Digital BW, The Print

>Can these inksets ... be used with the new wide-format
>printer offerings from Canon or HP? ...

I would not risk one of these new machines on such an experiment.  Let the
ink sellers clearly take a position first.

The thermal heads have historically been much more sensitive to viscosity.
The reason HP and Canon did not have desktop pigment printers in the past
was, I'm told, due to the thermal head being unable to pump high viscosity
inks through small holes.  They'd overheat.  Pigment inks must be higher
viscosity to hold the pigments in suspension.

It appears someone made a major advance in the thermal head technology.  The
fact that Canon and HP announce their desktop pigment printers at the same
time suggests this was a third party -- luckily for us consumers.  However,
there are still suggestions that the thermal heads are more sensitive to
viscosity than the Epson piezo head.  As such, existing inks may exceed
their limits and cause overheating.

There is also the possibility that part of the advance is in the ability of
pigment inks to be made with lower viscosity.  If the advance is, in part,
due to lower viscosity pigment inks, it raises the question of whether they
are achieving this through smaller size particles.  If so, the longevity
will be affected.

Yesterday I received some Canon test patches for fade testing.  I'll make
some equivalent patches with MIS inks ASAP and get a fade test going.

I assume in a few months the third party ink sellers will announce inks for
the new machines, but they may require different viscosities than the inks
made for the Epson printers.

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com