised at the price of replacing their printer cartridges, especially when compared with that of purchasing a brand new printer. The major printer manufacturers, Hewlett Packard, Lexmark, Dell, Canon, Epson and Brother, use a "razor and blades" business model, often breaking even or losing money selling printers while expecting to make a profit by selling cartridges over the life of the printer. Since much of the printer manufacturers' profits are from ink and toner cartridge sales, some of these companies have taken various actions against aftermarket cartridges.
Ink Applications
Up until a few years ago, consumers had very little interest in ink other than refills for their pens. Fountain pens became a novelty as the disposable ball point pen took over the market. The introduction of home computing led to home printing. Today, in developed nations, most residences and businesses have a printing capability. As a result, buying ink in the form of a printer cartridge has once again become a part of the day-to-day shopping experience, similar to buying a bottle of ink fifty years ago.
Ink refilling services for printer cartridges are offered by large, official printing companies as well as smaller, "unofficial" refill companies. Customers can often cut printing costs by using refill services from a refill company, or buying the new non-OEM (original equipment manufacturer) brands instead of refilling. The refilling of ink cartridges and the use of continuous ink supply systems for inkjet printers is very common in most countries, with the exception of the United States. As printer manufacturers control the type of competition that they allow on retail shelves to a great extent, devices to ease the use of refill inks are usually only available online.