Start with the substrate, not the code
Almost every wrong Evolution ink order starts the same way: someone orders the code the plant has always ordered, on a line that has since changed substrate. The code is not the decision. The surface you are printing on is, and everything else follows from it.
Thermal inkjet inks split into two families and they are not interchangeable. Water-based inks dry by soaking into the surface, so they need something absorbent. Solvent inks dry by the carrier flashing off and leaving resin behind, so they work on sealed surfaces that absorb nothing. Put a water-based ink on plastic film and the code will smear or wipe away — not because the ink is bad, but because there is nowhere for it to go.
- Porous — corrugated, kraft, uncoated cartons: water-based
- Semi-porous — coated cartons and similar stock: water-based, tuned for a surface that absorbs slowly
- Non-porous — plastics, films, foils: solvent
The porous codes: the 4500 family
If you code brown board, this is your family. 4500BK is the black water-based standard and the most-ordered code in the whole range — if your line runs corrugated and nobody has ever had to think hard about ink, this is almost certainly what is in the machine.
4510BK is the one people miss. It is still black and still water-based, but it is tuned for semi-porous stock — coated cartons, where the surface absorbs more slowly and a standard porous ink can look fuzzy or take too long to set. If 4500BK is not behaving on a coated box, 4510BK is usually the answer rather than jumping straight to a solvent.
The rest of the family is the same chemistry in other colours: 4500RD red, 4500YW yellow, 4500BL blue and 4500GR green. Colour is not cosmetic in a coding context — see below.
The non-porous codes: 4700, 4711, 4722
For plastics, films and foils you need a solvent ink. There are three blacks, and what separates them is how hard the substrate is to hold onto.
4711BK is the standard solvent black and the right starting point for most non-porous work. 4722BK is the premium solvent black, for substrates where a standard solvent code will not stay put — slick or treated films, and anything handled, chilled or wetted before it ships. 4700BK is a solvent black too, and it is the one that catches people out, for the reason in the next section.
For colour on non-porous packaging there is 4711YW yellow and 4720WH white. White is the opacity option: on dark plastics and films a black code effectively disappears, and white is the only thing that reads. If somebody tells you the code cannot be seen on a dark pack, 4720WH is the code to ask about.
The one that catches people out: 4700BK is a 45A, not a 45si
Most solvent Evolution inks ship in the HP 45si cartridge format, so it is a natural shortcut to assume 45si means solvent and HP 45 / 45A means water-based. That shortcut is wrong in one specific place, and it is wrong often enough to be worth stating plainly.
4700BK is a solvent ink packaged in an HP 45A cartridge. If you sort stock by cartridge format, or you are working from a list that only records the format, 4700BK ends up filed with the water-based inks — and sooner or later someone pulls it for the wrong job, or rules it out for a plastics line because "the 45A ones are the porous ones".
This is why we publish the cartridge format and the chemistry as two separate facts on every ink page, instead of letting one imply the other.
Colour is a decision, not decoration
On a coding line, colour usually does one of two jobs. It buys contrast where black does not have enough — yellow on dark kraft, white on dark plastic. Or it carries a convention, where a colour is reserved to mark one grade, shift, destination or approval state so it can be told apart across a pallet at a glance.
Both are worth being deliberate about. A code that is technically present but cannot be read at the speed someone walks past it is not doing its job, and a colour convention nobody wrote down tends to quietly stop being followed.
New cartridges, not remanufactured
Worth knowing when you compare Evolution ink suppliers, because this market has both. A remanufactured cartridge is a used shell that has been cleaned and refilled. Several sellers in this space offer them, and they are usually cheaper.
TPS cartridges are not remanufactured. They are new, and each one is programmed and checked on our own equipment for electronic-contact stability before it ships — which matters more than usual on Evolution hardware, where the printer is no longer supported by its manufacturer and a marginal cartridge contact is an awkward fault to chase.
What to do now that Matthews has discontinued Evolution
Matthews Marking obsoleted the Evolution line — it no longer supplies new printers, driver boards or parts for it, and its HP OEM licence is gone. That is genuinely inconvenient, but it is not the same thing as your printers being finished. They still run, they still need consumables, and the supply for them exists.
Practically there are three things to sort out. Ink, which is this guide. Parts, when something electrical fails — the printhead carriage is repairable at board level rather than only replaceable whole. And cartridge programming, which is the piece most ink suppliers do not do, and the reason an orphaned Evolution printer can keep running at all.
None of that requires deciding about replacing the machine. When you do reach that point we will help you plan it, but keeping the line coding comes first.