When I last checked (about a week ago) I had 57 characters in need of at least one carbanti at their current gear level (most actually needed 2, and a few needed 3). Most of those 57 will need another 2 carbanti's at their next gear level, and another 2 at the next.
Of the energy I spend on gear farming, 90% of that energy now goes to farming carbanti. (though I am currently farming a hard node ds and ls for shards, so 200 energy/day goes to that - leaving about ~280/day on gear at 2 refreshes per day).
Out of curiosity I also checked my surplus of gear from the TAC gear challenge. For most of those pieces I have in excess of 3-4k. Even if I could exchange those at a 5-1 ratio into carbanti's, that would only let me give each of those 57 characters 1 carbanti (plus 3 extras).
The short of it, even if you spend a couple thousand $, you will not have enough carbanti.
