New here - Introductions, powder printer and some advice from chemists.

[Wes Tabor]

  Hello, I have found my way into this fantastic group by way of introduction of a Steve B. that also participates here and we're in mutual other internet groups. 
He directed me to buy Ryan's fantastic book, 3D printer Engineering which I now have and am working to digest.

I have been 3d printing since 2014 and have built a few 2020 Cartesians, a delta and now have a highly modified coreception, coreXY and am working on cannibalizing's two 2020 i3's and building a franken printer with what I learn from Ryan's book. 

I've got a K40 c02 laser and am looking at selling that off and finding the right Fiber laser for my needs. I'm an IT geek by trade but am looking to move more into AM professionally or use my robots to start a business. 

Introductions aside, the reason for the post today is back on 1/4/20 I feel like I won the 3d printer lottery. I drove to Forrest Park GA and picked up a stored and wrapped Zcorp Zprinter650(60-70k MSRP when first made) full color binderjet 3d printer that was professionally wrapped and moved from CA to GA and then never un-wrapped and put back into service. at the time I could not find information on moving it properly and I feel like we did a Steller job as it weighs closer to 800lbs and is about 2.75 washing machines in size. ( i learned later that we're lucky we didn't damage it as you are supposed to remove the powder hopper and it's weight off the load cell) long story short, we got it here unharmed.

It would power up but not boot and I realized I should reseat the ram, now we booted, homed and I was able to free the powder auger. after much research I then learn this had the upgraded main board and shipped with the latest firmware from 3d systems and it thinks it is now a projet 660. when I used the proper software I could communicate with it and discovered it was not reading build temperatures nor the adaptercard epprom upon boot. I do a fair amount of microsoldering repair under stereo microscopes so I was on the hunt. I found it odd to have a "3d systems confidential - how to replace your pogo board ribbon cable " printed packet in the paperwork inside the door. I removed the front adapter card and inspected under the microscope and found tool slip damage where it appeared that someone tried to remove the press fit ribbon connector with the help of a flathead screw driver and a ham fisted tech. a voltage regulator was nearly knocked clean off the board but i was able to look up the datasheet and it was clear that the internal bonds inside the epoxy package were shot. I also had a missing surface mount capacitor on this voltage regulator circuit but with the proper datasheet I made a good guess. soldering the capacitor back and a new voltage regulator the boot process was able to read the nearby epromm chip and accept readings the i2c temperature sensor on the other side of the board. SOLID. now I discovered a clogged yellow line as the pigment precipitated out and formed some sort of crystalized gooy mess. lots of flushing back and forth across the line and I got it all out just to learn that of course my print heads must be replaced as they have sat for so long. no amount of time with solvents in my sweep frequency ultrasonic cleaner saved them from running "too hot" I have 5 new print heads in the mail and am pretty sure i'm ready to make full color powder printing magic but.. This has certainly been long winded and I hope it helps others in the future who may find it. (I have emailed many people from years old forum posts and they have replied and provided a great amount of assistance)

The consumables are extremely expensive and I was hoping some chemistry minded experts from here would give me some advice.

I found this 
https://reprap.org/wiki/Powder_Printer_Recipes

and think I can manage the "Plaster Powder V2" but ideally would like to get close to stock in the "Zcorp powder" 

I guess my question comes down to what do I do to mix the CMYK Binder's, black, clear, magenta, cyan and yellow . I think the "XS1 Possible 300 Class Binder"  is the best candidate for attempting to make the most stock binder possible but all of these articles do not mention any dyes or colorants. I'd have to have something safe for the hp11 print heads and I assume CMYK is some sort of standard I could use some optical color calibration device to help dial in my mixing ratios until I can get it correct but I have no clue on what direction to go in to investigate suitable inks or dies to mix into the liquid binder to get accurate color reproduction. 

I want to thank you for reading this far and for any idea's bright or dull you might have to help me on my journey and to all contributing in this group, thank you. I enjoy the knowledge shared here. 
Thanks 
-Wes  

[Ryan Carlyle]

Oh man, you're on a journey of discovery, aren't you? Sorry for the late response, it has been a heck of a month so far. I'll admit I've only seen these Zcorps in person a couple times and never had an opportunity to dig into one. It's designed to use standard HP cartridges, right? And your main issue is that the cartridges are too expensive? I think what I might suggest for a bridging solution is looking at generic bubble jet printer cartridge refill ink for your pigment needs. It's a lot more economical than branded ink, but you won't have to do so much chemistry experimenting while you try to get the hardware and software functional. I'm really skeptical about a DIYer being able to mix up these inkjet fluids with consistent performance. Particulate control is a challenge when you have super-tiny nozzles. 

Does the Zcorp have any HP cartridge DRM issues you have to worry about?

Then if I'm remembering correctly, the other big issue these inkjet-based machines have is needing to stay fairly active to avoid clogging up. Do you have enough work to keep it busy, or are you looking to use some kind of shutdown purge sequence? That's another area where refill cartridges could potentially work... get some cartridges with a flushing fluid and just run a dummy print... There are some academic papers out there on repurposing inkjet cartridges to dispense other fluids that might be worth checking for tips... First thing that came up on google... https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2018/ra/c8ra00756j#!divAbstract