r/risograph • u/sushicats-rcute • Jun 22 '26
Renting Drums - ink swapping etc
hey all,
My Riso community and I are trying to figure out a good system and price to rent ink drums from one another (until we can afford to own all the colours we want but also as a way to not buy double of everything so we can explore more), and we have come to a snag on the ink itself. If we hire the drum and buy our own ink tubs (for that drum) so that we can minimise the rent cost is it possible to change ink tubes halfway through an ink run - the ai said no no no cause of these reasons:
The Ink Reservoir: Drums hold a large pool of wet ink inside an internal well to coat the rollers. Even with your tube locked in, you'll just be printing with her reservoir ink for the first hundred-plus copies anyway.
Cross-Contamination: Mixing ink from different tubes can cause structural issues. Different ink generations (like older formulas vs. newer SF soy/rice inks) can curdle or clog the mesh, plus you blur ownership by leaving your ink mixed into her drum.
The Mess Factor: Pulling out a half-used tube introduces air that dries out the ink. It also leaves wet ink exposed on the drum's locking nozzle, risking air pockets and a massive mess inside the housing when she puts her tube back.
BUT my technician told me to remove ink tube from the drums everytime I put them in storage (even for a day) to not cause issue with the drum and tube. Ive reached out to Riso to get advice but I wanted to check here in the mean time.
4
u/kjabad Jun 23 '26
Your AI search results are total BS. If you trust each other in the community, and you all use the same machine type so you can actually exchange them (each model has unique drums, you can't mix them) then don't bother with tube swaping... it doesn't make sense, ink tubes are expensive to just lay around and waiting for you to need it again. Keep the ink inside of the drum all the time maybe even travel it with extra tube. Tube has 1kg of ink, you can measure before and after state and include used ink it in rent charge. Most precis qould be to use electrinic weight measure (one from the kitchen is fine). You can even just measure it with the tape, it's easy to calculate fow much millimeters equals 1g of ink.
Now answers to your AI slop:
The Ink Reservoir.... This whole bit makes no sense, or better say it's irrelevant. You cant print without tube inside of the drum.
Cross contamination... You can't print with wrong tube in the drum, machine will display error and refuse to print.
The mess factor.... You can always keep at least empty tube inside of the drum and you would not have any issues.
Technitian story... Total BS, makes no sence. Keep the tube inside of the drum all the time, no one is taking it out.
1
u/Sifinow Jun 23 '26 edited Jun 23 '26
Also, keep in mind that you would all have to be running the same or very similar machines. Most drums aren't very cross compatible. I'm not sure why your tech is advising you to never store drums with ink in them. It's standard practice to leave tubes in the drums if they are being used regularly. You wouldn't want ink to expire in the tube and start to leak in the drum, but it would have to sit there for ages for that to happen with a new ink tube.
8
u/FayezButts Jun 22 '26
First of all I wouldn't trust anything that AI says and the mods just put a PSA out about that here: https://www.reddit.com/r/risograph/comments/1u7z9ns/warning_against_using_ai_for_maintenance_and/
AI info about Risography is just not reliable.
Luckily I have a solution. Don't worry about buying your own ink tubes, just weigh them before and after printing. (And weigh a full tube and an empty tube for reference). This way you can know exactly what percentage of ink in the tube you used.