If you've been waiting for third party inks, now is your chance to experiment. There were several different bulk ink systems as well as replacement cartridges. They all were printing as I watched and many of them had great output.
For many reasons, I have a certain degree of loyalty towards Seiko so after-market inks aren't in my near future. After all the problems with light cyan and light magenta, I don't know if I'm willing to put non-Seiko inks into my machine just yet. The system would have to be well proven.
Despite this, I was incredibly curious. Here is what I found:
Price on inks were quoted to me as low as $79 a liter. If memory serves me, this was a Chinese company that didn't even have US distribution or an ink system but that's still pretty low.
There were at least two bulk systems - one allowed you to pick up the bottle and just pour ink into a reservoir. It didn't look very messy either.
fillink - One company, fillink, offered a cartridge that was under $200 (I forgot the actual price) and a warranty of the print head and ink system.
Here's a link to the brochure: http://www.fillink.eu.com/pdf/SOL_S64.pdf and their site: http://www.fillink.eu.com/
Triangle Inks - their main guy was a bit of a turd. He insisted that Seiko would not be extending their warranty and that he knew people "on the inside." That may sound a benign but if you were there you would know what I mean. Despite this his inks looked great. The reds were RED.
Lexjet - they had advertising, posters, sample cartridges, etc. for a new set of replacement ink cartridges they insisted were filled with the same exact ink as the Seiko inks at a lower price. I've seen Lexjet do this before - repackage actual manufacturer product at lower costs - so it is possible. They even went so far as to say you could use the exact same color profiles. The guy I talked to said the negotiations were still in progress but they had the advertising stuff so it must be on the verge. No link - but you can call them and talk to them about it. I like Lexjet a lot - very nice people that are helpful.
Bordeaux - They had a chipped cartridge that looked ok. Here's a link: http://www.c-m-y-k.com/families/cartridges.asp
Other - most of the other replacement stuff looked too scary to get into.
Here's my synopsis: Last time I went to one of these shows NO ONE had Seiko inks. Now everyone has them. So they've obviously cracked whatever code needs to be cracked for the machine.
To me this is a very good thing. If Seiko wants to sell ink (and I'm sure they do - at those prices anyone in their right mind would love to sell lots of it) they will have to support the printer in the future with service contracts, tech support, etc. Otherwise, everyone will almost be forced to use one of these replacement inks that offers some kind of warranty. So it's a win-win, as far as I can see.
