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Rihac CISS Review

Website: http://www.rihac.com.au/
Price: $145AUD (at time of review)

Specifications:

• Canon IP4600 CISS
• Non-chipped model
• 100ml of UV resistant dye based cyan, magenta, yellow, and black inks

Inkjet printers are one of the most expensive devices when to comes to consumables. Ink cartridges cost well over $20 each, and considering most modern printers use up to 5, the upkeep often hits the wallet hard and fast. It's no secret that printer manufacturers make most if not all their profits from ink costs, rather than the printer units themselves. This is why we often see attempts to prevent users from installing aftermarket ink devices. Chipped cartridges and modification detection systems are put in place to make it hard for consumers to go the cheaper option, and in some cases, it's for reasons other than profits.

Using generic ink can in fact damage a printer, or more specifically, the printer heads. This is typically caused by the level of granule filtering applied to generic inks. If an ink is filtered incorrectly, printer heads can get clogged up and cause irreparable damage. There is also the case of UV resistance. Low quality inks tend to fade significantly faster that genuine ink. They may also alter the quality of prints, with issues such as bleeding and colour inconsistency. It's for these reasons that original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) try their best to prevent the use of 3rd party consumables. Because when the printer malfunctions, or the prints come out with sub-par quality, the fingers point back at them.

Rihac claim that their Continuous Ink Supply System (CISS) uses non-generic high quality dye based inks. It also boasts UV resistant additives and a filtering level of 0.1 microns to prevent printer head damage. It sounds great, but there's a catch. The key word there is "dye based inks". Most mid-high range colour inkjet printers now use pigment based inks. What's the difference? There's advantages and disadvantages for each.

Pigment Advantages:
- Significantly reduced colour bleeding
- Faster drying time
- Water resistant
- Higher resistance to colour fade and shifting

Dye Advantages:
- Able to reproduce a wider range of colours
- Improved contrast reproduction
- Cheaper

From this comparison, we can see that print quality may be negatively affected due to bleeding. When dye based inks are applied to paper, they're absorbed. Pigment based inks tend to remain on the surface, and are comprised of tiny solids in a carrier liquid, hence the minimal bleeding. Bleeding is best avoided because it causes colours to mix whilst being absorbed into the paper. Bleeding and its effects will be tested with the Rihac CISS.

How does it work?
Rihac's CISSs feed ink into the printer using nothing more than air pressure. It's a solid state system, which means no pumps. Installation requires no permanent processes, so it's possible to return the printer to its original state (useful for warranty claims).

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