Do people buy ink or replace printer ? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: lordvader88
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 04, 2019, 08:42:52 pm
content: Are ink cartridge replacements really almost as much as a new printer ? Do people really just replace printer instead of buying ink ?

author: ruffy91
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 04, 2019, 08:51:40 pm
content: Not this discussion please.. You know that you don't get full cadtridges with a new printer but only some "demo" ones right?A typical HP printer has ink for about 100 pages with it.If you buy a XL ink kit you will get 1400 pages out of it.If you buy a new printer each time you pay about 15 times more than if you just replaced the cartridges one time.Also if you get an inkjet alway leave it connected to power. It will use a small amount of ink from time to time to keep lines and nozzles from clogging, but WAY less than if you left it unplugged, ink dried somewhere and it has to run a cleaning cycle which can use multiple ml of ink to get it working again.Edit: I fell for the troll. See his other posts.This question is just like the question if bread can be deep frozen without negative consequences...

author: langwadt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 04, 2019, 08:53:33 pm
content: Quote from: lordvader88 on July 04, 2019, 08:42:52 pmisn't the cartridge that comes with the printer tiny? compared to a replacement?and why ink at all?

author: Red Squirrel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 04, 2019, 09:27:50 pm
content: I only buy laserjet now days, the toner lasts for years whether you use it or you don't and it's cheaper per page and you get way more pages per toner. Bubble/inkjet cartridges are so tiny and can only print so many pages and they're like 60 bucks a pop. I'm still on the same toner that came with the printer 10 years ago. I kinda want to upgrade to colour so I might end up buying a new printer but only because I want to upgrade. Hard to justify as I hardly print though... but I really like the quality of laser colour from what I've seen in the past. Could be cool for making custom signs and front panels and stuff.If you go inkjet it's probably best to use one of those retro fit kits that let you use large reservoirs, probably way cheaper to operate. Think you still run into issues where the heads clog up though as the ink dries and you also get dust etc in there.I'm speaking mostly for SOHO here. In the industrial stuff inkjet tends to be more common, like printing presses etc. They use large reservoirs and can support large format paper. Not sure if laserjet tech is used in those applications, like plotting etc. Might be a limitation of the tech.

author: bob91343
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 04, 2019, 09:29:49 pm
content: Years ago I stopped using inkjet printers. They are expensive and unreliable, and the ink isn't waterproof. I still have some generic ink but refilling the cartridges is a messy PITA.I now only use laser printers. They do a better job and so far I haven't had to buy toner. By the time I need it, someone usually has given me a free printer that still has toner. That, however, has resulted in a stash of laser printers that are out of toner. And one that has failed.I also have a few old inkjet units but have no intention of ever using them again.

author: Ampera
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 04, 2019, 10:17:24 pm
content: What kind of question is this? When I run out of ink, I just get a new printer, that way I have TWO printers without any ink.Of course I'm joking, I just get a new ribbon, it's not that expensive.

author: Towger
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 04, 2019, 10:37:50 pm
content: One of my best purchases was a HP4250 off eBay. The kids print like mad, everything is printed. Years later I am only on my second 20k page cartage.

author: Electro Detective
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 04, 2019, 11:50:09 pm
content: Once I realized what a money pit Jet Printers were/areI gave the 'refill kit' thing a go (on recommendation from a very clued ink and cartridge seller at a computer swap meet years ago)and get at least 6 to 10 good runs from a black cartridge.Still rolling with a usb Lexmark Z series, and run the printer when needed from an old but gold XP loaded Dell PCOnce I get printers, their drivers, and PDF/Doc programs to co-exist and behave, I leave as is on a dedicated PC or laptop,and transfer files over to it for printing, so no more 'conflict' dramasand or 'critical security update'breakagesfwiw, I gave up on refilling the color cartridges, a total waste of time and ink if you don't use them often enough,the three eventually begin to dry out, and or at random and or cross contaminate somewhere in the chain,and a right royale pita and mess to sort out.Black is good enough for most stuff hereand Officeworks is just down the road for anything elseOnce it finally claps out I'll look at a decent cheap laser job that sports a decent 'ocassional use' shelf life,and bug free drivers and software

author: dcbrown73
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 04, 2019, 11:57:10 pm
content: I quit buying ink jet printers. I bought a $300 HP color laser jet printer. It printed a ton before I had to change the cartridges (more than any ink jet) I spent a good amount on the replacement color toner, but I've printed a ton of great color (even images look great) and I still have tons of color toner left.Never again do I fall into that ink jet printer trap.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2019, 12:18:29 am
content: Ditto. Inkjet printers are a rip-off. They were a solution back when laser printers were still very expensive. These days, small laser printers can be had relatively cheap and are way better than inkjets in every way. Toner is pretty resistant too, whereas inks are not at all (too easy to smear them with just the touch of a finger...

author: SilverSolder
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2019, 12:35:35 am
content: There are some things ink jets are better at (e.g. photo quality printing, or even making PCB artwork on absorbent film for prototyping), there are some things laser printers are better at (fast, massive quantities, long life toner cartridges, etc)... if you like printing, you end up with several printers of different types as a result. Doing that without going to the poor house is an art form in itself!

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2019, 01:08:12 am
content: I gave up on inkjets about 12 years ago and got a color laser printer, never looked back. Recently it was starting to get worn out so I bought a HP M254dw for under $300 and it's been great. I'm still on the toner cartridges that came with it but when those are empty I'll replace them with aftermarket cartridges. I haven't really seen much difference between those and OEM.

author: Brumby
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 05, 2019, 02:32:59 am
content: I'm not a fan of inkjet printers - but I do have a Canon PIXMA PRO 100.Why? You ask:1. A3 capacity2. Photo quality printing3. Straight paper path for printing on thick stock4. Cold printing process which allows printing on thermally sensitive materialsOne of the jobs I do is printing on a magnetic backed plastic material which is not something I would eventryto send through a laser.One thing though - I would have been better off sticking to the original Canon "ChromaLife" ink than using cheaper generic replacement cartridges. The ink fade from those is terrible. In a room that does not have strong sunlight with the print nowhere near direct sunlight, the fading is terrible after only six months. I have prints using the ChromaLife ink that came with the printer that are sixyearsold that still have strong colours. For my next cartridge purchases I will be going back to the overpriced manufacturer's product.The annoying thing, though, is that I do not use this printer very often and the amount of ink I suspect gets wasted when it goes through its "awakening dance" is more than I care to feel comfortable about.

author: MrMobodies
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2019, 03:22:17 am
content: I have heard that argument before in being requested to purchase cheaper compatible or refilled laserjet cartridges.It was for quality prints that were needed quickly and on demand in bulk.I warned what might happen but I wasn't believed until there were smudges on the print or the print didn't look good with the new compatible cartridges.We were sent out others but had the same problem and it was a matter of trying to find better compatibles.Then they said "so we gotta pay more than what the printer is worth on these four cartridges."I said you can't always have it both ways.You want quality and performance on demand and if you want it cheaper we'll just have to find a more toner efficient Laserjet that is just as fast and reliable.

author: CJay
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2019, 09:13:12 am
content: Quote from: Towger on July 04, 2019, 10:37:50 pmYeah, have to agree, the 42/43xx HP lasers are superb workhorses.

author: CJay
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2019, 09:21:31 am
content: Quote from: MrMobodies on July 05, 2019, 03:22:17 amRegular problem, when I was a field tech we had a couple of clients who insisted on using dodgy refill cartridges or knock-offs and then logged print quality calls every week.I refused to return to one site that were using Xerox cartridges in HP printers and insisting the printers were faulty, it was a simple matter to after demonstrate that a genuine HP cart worked perfectly yet somehow the person in charge of stationery and printer consumables denied it was the problem.Another site I spent an hour demonstrating that *every* 'compatible' or refurb cart they had on the shelf had one or more faults.it got to the point where immediately I had a call for print quality issues and I found a non genuine cartridge, I made the call chargeable.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2019, 11:41:25 am
content: If you buy a cheap printer, the ink or toner will cost more than the printer. If you buy an expensive printer, the ink or toner will be cheap. The difference in cost between inkjet and laser has evaporated -- if you buy a $99 laser printer, the toner will be just as expensive per page as on a cheap inkjet.In fact, the lowest print cost available today is now with high-end inkjets. (Which kinda makes sense, since ink is easier to make than toner.)It's a shame most people only buy cheap printers and thus think inkjet has to suck. It doesn't, if you spend a little more up front.With that said, I still actually agree that for most consumers, especially those who print infrequently, a laser printer is a better choice.

author: Psi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2019, 12:05:45 pm
content: 1) Buy a good aftermarket continuous ink system for your printer. (check ebay/aliexpress)2) Problem solved.

author: Rerouter
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2019, 12:09:53 pm
content: Found a HP laserjet with network interface for free on gumtree, brought it home with about 5% left in the toner, used that for years, eventually ran out, bought a new 15,000 page toner cartridge for $70, still at about 88% and suspect It will outlive my next few pets.Mainly use it for final check over of PCB layout, it can reliably print 6/6 layouts with minimal edge artifacts providing your using a somewhat decent paper. could even likely get away with the same for toner transfer if I tweaked in the settings.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2019, 01:08:32 pm
content: After 2008 there were so many office class laserprinters available second hand ... hell there's probably still stock from back then left.

author: rdl
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2019, 01:32:07 pm
content: I never owned an inkjet, had to use too many of them at work and knew how much trouble they could be. In 1999 I acquired an HP Laserjet 4p, heavily used but free, from work. It finally wore out and I thought about buying some kind of inkjet, but bought a Brother HL-5250DN instead. The built in networking and duplex printing proved far more useful to me than color. The Brother is one of the best printers I've ever used. I don't even know how old it is, 12, 14 years? It has never jammed and the original cartridge lasted until 2015 and I'll probably never use up the replacement.

author: ptricks
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2019, 01:42:54 pm
content: Own laser and inkets. The inkjets are brother models that use the LC103 cartridges. 2 black and all the colors cost $8 to refill using aftermarket cartridges vs $56 oem.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2019, 06:18:33 pm
content: If you print frequently, inkjets are probably fine. I often go weeks or months without printing anything though and when I had an inkjet I remember putting in a new set of cartridges and printing a few pages then often by the next time I wanted to use it I'd find the thing all dried out and clogged up.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2019, 11:12:14 pm
content: Depends on the model. Epson printers from, say, 1998-2005 were notorious for clogging if you didn't print several times a week. On the other hand, my Canons with individual inks have almost never clogged, no matter the interval. (My current one is from 2008, and in the intervening 11 years, I've only had to clean a clogged nozzle once, last year. 2 deep cleaning cycles and it was good. I got a ton of original Canon ink from the local classifieds for next to nothing, so I don't need to worry about ink use any more!)

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2019, 11:19:33 pm
content: Oddly enough I had an Epson Sylus from around '99-'00 that never clogged on me, it was missing the paper feed tray though so I replaced it with a HP Deskjet and that thing clogged all the time. I eventually replaced it with a newer HP and that also clogged, never had a Canon for whatever reason.Whatever the case I'm happy with the HP Laserjet I have now. It's not as good as a good inkjet for printing color photos but for a laser printer it does a remarkably good job and when I need better photos I can have those printed professionally just a few blocks away. The laser toner can sit for years without problems, it prints nice glossy black text on cheap plain paper, I can do toner transfer PCB etching, and the prints are also waterproof. Most inkjet prints I've had run or smear if they get damp, even just a few raindrops walking from the house to the car.

author: Electro Detective
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2019, 11:40:11 pm
content: Quote from: james_s on July 05, 2019, 06:18:33 pmHa, been down that road a couple of times and the lesson 'twice bitten = sucker'cost a couple of seized/dried/clogged/cross contaminated color cartridgesand crusty intermittent performing black cartridges = uselessThe black ones can be sort of rescued by soaking the bottom sponge/PCB section in warm water, and an alternating clean up/blot routine pressing gently on white tissue paper,till it 'blots' black and thickish as it should in the printer. Dry the black cartridge and put back in the printer and do a few nozzle cycles till the test prints come outBLACKblackeasier to do than it soundsand works on my Lexmark Z53 printer which I believe was rebadged for other brands tooWhat I may try next time I need color, is to buy a new color cartridge againget the job done,then remove and store that cartridge as it came, and put back the dud next to the black (so the printer can operate)Might have a fighting chance perhaps and save a bundlefwiw: when this printer is de-dusted, de-mucked, new cartridges fitted, run with a few clean nozzle/test print cycles,the prints are as good as it gets and look proEDIT: laser printer noob question > can you use jet printer paper on laser printers?i.e. is it the same stuff?

author: MrMobodies
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2019, 12:12:22 am
content: Quote from: rdl on July 05, 2019, 01:32:07 pmI remembered one very similar to that Brother HL-5250DN and it never jammed up and was in use all the time in a IT test room.Didn't take up any of time and just worked until it ran out of paper or toner.I have seen a terrible one I came across and I can't remember what model number I think it was a Samsung ML but they were in a number of places and kept on jamming up.I saw a Samsung colour CLP 300 in 2010 and it had a sticker on it. "The worlds smallest laserjet printer" but it was more like the worlds slowest from what I've seen. The cartridges were small round things £30 to £40 each at the time with 1000 or 2000 page yield.

author: bob91343
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2019, 12:39:27 am
content: I have had good results with Brother and Savin laser printers. My HP 4 quit working. The old workhorse finally died. To fix it is too much trouble. The Savin ran out of toner. I use the Brother for one-sided printing and have a nice Xerox for duplex. My daughter has a low end HP color laser so if I need color I can use that; it's on my network.

author: Urs42
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 06, 2019, 10:31:11 am
content: The solution from someone i know: A shop here had discounted color laser printers on sale. He bought 5 of them, and then removed the toner and ethernet print server from four packages/printers, he kept all the toner, and sold four printers without toner and the print servers on "ebay" of course he did mention the missing toner in the auction. This was many years ago, he is still using the printer he kept.

author: rstofer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2019, 03:28:51 pm
content: Quote from: Red Squirrel on July 04, 2019, 09:27:50 pmIt's a good thing the toner lasts a while because it costs about $400 to replace all 4 cartridges (HP M277dw with CF40x cartridges)The cartridge for my black and white HP 2055dn is also $100 but it's the printer I use the most.And, yes, I use HP cartridges.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2019, 04:01:03 pm
content: Quote from: Electro Detective on July 05, 2019, 11:40:11 pmWhat kind of inkjet paper? If you’re talking about ordinary paper for documents, yes, you can, and it probably says on the package that it can. Coated paper (as in, ordinary paper with a matte clay coating) will work too. But actual glossy photo paper could misbehave. And some specialty photo papers are actually plastic film, and most of those will melt in a laser printer (same as transparency film, where you absolutely must get the kind specifically for laser). Labels also must be expressly laser compatible, so that the adhesives don’t melt in the printer.

author: Richard Crowley
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2019, 04:02:03 pm
content: As with many tech products, the price of laser printers, even color laser printers has dropped dramatically. Which narrowed the price/performance gap between inkjet and laser. In response to this, some manufacturers (notably Epson) have finally been selling inkjet printers with bulk ink delivery (from fixed tanks) vs. those expensive fiddly cartridges. I had retrofitted a bulk delivery kludge onto my inkjet printer decades ago back when I was printing CD and DVD disks.It would seem logical that the clogging vs. regular-use would still be an issue. But the ink used by cleaning cycles would be a lot cheaper?

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2019, 04:31:25 pm
content: That picture reminds me of another thing that drives me nuts out printers, the huge number of "multifunction" printer/scanner combination units on the market. It's gotten so that it's actually difficult to find a good selection of single function printers. I hate those all in one units, they're almost universally built extremely cheaply, they're much bulkier than a printer and they force you to have the printer and scanner in the same location which is almost never optimal. I want my printer on a shelf in an out of the way location, when I want to scan something which is not very often, I get my scanner out of the closet and set it up on the table where I'm working. The multifunction devices also suck when one feature breaks and you have to junk the entire thing.

author: GreyWoolfe
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 07, 2019, 01:03:59 pm
content: Quote from: CJay on July 05, 2019, 09:21:31 amBack when I was servicing Lexmark laser printers, there was this small family owned chain of pharmacies that kept buying horrible aftermarket cartridges. They would leak toner like a sieve. You could hardly see the main drive motor for the toner caked around it. After the 3rd call, I threatened to contact Lexmark and have their extended warranty voided. They took me seriously, bought OEM and the number of service calls went way down.On the flip side, I used to go regularly to Sysco's distribution warehouse in south Florida every 4 weeks to do full maintenance kits on the 6 printers they had working there. They bought the kits by the pallet-200,000 sheets printed by each of the 6 printers in 4 weeks. Those printers rarely broke down and they had millions of pages on the clock-all Optra T 620 series printers with extra sheet feeders to hold 5,000 pages each.Personally, I have a networked EPSON WF-3540 that is about 3 years old now and a Brother HL-L5100DN duplex networked printer that is a year and a half old. Love them both and use them both. We do print more to the Brother, however, I have never had an issue with ink drying out on the EPSON. Both stay powered up all the time as I never know when we are going to print something.Quote from: Marco on July 05, 2019, 01:08:32 pmI always wanted an HP Laserjet 4000N printer. I would work on one occasionally at my old job and they weren't bad to service. Another printer that would just work as long as you did the prescribed maintenance. I was looking at them on evilBay but I ended up with the Brother because of a really good sale at Office Depot. I bought it mainly for the the print speed and duplex ability which I use occasionally.I will say from experience, the small desktop laser printers are a bear to work on. On the old job, I would have to occasionally repair the Lexmark desktop that Burger King used. Their warranty was a swap-just replace and send back to Lexmark for refurbishment. When they would run out of refurbished printers, Lexmark would ship parts and I would sit in the back corner of the Burger King with 2 tables pulled together and rebuild the damn things. I will not repair my Brother when it dies, my aggravation is worth the cost of a replacement printer.A couple of years ago, Mrs GreyWoolfe got me to fix the Quest Diagnostics printer at her office ( she works for a doctor) because they had waited 2 weeks for the tech to come and he never showed. I don't remember the model number but it was even worse than the Lexmarks to service. Fixed it and did a full maintenance kit on it ( never maintained by Quest) and put it back in service after a couple of days ( had to wait for the kit to come in) 2 days after the printer was back in service, the tech finally showed up. Mrs GreyWoolfe told him he was too late, husband fixed it. He started to get bent out of shape that someone touched his precious printer. She told him that I was servicing computers and printers for over 15 years and he just slunk out of the office. Point of this is, if you are going to buy a used laser printer, buy a real office class like the HP Laserjet 4000. Parts are readily available and you can maintain/repair them yourself if they do break.

author: Bratster
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2019, 07:01:38 pm
content: I picked up HP LaserJet 4000 for free a couple years back. Came with the network card too.bought a second paper tray for legal size and a duplexer for it, been working great.Things built like a tank.The only issue is it's a little slow for non-text only documents and finding the right driver and configuration to make it work with Windows 10 was annoying.Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

author: rsjsouza
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2019, 09:51:54 pm
content: Years ago I bought a HP4100DTN for $1 on a closing business. Excellent printer, but I had to let it go for a song - unfortunately SWMBO wouldn't get along with the idea of printing B&W and it was taking valuable space that I needed for other things. It was a sad day...Despite this, we have been using an HP Officejet 8600 for six years that is really frugal with ink. We came from a thirsty Officejet 6500 that was really expensive to maintain, but it was a good printer. Before that, we had an Epson 820 Photo that clogged quite often, only to be replaced by POS after POS until we landed on the half decent 6500.My dream printer is a Xerox laser multifunctional we have at the office...

author: ogden
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2019, 10:08:55 pm
content: Quote from: blueskull on July 07, 2019, 07:09:51 pmOption to consider indeed. Note that thermal printouts fade and paper is comparably expensive. For occasional use I would just pick lowend laser printer, make sure to get model with aftermarket cartridges available.

author: KL27x
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2019, 11:03:57 pm
content: Yeah. Receipts, counting machine tapes, Mouser/Digikey labels. They are all unreadable after some years.If you're the one giving out the receipts, no big deal though. That might limit your liability.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 08, 2019, 06:16:02 pm
content: Quote from: blueskull on July 07, 2019, 07:09:51 pmThose make sense for portability only. They're very expensive, the paper is expensive, and thermal printouts have poor longevity. (Hence needing to make a laser or inkjet photocopy of a receipt for warranty purposes...)The only other use for the thermal printers is for printing tattoo stencils, which is quite possibly the largest use of those printers these days.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 08, 2019, 08:01:25 pm
content: Quote from: KL27x on July 07, 2019, 11:03:57 pmYes. Awful.

author: gnavigator1007
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 09, 2019, 10:38:01 am
content: Worked in a restaurant years ago where clock in and out times were printed on thermal for employees. People often felt their checks were too small and didn't reflect the hours they had worked. I eventually caught one of the owners going back and changing people's time in the system after they would clock out. He abandoned his business partner after being caught but the thermal paper records were useless for calculating back pay owed.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2019, 10:47:12 pm
content: Quote from: tooki on July 05, 2019, 11:12:14 pmSpeak of the devil, I am running low on some ink colors, and found a classified ad from someone in my neighborhood who had 10 cartridges (original Canon) for $10 for the whole lot, so I went and got them today. Retail is about $19 each.One advantage of using an old printer is being able to cheaply buy ink from people whose printer died!

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2019, 11:48:06 pm
content: Careful, ink cartridges usually have an expiration date. I got burned once when I bought a sealed OEM cartridge for a HP inkjet, it was exactly as described except it was mostly dried up and clogged right out of the package. It was sealed in a foil pouch but apparently they will still dry out eventually.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2019, 09:11:45 am
content: Quote from: james_s on July 09, 2019, 11:48:06 pmYep, with some, like HP, that’s a real issue. (IIRC, some HP printers will even refuse to use a cartridge that has expired!) Luckily, the ones I need (Canon PGI-5 pigment black and CLI-8 dye CcMmYK) don’t even have expiration dates (or even plaintext date codes) printed on them! As blueskull said, that’s thanks to them being pure ink tanks, with a separate (“permanent but replaceable”) print head in the printer.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2019, 09:20:41 am
content: Quote from: Richard Crowley on July 06, 2019, 04:02:03 pmFor sure, these make the wasted ink much more insignificant. I think they’ve also just plain gotten better at preventing clogs with head design and ink formulation, and they probably have better-designed head caps and cleaning pumps. (For example, HP at one point introduced pumps that can move the ink backwards, so that an ink clot doesn’t just get pushed deeper into the head, but instead gets reversed back into the ink supply where it can dissolve.)It’d be interesting to know why Epson had such horrible clogging problems for a while, while Canon never has. Was it head design? Head cap design? Ink supply design? (I know the Epsons are/were sensitive to not allowing a used and removed cartridge to be reinserted, which is totally OK with Canon and HP.) Ink formulation? All of the above?

author: CJay
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2019, 10:31:55 am
content: Quote from: blueskull on July 10, 2019, 01:18:14 amKinda, on the disposable printers (Deskjet and Most Officejets) the MEMs bit is on the cartridge, on the better ones (Business Inkjet) it's a separate print head and is replaceable on its own.

author: GlennSprigg
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2019, 10:36:27 am
content: I don't bother printing 'Colour' any more, as it is infrequent when we need it.... But mainly becausewhen we have multiple pages, including photographs/graphics, we just take a USB stick around thecorner to "Office-Works", and it just costs a few CENTS per page!!!I used to have a B&W Xerox Laser printer that I got from 'Big-W' for $89. I had printed 'shit' loadsof pages for many years!! with the original Toner Cartridge. (Ended up leaving it one of my sons).I 'have' InkJet' printers, and have re-filled them from refill kits... But the PROBLEM is that NOWa lot of the machines use 'smart' electronics within the 'Heads' & Software, to stop them from workingif you try to refill them!!! I BELIEVE there are MODS one can make to circumvent this, but at presentI have not tried it, & don't know enough about it.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2019, 11:25:06 am
content: Quote from: CJay on July 10, 2019, 10:31:55 amYep. And Canon has a few integrated-printhead style cartridges, too, for its portable and entry level printers. But AFAIK, they still don't have expiration dates, and NOS cartridges seem to work fine, even if ancient.By the way, technically speaking, neither HP nor Canon print heads are MEMS devices, as they have no moving parts at all, being thermal inkjet. The heads are basically large ICs with thin-film resistors in etched channels, with integrated drive electronics.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2019, 11:40:17 am
content: Quote from: GlennSprigg on July 10, 2019, 10:36:27 amLet's differentiate into two kinds of inkjet cartridges: ones with integrated print heads (I'll call theseprint cartridges), and pureink tanksfor printers with permanent print heads.Print cartridges began locking out refills earlier, both because these tended to be in cheaper printers (which were thus more heavily subsidized by expensive ink), but also because they already had electronics in them anyway, so adding a little EPROM to store the ink level and stop refilling was trivial.Ink tanks didn't start to have chips until the mid-late '00s. Some, like Epson, are strict about enforcing it. Others, like Canon, have been more lenient, letting you override the warning (but potentially voiding your warranty in countries that don't expressly prohibit this).For both of these, there are "chip resetter" devices you can buy, which talk to the existing chip and set it back to zero (and in some, like HP, reset the expiration date and clear the serial number of the first printer it was used in). There are also vendors of replacement chips for ink tanks, where I guess you pry off the old chip and put a new one on. Which options are available depend on the cartridge model.The trend now in higher end models is towards bulk ink, much like what most large-format inkjets have used for ages. But since the printer manufacturer is not subsidizing the printer cost with ink cartridges, you're paying quite a bit more for the printer up-front. (You're paying its true cost, in essence.) In these, the ink just comes in bottles that you empty into the reservoirs in the printer. There's a picture of an example of this earlier in this thread.P.S. Please don't insert line breaks manually. This screws up the display on things like phones. Just type your text and let it flow naturally, using line breaks only to separate paragraphs.

author: Miyuki
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2019, 02:51:42 pm
content: I use old bw laser Konica Minolta copy/printer and have bottle of universal toner what cost almost nothingI dont need a color textand if I want photos I go to photo labInkjet printers are terrible unreliable if they are let sit for long time (months) without use, laser is much more reliable in this way

author: CJay
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2019, 03:14:17 pm
content: Quote from: tooki on July 10, 2019, 11:25:06 amNo, I know, not really sure why I used that term other than Blueskull used it...The drive electronics are interesting on the HP carts, there's been some work done on reverse engineering them to allow anyone to use the cartridges, there are printers for printing on coffee foam which use HP cartridges (filled with edible inks of course) and others for printing on cake icing for example.I quite like the idea of a custom printer but could never think of a use for one that would make the effort worth it.

author: krayvonk
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2019, 10:29:14 pm
content: if you get a conductive ink cartridge for a quarter of the price of the printer, it seems like a ripoff, but an ounce or so of copper is actually quite expensive. I was thinking the same, but actually its not shy off it for conductive ink.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 11, 2019, 08:50:55 pm
content: Quote from: CJay on July 10, 2019, 03:14:17 pmOoops, I didn't mean to single you out!!Quote from: CJay on July 10, 2019, 03:14:17 pmHP and Epson (and a few other companies with no consumer products) sell OEM print heads and print engines. So almost certainly they were not reverse engineered, but rather made with engineering support from HP. If it's a big enough market, they'll help engineer the custom ink formulation and make the cartridges filled with it.For example, if you buy a box of pills, these days the expiration date is often inkjet printed onto the box and bottle, and each of those would be done with a specific, different type of inkjet printer and ink. The dates and lot codes on soda bottles are also inkjet, again a different type of ink and printer. The markings on ethernet cable are practically always inkjet, too, and again it'll be a different formulation to work on that substrate. But what it won't be is a consumer inkjet head reverse-engineered behind the manufacturer's back. (I'm sure that happens for niche/one-off applications, but any significant ones will be done with properly OEMed components.)

author: CJay
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2019, 07:41:12 am
content: Quote from: tooki on July 11, 2019, 08:50:55 pmYes, I know, all of that.There's also been work done on reverse engineering them for hobbyist applications, the Inkshield for Arduino is one example and I'm sure I've seen a few others too.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2019, 09:35:11 am
content: Is anyone really that stupid that they would buy a new ink jet printer every time the ink runs out?

author: legacy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2019, 10:02:39 am
content: I am using a needles printer with a serial RS232 interface.I can regenerate the cartridge by adding blank ink.it's a bit dumb because it doesn't understand anything except pure ASCII,which is what I need to print lists of code.It has been working since 1992 when I purchased it.What I really need is to buy continuous ribbon paperand it's so hard to find that I am importing it from Russia.

author: rdl
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2019, 10:20:06 am
content: Before the manufacturers changed the included cartridges to "starter" versions, buying a whole new printer was sometimes a better deal if you could find a printer at a good price and your existing printer was way low on ink.Quote from: Zero999 on July 12, 2019, 09:35:11 am

author: CJay
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2019, 10:54:19 am
content: Quote from: Zero999 on July 12, 2019, 09:35:11 amI'd hope not these days as many come with 'demo' cartridges that are only good for a few pages, but it used to be possible to buy Apollo printers that were rebranded HP machines, they were, at one point, £14 but came with a genuine HP colour cart and a genuine black cart which retailed at over £50 for the pair, so yes, people, inlcuding me, bought printers when the ink ran out.

author: GlennSprigg
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2019, 11:08:46 am
content: Quote from: Zero999 on July 12, 2019, 09:35:11 amI did, once!, when the wholeCanon Pixma MG2460Printer/Scanner was available NEW for$24Now a spare for the 'missus' to use.Veryfew pages needed for printing each month....NOTE: The cartridge injection refills seem to work with these, even though the 'software' complains...And thank you again to 'tooki' who informed me about "chip-resetter" options...

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2019, 12:51:02 pm
content: Quote from: legacy on July 12, 2019, 10:02:39 amFYI, that’s called a “dot matrix printer” in English, we don’t use the phrase “needle printer” at allAs for the paper, you must not have looked very hard. It’s readily available from multiple vendors:https://www.google.com/search?q=site:.ch+endlospapier

author: BrianHG
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2019, 05:05:08 pm
content: By one of these color LED laser printers and never touch ink again in your life.https://www.amazon.com/Brother-HL-L3210CW-Providing-Wireless-Replenishment/dp/B07FMS1DMX/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=HL-L3230CDW&qid=1562950810&s=gateway&sr=8-2&th=1Note that you can reset each toner level counter within the printers menu so you may print up until the toner is completely dry, and continue to print even is you are completely missing a color toner.Only replace with original Brother toner, otherwise you will permanently fuck the printer with blobs and spots on every print.A toner refill lasts over 8k-15k pages depending on what you place on each page. TRY THAT WITH PAINT!!!Also, for printing electronics schematics and PCB, no bloody smudging when you use a highlighter of marker to draft corrections on each print.Also, there is a model above which prints on both sides...Ohh, and, never a cleaning cycle of loose ink ever again.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2019, 05:17:20 pm
content: While it's not a term you'd ever hear in English, I quite like "needle printer", it makes sense, I knew exactly what he was talking about even though it's not the correct term. Technically almost any printer could be described as "dot matrix", it's only relative to the old daisy wheel and other character based printers that the term dot matrix makes sense.

author: rsjsouza
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2019, 05:29:04 pm
content: In portuguese the term "impressora de agulhas" (needle printer) was also used on occasion, along with the more common terms "impressora matricial" (matrix printer) and "impressora de fita" (tape printer). This was in contrast with, as you said, daisy wheel and with the ultra fast line printers at the time.

author: ebastler
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2019, 06:24:25 pm
content: Quote from: james_s on July 12, 2019, 05:17:20 pmOne of the very few occasions where a German term is more succinct than its English equivalent!

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 13, 2019, 08:21:23 am
content: Quote from: blueskull on July 13, 2019, 12:29:56 amQuote from: rsjsouza on July 12, 2019, 05:29:04 pmQuote from: james_s on July 12, 2019, 05:17:20 pmOh, absolutely! It's a terribly imprecise term, whose narrow definition is strictly because of historical usage, not technical precision! (Just like "RAM" for... active working memory vs. ROM for read-only memory, both of which have supported random access in nearly every implementation other than tape! (And extremely obsolete things like memory delay line memory.)Quote from: ebastler on July 12, 2019, 06:24:25 pmOh, German often has some great terms!RAM is another one:Arbeitsspeicher('working memory') is a much better term than RAM. Blueskull, what was it you said that RAM was called in Chinese? You mentioned it in another thread, and I thought it was also an excellent term.A contrasting pair that I think German handles very elegantly is the wordsDenkmalandMahnmalfor 'memorial'. For the non-German speakers, the first one is a memorial for people or things you want to remember positively (like a memorial to veterans, or to a deceased leader, etc., whereas the latter is a memorial to something bad, as a warning. So for example, the Washington Memorial in DC would be a Denkmal, while the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin is a Mahnmal.

author: ebastler
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 13, 2019, 01:39:17 pm
content: Quote from: tooki on July 13, 2019, 08:21:23 amFrom today's perspective, "Arbeitsspeicher" may indeed be more descriptive. But "random access memory" must have made a lot of sense when the term was introduced:The introduction of (ferrite core) RAM followed a generation of computers in the 1940s and 1950s which used ultrasonic delay lines and magnetic drums as their working memories -- i.e. which didnothave random memory access. Compared to the slow access and the hassle of program optimization for these sequential memories, "random acess" memory must have been a revelation, and certainly deserved a name of its own!

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 15, 2019, 09:52:22 pm
content: For sure! I alluded to that earlier in my reply.

author: macboy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 16, 2019, 05:44:31 pm
content: I had a Brother printer (multifunction) that served me well for a few years. I had refilled the ink tanks several times, never buying OEM inks. That printer used optical detection to determine when the ink was nearly out rather than chipped cartridges. When the nozzles finally permanently clogged I had to replace the printer.I bought an HP. It was another multi-function (print/scan/fax), bought on sale for next to nothing. It was "instant ink ready" so I signed up. I don't print much, so I chose the free option, which is only 15 pages (any size or amount of coverage) free per month, and $1.25 per 10 pages after that. I have paid a couple times, only $2.50 total ink expenditure since buying the printer. They'll be sending me a third set of (free) cartridges soon, as the levels are running low again. Part of the 'deal' on the free instant ink subscription is that theymayprint up to one ad per 10 pages that you print. I've never had an ad printed. Despite the fact that this is a simple office printer and not a photo printer, the photo quality is very good, especially on glossy paper. I calibrated it with my Colormunki, and it is a definite improvement, but even the factory default calibration was fine when used with decent paper. So far the Instant Ink thing works great for me and I'll never need to throw away a printer due to clogged print heads, as the heads are integrated into the ink cartridge.I also keep a laser printer for most mundane B&W print jobs.