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Your informative article "How Printing Works" was most interesting and generally well researched and I found it very intriguing. However you repeat a line that I have read elsewhere without (as elsewhere) explaining why ie Dyes versus Pigment inks where you state that the correct type of ink must be used with the printer.

With a printer for dye based inks it is common sense that all those microscopic particles will clog the nozzles fairly quickly.

However it does not seem sensible the other way, since a solution is less likely to clog nozzles made for pigment inks. pigment inks which are an emulsion.

Logically dye based inks should run very well on a printer designed for pigment inks. They don't as I know from actual practice but I can't understand why, do you?

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Hi, I'm pleased someone liked my article.

The print head channels, chambers and firing mechanisms are designed to accommodate the specific fluid attributes of ink correctly formulated for that printer. This attention to detail is required to ensure that the ink droplets ejected from each nozzle are the correct size/volume and that there are no mis-fires.

The fluid characteristics, including viscosity, surface tension, etc., are more than likely to be significantly different between a dye-based in and a pigmented ink. In fact, these factors will even vary between dye-bsed inks from different manufacturers for different dye-based printers.

Petrol (gasoline) is less viscous than diesel, but you wouldn't want to to put petrol in your diesl tank...

Ian