Konica Minolta · 1 ink type
Ink for the Konica 512i
The 512i is the banner workhorse. It is fitted to the wide solvent machines where the job is square metres per shift on flex and hoarding, not photographic detail on a panel — and where ink, not the machine, is where the money actually goes.
The ink
What this head takes
Solvent, and only solvent, on every machine in our range that carries it. The thing that varies is the drop-size variant of the head itself — the 512i is supplied in more than one — and the variant is part of what you order against, because it changes both the ink specification and how much of it you get through. Tell us the machine and we will confirm the variant rather than matching on the head name.
Where it is found
Machines carrying this head
Our S-series solvent machines carry it in banks of four and eight, and it is fitted to a large number of wide solvent machines from other manufacturers across India. If you run 3.2 m flex banner production, there is a fair chance this is your head whoever built the machine.
Practice
On these machines, ink volume is the running cost
A 512i machine at production speed consumes ink at a rate that makes every other consumable a rounding error. That has two consequences worth acting on. First, measure your own consumption per square metre rather than trusting anyone's published figure — on a banner machine the number is large enough that a small error compounds fast. Second, the cheapest ink per litre is not automatically the cheapest ink per square metre, and on a head fitted eight at a time, a batch that blocks nozzles is an expensive saving.
More on this in what actually kills a printhead and reading a nozzle check.
Ordering
What to tell us
- The machine make and model, and how many heads are fitted
- The head variant if you know it — we confirm it if you do not
- Your rough monthly volume, so we quote the right pack size
- Whether you have had blockage or deprime issues on the current ink
We confirm the exact ink against your head and machine before anything ships. Matching on a head name alone is how the wrong ink gets sent, and on this head that is an expensive mistake rather than a return.
What we do not claim
The figures we are not going to invent
No nozzle count, no drop volume and no rated life. Konica Minolta does not publish per-head figures for the 512i the way Ricoh and Epson do for theirs, and the numbers on reseller listings disagree with each other. We would rather answer the question you actually have — which ink, and how much of it — than repeat a specification we cannot attribute.
Next step
Order ink for the Konica 512i
Send the machine and the head. We confirm the chemistry and the channels before anything ships.
Ink is quoted, not listed. What a litre costs you depends on coverage, resolution and how much white you run, so tell us the machine and the volume and we will price the actual order.