Queen Food Dyes As Ink

[JLT]

Well done, Lewis!

[lws]

Well done, Lewis!

 

Just some of the things I do to avoid studying.

 

- L.

[JLT]

So long as one masters First Principles, one can derive just about everything else . . .

 

I never liked to study either.

[lws]

Alright. The food-dye printer re-inking experiment was a success!

 

Here's photodocumentary for the curious:

 

http://lws.nfshost.com/pix/food_dye_printing/Food_Dye_Printing_01.jpeg

 

 

Here's the printer that I used - a Canon BJC-255SP. It's so ancient that it uses parallel-port communications only, and the 14W power pack is the size of a small brick (contrast my 65W notebook PSU, which is no bigger than a bottle of Noodler's.)

 

http://lws.nfshost.com/pix/food_dye_printing/Food_Dye_Printing_02.jpeg

 

 

Here is the enemy: a Canon BC-03 black ink cartridge. The Canon BJC-255SP is a single-cartridge printer - it takes either a black cartridge or a CMY colour cartridge, not both. Since I only have the black cartridge, I'm limited to single-colour printing for this run.

 

The first task is to get inside the cartridge. I'm a great believer in the philosophy of "If there ain't no doors, make some!", so instead of trying to remove the factory-installed refilling plug....

 

http://lws.nfshost.com/pix/food_dye_printing/Food_Dye_Printing_03.jpeg

 

 

.... I just used a thumbtack to make a hole. Push! The hole wasn't large enough for my syringe, so followed up with a self-tapping screw to ream it out to the right size.

 

Thumbtacks work on this particular cartridge because it's made of soft polypropylene plastic; if your cartridge is made of ABS, you'll have to break out the drill bits.

 

http://lws.nfshost.com/pix/food_dye_printing/Food_Dye_Printing_06.jpeg

 

 

I used a blunt syringe to fill the cartridge with 4.5mL of food colouring. I wanted to see if I could make the ink a bit nicer than "boring black", so I mixed up a teal - 6:2:1 ratio of blue:green:red food dye.

 

http://lws.nfshost.com/pix/food_dye_printing/Food_Dye_Printing_07.jpeg

 

 

Unless you're a fan of getting covered in ink, use some PVC electrical tape to cover up the holes you made. This isn't strictly necessary (the ink doesn't fall out on its own), but I had to carry it to my lab - I've had enough inky pockets from bottles of ink, thank you.

 

http://lws.nfshost.com/pix/food_dye_printing/Food_Dye_Printing_08.jpeg

 

 

Installed! Now, the moment of truth...

 

http://lws.nfshost.com/pix/food_dye_printing/Food_Dye_Printing_09.jpeg

 

 

What do I see????

 

 

http://lws.nfshost.com/pix/food_dye_printing/Food_Dye_Printing_10.jpeg

 

 

I see success!

 

http://lws.nfshost.com/pix/food_dye_printing/Food_Dye_Printing_11.jpeg

 

 

 

A complete page printed with teal food colouring. I anticipated some leftover black ink, so I printed a few more pages to see if I could clear it out.

 

http://lws.nfshost.com/pix/food_dye_printing/Food_Dye_Printing_12.jpeg

 

 

I got up to 2.5 pages before I ran out of ink. To be fair, you should expect much longer service life than this - I only put a little bit of ink to start off with, and then I printed solid black blocks at the highest ink density the printer would let me do. (There was so much ink on the page that it buckled the paper.)

 

http://lws.nfshost.com/pix/food_dye_printing/Food_Dye_Printing_13.jpeghttp://lws.nfshost.com/pix/food_dye_printing/Food_Dye_Printing_14.jpeg

 

 

The two images above show how the old black ink worked out of the printer - the first photo is the first thing that came out of the printer, and the second photo is the last thing before it ran out. You can see the first printing is significantly contaminated with black, but it works its way out after a few pages of solid colour.

 

 

Summary:

 

SUCCESS! Yes, you can refill inkjet printer cartridges with food dye. The colour possibilities are endless - if I get my hands on a colour printer, I am totally refilling the tanks with random colours instead of CYMK - I think "red, orange, yellow" might be interesting.

 

Future Work:

 

Food dye is about the least ink-like substance you could imagine, and it evidently works quite well. How about some actual fountain pen ink? I don't want to use Legal Lapis (too hard to clean out if I want to use another colour), but I think I might refill the cartridge with Pelikan Violet, or maybe Diamine Umber, for the next run.

Edited November 4, 2010 by lws

[Chrontius]

Next chance I get, I'm doing a drill-and-fill with a black cartridge and some of that legal lapis. I normally use a laser printer for cheap prints and longevity, but this could change the equation in a fairly fundamental way.

[JLT]

Lewis,

 

You have a knack for documentation! BTW, what happened with the dye contaminant experiment? Any results to share?

[dcwaites]

 

Future Work:

 

Food dye is about the least ink-like substance you could imagine, and it evidently works quite well. How about some actual fountain pen ink? I don't want to use Legal Lapis (too hard to clean out if I want to use another colour), but I think I might refill the cartridge with Pelikan Violet, or maybe Diamine Umber, for the next run.

 

Been there, done that. In the mid 90s, when HP was selling the DeskJet/DeskWriter inkjet printers, someone found out that you could refill those ink cartridges with Parker Quink Black. I did so, and found that it worked, for about 3 refills. However, the Quink eventually etched around the edges of the fine jets, resulting in fuzzy printing. However, given the price of Quink at the time, it did mean you could refill your cartridge for about 50 cents.

[electricpowerman]

Very interesting!

My dad refills printer ink cartridges for his home printer regularly (using refill ink packs), and in one case he achieved about 20 refills for a black ink cartridge before it finally wore out. He was quite disappointed about that!!! I'll have to let him know he could make his own food dye ink now.

[bluemagister]

Most FP ink is nothing but food coloring and water, anyways. Iws just found out that he didn't have to pay an exorbitant markup for food dye. Good on ya, mate!

[alvarez57]

Very, very cool but I doubt I can use it for legal documents...unless under investigation by Medicare or the IRS .

[lws]

Very interesting!

My dad refills printer ink cartridges for his home printer regularly (using refill ink packs), and in one case he achieved about 20 refills for a black ink cartridge before it finally wore out. He was quite disappointed about that!!! I'll have to let him know he could make his own food dye ink now.

 

The actual printer ink may be pigment based, having better water resistance and permanence properties. Or it could be black food dye. Who knows?

 

 

Most FP ink is nothing but food coloring and water, anyways. Iws just found out that he didn't have to pay an exorbitant markup for food dye. Good on ya, mate!

 

 

Hell, this stuff behaves BETTER than some fountain pen inks. (Parker Blue and Blue-Black, I'm looking at YOU. They fade in days.)

 

Very, very cool but I doubt I can use it for legal documents...unless under investigation by Medicare or the IRS .

 

Print in food dye on rice paper. Then you can eat the evidence!

 

- L.

[watch_art]

I had a bottle of food colored ink go bad on me. a few months ago i posted about a really cool green i made.

opened the bottle the other night and the smell about knocked my socks off!

i just used an old parker bottle too, so i'm not sure what caused the stink. but dang it was BAD.

 

smelled like rotten or sour rosemary, if you can imagine such a thing.

[amyx231]

I had a bottle of food colored ink go bad on me. a few months ago i posted about a really cool green i made.

opened the bottle the other night and the smell about knocked my socks off!

i just used an old parker bottle too, so i'm not sure what caused the stink. but dang it was BAD.

 

smelled like rotten or sour rosemary, if you can imagine such a thing.

 

 

You gotta remember that food coloring is not made to have a nib, with its bacteria, dip into it. To make it food-safe, it has less preservatives than your normal ink.

so safer to use, you can even leave it with your chewing stage kids, but it'll go back like any colored water you keep dipping stuff into.

[kathleen]

Very good. The best post I've seen on the site all week. Thanks!

 

Wait until you see my next project: refilling inkjet printer cartridges with food dye, or alternately Noodler's Legal Lapis. I've heard it works, and I think it'd be pretty cool to print with Noodler's bulletproof ink.

 

I have the printer, I have the enpty cartridge, I just need to find a drill to get inside it. The printer is a Canon BJC-255SP, which is so old it only has a parallel port connection - but that just means it doesn't matter if I wreck it.

 

 

- Lewis.

 

I absolutely love your pioneering spirit. Just try it and see what happens! Taking risks leads to knowledge. I really have enjoyed this thread and will look forward to future reports on your experiments.

[framebaer]

I happen to know that Nathan ( Noodlers) uses his own bulletproof custom blend of inks to print labels out of an inkjet printer. Makes them waterproof and he saves $$.