Technical Bulletin - Rechina Expo

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Technical Bulletin 22nd December 2008


Recharger Show in Shanghai - 10th-12th November  

The Recharger show was held at the Shanghai Exhibition Centre in Shanghai China. The exhibition centre was previously known as the Sino-Russian friendship mansion. Built in 1954 this award winning venue is a little piece of the Kremlin in Shanghai. Over the past four decades the venue has hosted important political events and foreign affairs.

This year was the 5th Rechina Asia Expo and broke many new records. The five exhibition halls covered 19,098 square meters and contained 400+ exhibitors. I must admit it was quite easy to get a little confused as to what hall you were in on the first day. The Official figures are 8500 visitors with 2975 of these from overseas countries. (No interplanetary visitors were registered at this show although after sampling some of the local beers I feel sure that I saw a couple of 'aliens' floating by!) The above attendance figures now makes the Rechina Expo show the largest remanufacturing show in the world in 2008. 

The goal of our visit to the expo was to:

• Look for new innovative products to keep our customers at the forefront of the industry.
• Talk to our manufacturers about new products and discuss ways to improve their products for our needs.  
• Find out the latest information on the development of resetters for a wide range of cartridges.
• Network with remanufacturers from around the world and discuss what problems they are having and any solutions they may have found.
• Gather industry information that will assist us and our customers in the future.
  
  Presentations at Rechina
  
  73N Chip Technology - As you may know Epson recently replaced their T0731-T0734 cartridges with the 73N series. The 73N has a new chip and this presentation was a general overview of the progress of the development of the new chip for compatible cartridges. The 73N (which covers all the TO-731 series) chipped cartridges will be available in the procolor range Ist week in January
  
  Chip Converter - This is a great new idea that allows a more universal approach to replacing the toner chips. This system includes an electronic box where you can write, reset and test the chips. The system is only available for Lexmark monochrome cartridges at the moment. With this you have the flexibility of reusing the chip and converting it to other cartridge models if needed. The ability to reset or write different information to the chip saves replacing the chip when it comes back in to be remanufactured again.
  
  Pigment Dispersion Stability in Aqueous Solutions - This was quite a interesting presentation on the advances in formulations that are used to keep the pigment suspended in the ink. You may not be aware but pigments are suspended in the ink while dyes are part of the solution. What this means is that without the correct formulation or poor formulation pigments can drop out of suspension and settle to the bottom of the liquid. Of course this can cause major printhead problems and another reason to use the highest quality ink.
  
  Exhibitors
  
  With over 400 exhibitors there was a lot to see and do. The exhibitors covered such products as compatible and remanufactured inkjet cartridges, compatible and remanufactured toners, inkjet ink & sublimation ink,inkjet ink dyes & pigments, Ribbons, Inkjet Papers, ink refilling supplies, remanufacturing toner supplies, chip manufactures, CISS system manufacturers, thermal transfer rolls, refilling machine, testing machines, toner supplies, new chinese manufactured wide format inkjet printers and supplies.
  
  The most expensive inkjet filling machine i have seen was exhibited at the show. I can't recall the exact price but $35 000+ US was the asking price. The refilling machine was equipped with all the bells and whistles. The machine can empty, flush the cartridge, fill the cartridge and circuit/print test the cartridge. The machine can refill up to 4 cartridges simultaneously and can refill over 140 OEM models. Refilling machines are certainly becoming more modern with this one featuring a large colour touch screen, this screen prompts you on what is needed to fill that particular cartridge. Apart from filling under  digital vacuum the machine also has a inbuilt work bench and heated ultrasonic cleaner . As you would expect a lot of the machine is automated but there is still quite a lot of manual labor that is still involved. The machine only had 11 lines which makes the Sage 15 look like an absolute bargain.
  
  I was quite impressed by the quality of the new wide format inkjet printers manufactured in china these days. These printers produce very high quality printing and seem quite reliable as they were churning out pages and pages of photographs at the show. The price is also low cost compared to others on the market and it will be interesting to see what effect these printers have in the market place. I have also heard rumours of new desktop printers coming out of china in the next few years.
  
  I had numerous discussions with chip manufacturers about the current state of affairs with the various new chips and resetters we are after. There is various new Pgi-5 \ Cli-8 resetters available now but we are unsure about the legality of them all - see (Information about our Canon Resetters (Illegal Copies??) below .
  
  We have a development partner working on a resetter for the Pg520 \ CL521 cartridges which has been under development for the last few months. Progress on the resetter for the Epson 9 pin cartridges seems to have progressed no further.  We are looking at an alternative options which will allow our customers to refill 9 pin cartridges if they desire.
  
  Development work has also started on a resetter or a replacement chip for the new HP564 cartridges. These cartridges are very close design to the Canon individual tank range. There are five cartridges in the range which are Black, Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Photo Black.
  
  A new all in one inkjet circuit testing / cartridge test printing machine was at the show. This unit will circuit test and print test over 80 different types of inkjet cartridges. The machine will test print in 5-10 seconds which is substancially faster than printing a test page through a printer.
  
  Inkjet vacuum filling machines that fill cartridges through the vent hole seem to be the latest trend. This way the cartridge is not modified at all during the filling process. Another interesting filling machine I saw was for bulk filling Epson individual inkjet cartridges, more than 10 cartridges could be filled at the same time.
  
  Back home.....
  
  GVC 3000 Ultrasonic cleaning solution
  Due to popular demand and much hard work we have been able to source the GVC3000 ultrasonic cleaning solution again. Many customers have mentioned that they are achieving great results using this solution. The GVC3000 is a dedicated product formulated for cleaning printheads in an ultrasonic cleaner.
  
  New printers from Epson that use the 73N cartridges only
  Epson has released a new range of printers 'The T Series'. The following printers and multifunctions use the new 73N chip and the T0731-T0734 range of cartridges will not work in these models.
  Printers that use the new 73N cartridges - T20 / T30 / T40
  Multifunctions that use the new 73N cartridges - TX100 / TX200 / TX300/ TX400
  
  Information about our Canon Resetters (Illegal Copies??)
  Recently in Australia an information bulletin has been released regarding illegial copies of the small portable red resetter which they refer to as the 'redsetter'. We decided it is best to explain the situation to our customers to avoid confusion. In the information bulletin it describes the USB redsetter as an illegal product, this is not the case with our product as its just a modified redsetter. The manufacturer is fully aware that we sell a modified version and are happy for us to do so. Our own research has discovered that one chinese manufacturer is selling a resetter where they have copied the software from the redsetter. Of course this software is trademarked and that is why the problem exists. Both resetters we supply are 100% legal and licensed by the manufacturer.
  
  How ultrasonic cleaners work?
  As you may be aware for many years now ultrasonic cleaning has been the preferred printhead cleaning method for many in our industry. From small to large businesses the one thing that they have in common is the ultrasonic cleaner. From my own experience i remember how much easier cartridges were to get working correctly when the ultrasonic cleaner was first available.
  
  But how many of us actually know how an ultrasonic cleaner works and why it is effective?
  An ultrasonic cleaner works by producing ultrasonic sound waves in a liquid. The result of this is cavitation, which is the rapid formation and collapse of micron size bubbles in the cleaning solution. The size of the bubbles is very important as inkjet nozzle diameters are also rated in micron sizes. Modern inkjet nozzles typically range between 5 - 15 microns in diameter. The agitation caused by the formation and collapse of the micron sized bubbles together with the dedicated cleaning solution is very effective. Depending on the length of time and the depth of the printhead in the solution thorough gentle cleaning can be achieved of all the inner parts of the printhead.
  
  Refill LC37/57 and new LC38/67 cartridges easily
  Recently I have been testing some really innovative tools for filling the above Brother cartridges. The tools are extremely simple to use and make filling these cartridge types very simple. There are various filling methods around for these cartridges but I believe this is the simpliest and the best. Stay tuned as these tools are about to arrive in our warehouse.
  
  Information on Canon PG510 / CL511 Cartridges
  The new Canon PG510 black cartridges and CL511 colour cartridge are very similiar to the previous PG-40 and CL-41 cartridges.
  
  The new full weights of the cartridges are :
  PG510: 35gms
  CL511: 39gms
  
  The Sensient ink to use is
  PG510 : C4101 Pigment or C4103 Pigment
  CL511 : C1054PG Cyan, C1055PG Magenta, C1056PG Yellow
  
  I hope this information has been helpful to you.
  
  Shane
  Ausjet Technical Support
  
  

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