What will food color added to your printer ink do?

Question

2 weeks ago My hubby did that. The color is the same and have had no problems. It was low asking for ink. i have printed numerous things and everything is right on. is there black food color? If there is I will try that too.

robertta...it is a Brother and still working very good.

Answer 1

wow.
That is clever. The composition of most inks is a delicate balance of many chemicals, like 'soapy' stuff, different kinds of alcohol, and of course pigments. Adding food colors ( which may be in the ink in the first place ! ) forces the original ink down to the bottom of many carts, so that you could be actually printing with original ink ( until the color food dye hits the printheads ) . Canon uses one type of print mechanism, usually with just foam filled plastic removable ink carts on the top, and Epson uses a different print head, originally with foam carts - but now with a mechanical pressure gear multichannel cart, and Lexmark and HP use a gold print head ON the carts, with mostly foam, but some charged bladder air balanced mechanisms.
There are many other printers with slight variations.
You do not state which kind you are having luck with.
If you use Canon or Epson type with the print head bolted to the drive rail, the answer is unknown - you may be inadvertently using what they use anyway, or close enough that it doesn't matter. If the molecular size of the food color is equal or less than that of the original, you may be doing well - please post back which kind of printer you have - you may have stumbled across something many people would be interested in ! ! !
If you use the HP or Lexmark type, the same rule of thumb would apply, but if something goes wrong, the head is not bolted to the unit, so you just get a new one - great stuff..
Black food colour is available as well as gold, silver, and other strange types, but black would probably just the 3 colours mixed anyway - and you could try this yourself - there are many printers that have no black ink, they lay down yellow, then red, then blue, and the result is black. In fact, on some printers that do have black ink, they lay down a track of blue first to blacken the print, and others, on highest quality black presentation mode, lay down yellow, red, blue and then black to achieve a solid black.

You would just have to weigh the risk of clogging " some " specific kinds of print heads with unknown molecular sized particles - against further experiments -- if the head is bolted down, you would be gambling with the printer itself.... your call, as no one else I have heard of has done this .... bravo !

PS. I clicked on the link above by soothsayer - wow - printing in edible color on edible transfer sheets on edible products. Obviously food dyes, if mixed properly can work well - AND to boot, in the two most difficult printers to maintain ink refills...
These edible print people proobably know a GREAT deal more about ink composition and molecule size than I do...

You are on to something here ! I have 50 or 60 bottles of various ink refills sitting here - now it looks like I will have to expand my horizons to the edible kind... Thanks for a great question and some great ingenuity I learned a lot!

Answer 2

You're really risking clogging your print heads. If that happens, with most printers, there's a good chance you'll have to get a new printer as most heads are not replaceable.

Answer 3

it will make your letters delicious. some bakeries use dedicated ink jet heads (never cross contaminate food inks with non food inks) to print pictures onto cakes, cookies, etc.

like this webpage sorta shows you.
http://www.computercakes.com/edible_ink.html

Answer 4

Are you sure your husband wasn't pulling your leg. I doubt that food color would work in the cartridge. It's no easy task to add color and it would have to be mixed.

Answer 5

They will fade quickly I imagine. Inkjets fade over time.

Answer 6

Probably not much in small supplies.

Answer 7

sweet, now ya juss need edible paper