Why do people make the decision to add white ink to their printer? The most obvious answer to this is to help them to break into niche production areas. White ink can be used to great effect for over- and under-printing for retail projects; it’s good for reverse printing onto clear self-adhesives and static cling for window displays; and it’s excellent for printing on coloured vinyls. But if you’re considering it, you’ll need to bear in mind that white ink can be expensive and the cartridges are generally smaller than usual, meaning that you end up paying 10 to 20 percent more for white ink than for regular colours.

Furthermore, unless you need to use your white ink capability frequently, it can also cause the odd technical headache. White ink contains silver nitrate, which over time has a tendency to settle to the bottom of the ink cartridge. This can result in storage and machine throughput problems, as your printer will flush it into the waste ink tank. Certain brands of printer can handle this. For example, Epson printers will recirculate the silver nitrate, as do UV-curable machines such as those from Agfa. But this isn’t the case with all makes of printer.

For infrequent users, what’s the solution? In the first place, these problems shouldn’t arise as long as you use your white ink two to three times a week. However, if your white ink requirement is at that level or less, it might make more sense to outsource those jobs to someone like a trade printer or, in fact, to us here at SEDO.

We can take on any print jobs that you have that require white ink, and if at some future point your requirement builds up to a level that might justify having your own white ink capacity, we can advise you on how best to introduce it. This is where you need to make an informed decision regarding the cost effectiveness of either option – and we’d be happy to help you take a closer look.

For more information on our trade printing and disaster recovery service, or to talk about the ROI on white ink options, call us on 01268 724570 or fill in the enquiry form on the website.