They have those trendy white-inked pens for writing on black paper, why not sell some white ink for printers.
One application (asside from printing onto black paper) is those iron-on transparancies for tee-shirt transfers, you can only iron them onto white tee-shirts to preserve the color, but if you had white ink, it wouldn't matter.-- LittleBitONothing, Mar 22 2001 Cixous? Sez who?-- hello_c, Mar 23 2001 The ALPS MD-series printers can indeed print with white ink. The place I've found this most useful is when reverse-printing on transparent window stickers. Print the colored part of the design, followed by the white part. Adhesion's not great on the sticker material, so I often have to do two or more passes to get a really solid white.<p>
As for metalics, the MD-1000 can do non-glossy metalics somewhat like the "gold" and "silver" crayons Crayola used to make. The MD-5000, which I don't have, can also do mirror-finish metalics but it costs a lot more.<p>
The MD-1000 produces pretty good looking output on ordinary nice paper (smoothness is very important, though). Unlike ink-jet printers, there's no tendency for the ink to soak into the paper. Materials cost is between that of using an ink-jet to print on ordinary paper, and using an ink-jet on the buck-a-sheet fancy stuff.<p>
My biggest complaint with the MD-1000 is that it is pretty slow. It can, however, do some things with white and metalic inks ordinary printers cannot.<p>
BTW, one really nice trick is to print colored inks on top of silver. Some really amazing effects are possible that way.-- supercat, Apr 03 2001 That might make things less confuzing for AutoCAD® users who keep getting mixed up about that role reversal of white and black (that is optional) somewhere between wys and wyg.
Now to find something to help the people confuzed by the "Press start to access shut down menu" feature of Windows®.-- LoriZ, Feb 04 2002 The difficult part about printing white on anything else is getting enough density in the ink. Most of them end up with something close to the consistency of liquid paper. There used to be a HP cartridge that could do it, but it cost $65.00 AU (32.50 US or thereabouts) and only held about 10ml. It ran out in about a dozen prints.-- thelumberjack, May 26 2002 Good for printing blueprints too-- Mr_Thundercleese, May 27 2002 The ALPS are no longer on the market.....-- nidu, Aug 05 2003 The ALPS was a dry-ink-based printer. I still have and like mine and may see if I can get a last-time buy of some ribbons for it.
One thing which helps enormously when printing white ink is to print silver ink first and then white on top. The printer normally prints white ink twice, but one layer of silver and two of white yields much better coverage than four of white.-- supercat, Aug 05 2003 White on black architectural plan drawings are the coolest presentation. I wish I know about this printer when I am still in school. I spent countless hours drafting in white ink, not to mention the totally unforgiving mistakes....I want to know whats the printed quality like since its not the ink-jet I am familiar with. Does it have matt finish, or semigloss like the wax system of photocopiers, and does it print flush flat to the paper or can you feel an indent if you run your finger over it? Where can I get one since its not in production anymore......I also like to know whats that HP white ink call? Thank You guys-- SookKung, Apr 21 2004 random, halfbakery