High Resolution Pigment Ink Base Solution for Epson - Clear Transparent - for High Precision Printing

BCH Ink Base Solution for Pigment Ink

• BCH Clear Ink Base is in retail bottles.  No colorant added.  

• It’s compatible with all Pigment Ink but added special control for printing in the highest Epson resolutions.  

• Use it to unclog dried ink on printheads.  More natural and less intrusive than water or a cleaning solution.

• Rejuvenate old inks and restore chemical formulation, even restore expired inks.

• Use it to create unique art prints, such as accurate black and white photos with smooth grayscale transitions.

Ink consists of two parts:

(1) Carrier fluid (ink base) keeps ink in a liquid state.  

(2) Colorant adds color to the ink.

BCH Clear Ink Base Solution is a carrier fluid which has all the exact chemical ingredients present in inks.  These chemical additives control dot grain, drop formation, pH level, printhead corrosion prevention, fade resistance, and color brilliance.  This ink base is "ink without color."

Dilute Ink to Create Special Effects.  

The ink base can be used to create unique printing effects.  For instance, a photo professional wants to make black and white photo prints with smooth grayscale transitions.  He or she can fill the color (CMY) cartridges with 30% diluted black ink. To dilute black ink, we cannot just add water because water will change the chemical composition of the ink.  Also, we cannot merely use gray ink because gray and black are different colors. The best way to do this is to use a transparent ink base.

For example, photographers and experimenters wanted to use black pigment ink to print photo quality, neutral black & white digital photos with a smooth grayscale transition. To do this, we need to substitute three colors (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow) with 30% dilution agent. The process is simple, by mixing 30% of ink base with 70% of pigment Epson ink into the C/M/Y cartridges and we will be able to print the most stable, smoothest, most economical, B&W images. After many experiments, photographer Paul Roark settled with this formula, which he uses in an Epson R1800 with 1.5 picoliter drop size.
(http://www.paulroark.com/BW-Info/R1800.htm)
- 55% Distilled Water
- 35% Glycerol
- 10% Kodak Photo-Flo 200
The Glycerol controls the density of ink. The Kodak Photo-Flo 200 is a wetting agent which is 60-70% water, 20-30% propylene glycol and 5-10% p-tert-octylphenoxy polyethoxyethyl alcohol (https://intranet.ssp.ulaval.ca/cgpc/fsss/fichiers/Photo-Flo.pdf). The Photo-Flo controls drying time and keeps moisture in ink so that it won't be streaking. This formula is straightforward, and all the components can be bought from streets and mixed at home.

Because BCH has access to ink-making, we can have all the chemical components in ink, which is critical to control the drop size, pigment suspension, reduce splash, pH, surface tension, etc.

There are three advantages of using the BCH ink base:

1) It is the exact formula that we would make ink. Therefore, the ink is genuinely diluted without changing its chemical makeup.
2) BCH can make the base compatible with multiple printer brands. For example, Epson's R1800 can do 5760 x 1440 with 1.5 picoliters. However, Canon comes up with 9600 x 2400 with one picoliter. With BCH's ink base, we only need to get a bottle that would be compatible with Canon, HP, Epson, or Universal. If our printer is not a high precision printer, we can select the Universal ink base. Otherwise, we can select one of the ink base made for high precision printing.

3)Furthermore, BCH's ink base is filtered through nano filter, just like real ink. Epson's owners know how easy to get their printhead clogged. Now, Canon is making single-picoliter printers, and we may want our ink base to be very clean and produced from a specialized facility.

* Tony Martin 2004.  Debunking the Myths of Digital Ink.  In Digital Photo Techniques, March/April 2004.  Page 49-54