Expired Ink

[Samir Jahjah]

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Is there a problem using "expired" ink when printing your photo? I just realized that on my HP Designjet 90, I have a few Ink Tanks that have expired since 2008! Do you think there could be a real decline in quality?

 

I replaced 3 tanks (out of the 6)...should I just replace all of them?

 

Thanks for your inputs/experiences.

[farnz]

Sounds like a con - oops, correction: another con - by the printer company or ink company to get you to buy more (horrendously expensive) ink. I'd have thought that an ink cartridge might dry out (which you'd notice quite quickly because the paper would come out still white ) but I can't see why it would lose it's pigment or 'go off' in some other way. I wait to be educated.

 

My advice would be to print a picture or two and see if the quality is acceptable to you.

 

Pete.

[pop]

I can see two problem areas.

 

One would be with the ink quality actually deteriorating (by chemical processes or by simply lumping of the pigment if the ink is some kind of suspension). I think that rather unlikely.

 

The other I experienced some five or eight years ago when the electric conductors fell off the cartridge. Since we're a corporate buyer, that was quickly sorted out. We told the vendor to either replace them or to not even bother to send next year's price list.

 

That hasn't happened to us, since.

[doug_m]

I don't know about HP. However, I asked my dealer - Glazers in Seattle- about Epson ink and he told me the sales rep has told them that the ink is good long after the expiration date. How long I do not know.

[adan]

Unless you see a printing problem, just use them. Most of the stuff in inkjet ink is not likely to spoil - glycerine, alcohol, water - and the pigments (or even dyes) are supposed to last at least decades once on paper.

 

I would recommend giving them a good shaking to make sure the pigment hasn't settled out. Every time I replace an empty tank in my 3800, I take out each of the others and give them a 5-second shaking, just to keep them stirred up.

 

It is worth checking the dates when buying new tanks - like film, you should at least get a discount if they are past-date, and if you have a choice (for the same money), why not buy the freshest ones?