CCI Discharge, super quick review. . . UPDATED

[blue moon]

Had  a chance to run few small jobs with CCI discharge over the last few weeks. We are still to test the Magna colors and am pretty excited about doing so as they have some pretty cool stuff going on, but that's another topic.

there are two versions of the ink, premixed and pigments. We tested the Fluorescent green  that was premixed and was very, very happy with it. It printed pretty nice and just like Sericol all you had to do was add activator. The sample kit even contains the wooden stir sticks, how cool is that! I tried ti on the manual and it covered well with one swipe. It did look just a touch better with two. Color was nice and bright, actually to my surprise I had to reluctantly agree that it was better than Sericol (more fluorescent). Print was good and clean, but it could have been better. I'll have to check on the auto to see if we get a little more consistency in the deposit. I was probably not printing evenly as my manual printing experience has been very limited. The slightest consistency issue was so minor that the ppl here could not tell even when asked. I had to point it out and explain, so it really was very minor and might not be there if printed on the auto.

As far as the pigments, the system seems fantastic. It uses actual Pantone numbers from the book to mix colors. We tried three different colors and they were all spot on now that I think about it. We are using CCI white and base so having pigment that works with the base we have in stock already is great. All the colors consist of 90% base (which is cheap) and 10% pigment. majority of the formulas are two colors and potentially black or white to lighten or darken the color. If mixing in 400g increments (which is the qty we normally mix) 0.1g scale should do. There are few colors that will need better resolution, but most seem to come up to about a gram. It looks like 80-90% are doable with a gram scale, and guessing less than few percent will be in 0.01g.
I washed the red and blue print, will wash teh green and yellow tonight. Blue looks the same as when it was printed, did not lose anything. Red washed out a little, but we made the mistake of using too much activator. I'll see what happens when we use 3%, it should be better. Red was acceptable after the wash, but it was really bright and vibrant when printed so losing some of that pop was disappointing. I think it was acceptable as it is, but for us to commit to that system it would have to be better (and that's just because we have really picky customers. It would probably be just fine for most other ppl.)

CCI kit came with really nice pigment bottles. They have dropper tips adn hopefully will not be clogging. So far I have been very impressed with the product and the level of thought that has gone into it.

pierre

[ZooCity]

I'm falling in love with them too.  We've just been using the CCI pigs to boost the Sericol or eyeball quick color tints to base so far.  We have the full Sericol set in stock so it's going to have to really kick it's ass to make use switch 100%.   

I'm lost on pigment load though.  They indicate up to 30% acceptable and formulate at 10% (probably for ease of math).  Paging Dr.Pep:  what's the relationship here with pigment loading DC?  Is higher not necessarily better/more vibrant?

[tonypep]

Really quick review Pierre? Really? Kind of thorough to me. Anyway the term "brighter" can be misleading. The higher the PC load the deeper the hue. Brighter colors and tints are made with lower loads and a titch of white if you must. Haven't tried the CCI PCs even though they really really want me too. I helped Gary get his feet wet with the white and base and steered them towards those PC dispensers. He is selling a boatload of product now. (Sometimes it helps to have printed samples in your sales bag!) He says that he passed on what we did together and that has helped lead them to where they are now. Sure, I'm a lttle proud of that. For a .01 scale (you'll need them for best accuracy with PCs) try Acculab by Sartorious.
And by that 30% pigment load raises an eyebrow.
Chemists have a habit of jumping ship and sharing trade secrets. This also had a play here.

[dirkdiggler]

been using cci pigs for a while now, and they are probably my favorite ONLY because I like their new mixing program that you can download from their site.  Much better and more accurate than using the Pantone book.  The disadvantage of CCI pigs over say... Magna, is on almost every formula, you need DOUBLE the pigment than you do for Magna for the same color.  Also, Magna SUper white BLOWS most out of the water, although I hear CCI has a new white coming.  Honestly, I can make ANY of them work.  Any system.  Once you learn what works and what doesn't, you can apply that to any system.  That's my 2 cents.  Gotta try those new Neon colors though, right now I am sold on Sericol for those.

[ZooCity]

I too have been doubling pigment with CCI.  This is life with a PC system though of any ink type. 

[blue moon]

washed the fluo green and yellow print, and nothing changed. The washout is so minimal that it was hard to tell. Looking under the magnifying glass, there is a tiniest bit missing from the top and print is softer, but still looks just as good. I am very impressed!
Normally I would expect the print to dull some after the washing (and this was three washes at heavy duty cycle with hot water), but for all practical purposes there was no change after the wash.

pierre

[Screened Gear]

washed the fluo green and yellow print, and nothing changed. The washout is so minimal that it was hard to tell. Looking under the magnifying glass, there is a tiniest bit missing from the top and print is softer, but still looks just as good. I am very impressed!
Normally I would expect the print to dull some after the washing (and this was three washes at heavy duty cycle with hot water), but for all practical purposes there was no change after the wash.

pierre

I have all 9 colors here to try. I am looking forward to adding them to a clothing line that I will be producing soon. Good to know they done't wash out. Can't wait to try them.

[ebscreen]

I too have been doubling pigment with CCI.  This is life with a PC system though of any ink type. 

I think most ink co. formulas are based on standard WB on light/white grounds. Rutland at least has two WB versions
of their Pantone matches. One "regular" (that we use for discharge/most everything) and an "Ultra WB" which is like
a %3 pigment load.

[Itsa Little CrOoked]

I think most ink co. formulas are based on standard WB on light/white grounds. Rutland at least has two WB versions
of their Pantone matches. One "regular" (that we use for discharge/most everything) and an "Ultra WB" which is like
a %3 pigment load.

Do you really mean 3%?  I've not used Rutland, but 3% sounds pretty thin.  I have been using CCI WB pigments (and bases) since I am trying to wean myself off of Matsui.  But the WB and discharge we print with mostly need 10% PLUS pigment loading to develop the colors we are looking for. (Oh... maybe not dark inks on white shirts)  I wonder if I'm doing something wrong, but I've been WAAAAY over 10% on some colors. It seemed the Matsui took less pigment...

But I am interested in more reviews regarding the CCI ready for use stuff, as compared to Sericol's Texcharge. I use some Texcharge too, and had been considering buying the whole set.

(I'm kind of embarrassed how little I've posted here lately.  I started casting my own lead bullets this winter, since I can hardly buy any for reloading, and sort of became obsessed with building up my arsenal.)

Pierre, please post back here as your experience with this product develops. Great review!

Stan

[ZooCity]

I think eb may have meant 30%?

Just chiming in on CCI's pigment set.  We've ran and stocked the full set of Sericol RFUs as well as CCI D-White and D-Base for the last year and a half.  The Sericol helped us get our feet wet but I decided today we're going over to CCI.  So far their pigments are the jam and having control of the loading is key for us now.  Another advantage is shelf space and how quickly you can boost or decrease the pigment load with the squirty bottles or adding back base.  This helps expedite color approval here when we aren't cracking open 4 buckets at a time.  Pricing between the two is pretty close with CCI being a touch more affodable since we can by 5gal of base at a go and quarts or gals of pigment. 

Like sericol, the formulas need to be mixed with a certain protocol of adding white and black last.  They do need to be boosted, nothing from the CCI set has ran at the recommended 10% here.  We're typically at about 21% pigment load.  Doubling, or I should say more diluted pigment, is not such a bad thing as our sartorious scale goes to 0.x, not 0.xx.  Without the hundredths read out I'd rather use more of a weaker pig to help keep the mixes accurate at quart size.

They say up to 30% is cool but, from using WFX PCs I know that this figure is dependent on the particular pigments so I wonder if they addressed this in their software, I doubt that 30% as a blanket statement for all the pig colors could be true but maybe it is.  I just can't see it being possible to balance all those pigment dispersions evenly like that.  It's important to avoid crock issues with PCs.  At the same time you want max pigment in both WB and activated DC ink as it likes to get pale after curing in both cases.  Test, test, test. 

I like that it uses the pantone formulas.  At this point I kind of "think in pantone" as we call out swatches in house to communicate effectively.  Makes me wish the WFX system was the same way actually.

We'll run through our gallons of the sericol fluoros first but also looking forward to the CCI fluoros next. 

I'd recommend this set to anyone experienced with wb/dc.  I might recommend an rfu system like sericol for those just starting out but you are looking at a serious upfront investment in ink stock with sericol whereas CCI is very low cost to check out, they offer an 8oz set of the pigs and a gallon of base is well under $30. 

One more thing- no pigment drying in the squirt bottles so far, just shake 'em up and go.  I haven't found a pig chunk in a screen yet.  This is a big deal if you are running DC on an auto as you won't see a little area of the print blocked out by a chunk of dried pigment until the back of the dryer which, in our case means we just effed up at least a dozen shirts that may not be possible to fix.  I noticed the only gal of rutland's wb-99 we've used had the issue and so I've steered clear of them.

Anyways, CCI gets the thumbs up from me.

[blue moon]

this is very interesting as we have been getting spot on, bright vibrant colors going exactly by the formula; no boosting needed. hmm . . . maybe we need to print some more.

pierre

[Parker 1]

this is very interesting as we have been getting spot on, bright vibrant colors going exactly by the formula; no boosting needed. hmm . . . maybe we need to print some more.

pierre

We get the same, I have only decreased the % of activator to get REDS and some BLUES.

[ZooCity]

Or maybe I need to give 10% another try. Haven't seen a deep, rich color with ten though.

[blue moon]

Or maybe I need to give 10% another try. Haven't seen a deep, rich color with ten though.

we run the dryer at almost 400 and keep the shirts in the for a while. Maybe that's the difference?

pierre

[Itsa Little CrOoked]

Do you guys use the CCI software??? (I can't install it so far....some goofy requisite utility is needed, I can't make work.)

I also am boosting CCI (both bases and pigments) beyond 10% pigment loading. Depending on the color I want, and the color of the shirt I'm discharging, the colors are sometimes pretty weak at 10%. I tried to get a BRIGHT burnt orange (think Oklahoma State Univ) with CCI using PMS 165 @10% which previously worked nicely with 10% Matsui pigment was nowhere as bright with CCI.

Wow that was poorly written, but at 10% Pigment loading:
Matsui  PMS165    =good and bright,
CCI      PMS 165    =weak. 

Both had 4% ZFS   That isn't the only problem color I have encountered so far.

But long story short I'm moving away from Matsui. I still buy Sericol Yellow Shade Red Texcharge and add Matsui Neo Red pigmented base to it, but beyond that, I'm all CCI for discharge and WB.  I'm still developing a color palette of my "go to" colors.

Stan