Reuse waste ink?

InkjetMall Customer Support ConeColor Inks & Printing
1

I’ve now collected about 100mL of waste ink from my R2880 and was wondering if it can be reused somehow? Surely using it directly would be a bad idea, since it has probably evaporated a bit and also is made up of all colors in varying amounts. I could have sworn I read that it could be mixed in with new black ink in some ratio and used successfully that way. Thoughts / suggestions / run away?

2

I’ve also seen people claim that they mix it with real black and use it as a cheap blank ink in low-grade printing applications, e.g. text only. Not something that I’d do, esp as mine has a fair bit of flush mixed in there as well.

3

This is certainly an interesting idea, something we haven’t explored because we focus on Fine Art printing applications mainly. To mix a dilution of mixed inks in with a black you would end up with a colored black, probably more towards the brownish side, this would not produce good results while printing images (obviously). One other thing to consider is when the ink passes through the capping station on it’s way to the waste tank it can pick up left over pigment inks that may have congealed or collected in the capping station, essentially making it a recipe for producing clogged channels in your print head. You may consider this ink a used “oil” of sorts in this aspect. For that reason I wouldn’t recommend re-use of the waste ink in the printer itself. Rather you could consider using the waste ink as artist ink for painting.

Kindly,
Kelly

4

Thanks for the input guys! Kelly: The “used oil” thought is exactly why I wanted input from the experts :slight_smile: I’ll have to find some ink-using artists to give it to!

5

it’s great for painting or airbrushing, but shouldn’t be re-used in a printer.