Ink refills

[Maes]

For years I had made do with dot-matrix printers for my (fairly basic) printing needs: my first printer was a 24-pin Nec Pinwriter P2X, which had a good printing quality for a dot-matrix printer (comparable to a 300 dpi black ink inject of the time), and unless you wanted to print large, black areas it was more than acceptable most of the time.

To save on ink/ribbon cartridges, I occasionally re-inked them myself with rubber stamp ink, or used carbon paper for printing large black areas (this actually worked better than the ribbon).

Anyway, I got my first inkjet printer in 2004, an Epson C42 (as a present). I was soon appalled by the exorbitant costs of ink cartridges, as well as the flakiness of the design: the damn thing wasted ink just sitting there.
You turned it on? It wasted some ink.
You turned it off? It wasted some ink.
You started a print job? It wasted some ink before even printing a single letter.
It finished a print job? It wasted some ink afterwars, all for "self-cleaning purposes" and "ink head clot-prevention"...

Needless to say, the fixed print heads got clogged way too often even with the original inks, and cleaning them wasted a 5-10% of black and color ink.

Anyway, I soon learned how to refill it manually and circumventing the "ink DRM" system in the printer and cartridges themselves. It was never easy with this printer though. I dedicated so much time and energy to that damn printer that I even wrote a refilling and hacking guide for it. That's right.

At some point however that printer accumulated too much abuse and I retired it.

By comparison, the next printer I got (a HP PSC 1510) was much easier to refill: no printer-locking DRM "ink meters", no fixed head to fuck things up, so easy in fact that I can even refill it in the mid of a large print job (just open the cover, pour in some ink in the carts, just enough to prevent dripping, and resume printing). The last time I bought a cart for it was like 2 years ago. My sister's HP PSC 1315 is also equally easy to refill and not picky at all about its ink.

I'll surely get my next printer based on ease of refilling.

[Nomad]

ok

Say, most of the time when someone starts a topic, they give some kind of lead to actually discuss something. This sounds like more of something that should have gone in your blog. >.>

[Maes]

I forgot to add "What's your story", apparently. Point taken. Well, if a mod wishes to move this to blogs, NP with me.

[Sharessa]

I've seen ink refill kits. I'm pretty sure they were just syringes with extra ink vials.

[Maes]

Danarchy said:

I've seen ink refill kits. I'm pretty sure they were just syringes with extra ink vials.

And printer-specific refill instructions, if you are lucky. Some even include micro-tools such as drills, hooks and hole plugs/stickers.

The refill process itself can range from simply drilling a hole and filling-in with ink as needed, to doing complex chip hacking in order to get the card to even be recognized. The EPSON was pretty bad in this respect: you had to follow a weird procedure (also described in my guide) to reset the cart's "ink counter" (read: DRM chip), and GOD FORBID if you let the printer ever drain the cartridge to its "red point" (considered totally empty): then only an EPROM programmer could reset it!

[exl]

If all you have to print is black & white stuff, a laser printer is a better investment in the long term. My previous inkjet was the last one I will ever touch, mostly because of the ink drying up and the expensive cartridges. Refilling it manually with one of those refill kits was OK, but it never had the same quality when doing that. It smelled pretty funny too...

[CODOR]

I bought a continuous ink system for my Epson R260 (mostly to print labels for my ongoing LP/45/cassette-to-CD project). It came as a kit and only required minor modifications to the printer (saw off the cover to the cartridge bay which is unnecessary to the operation of the printer, and drill a small hole in the side for waste ink), and also included a small circuit board that slides in next to the "cartridges" and tricks the printer/driver into thinking there's genuine filled Epson cartridges in there. It's quite nifty; I haven't noticed any difference in colour (although I haven't compared previous prints with recent ones) and it should pay for itself several times over before I have to buy more ink for it...

I always wanted a laser printer since I knew the operating costs would be lower, but for years I never could quite afford the initial cost. Finally they came down in price and I bought a Samsung ML-1740 in 2003 or 2004. I've only replaced the toner two or three times since then, even though I use it more often than the inkjet -- it's just that I usually use it to print text while the inkjet is for larger full-colour images.

[Maes]

If you know that you will only need black and white prints, then laser is pretty much mandatory nowadays, as you get much longer mileage than with any inkjet out there, although lasers have their own quirks (e.g. some models have separate toner/photoconductor units, some are unified, amount of onboard RAM which may limit effective DPI, networking etc.).

The problem are those home/pro users that need to print a bit of everything, and more often than what you'd call "occasional". E.g. I need to print large amounts of B&W stuff (papers, ebooks, comics...), but also large amounts of photos or mixed documents. Other than getting two printers, I'll either need to refill or suffer extreme pwnage from ink/cart prices. Or use a continuous ink mod like CODOR described.

And, seriously, what's with diminishing ink cartridge capacities nowadays? Vintage ink-jet printers had large 50 ml tanks, today it's hard to find anything over 10 ml or 20 ml (and many models even go into the single digits).

[Scet]

I had an Epson Stylus CX4600, and it was as bad as your C42. It would somehow lose ink just by printing blank pages, or the ink would dry up if you didn't print for like a week. Plus it wouldn't even print B&W unless all four cartridges had ink and each one cost about $40(and I couldn't refill them, I tried). I tolerated it for about two months before I put it out in the garbage, where it belongs.

Edit: I've had two other inkjets, a LexMark and a Canon. The LexMark had shit quality and was slow, but at least you only needed the black cartridge to print B&W, plus the cartridges where huge and easily refillable. The Canon is OK, it will print B&W just from the black cartridge, but still requires the color one or it just refuses to print anything. Also both only had two cartridges(black & color), unlike that shitty Epson with its black, cyan, magenta and yellow cartridges. Buying all four cartridges cost more than the damn printer.

[Graf Zahl]

I had to learn the hard way, too, that Epson printers are utter crap. I can confirm anything negative that's been said here.

My last printer was a Canon which was a lot better than the Epson but unfortunately it couldn't handle not being used for extended periods of time and replacing the printer head, even though possible would not be worth the investment. I just don't print enough.

Oh, and cartridge DRM is an instant no-buy for me.

[Maes]

I always wondered how EPSON got away with this shit, especially six-ink single-color cart models were utterly dire. At least HP let you print B&W without the color carts, and even black without the black color cart by using color combination.

[Scet]

Well when I went to buy the Epson, it was a rather spontaneous purchase. I was still in high school and needed to print something that night, but my LexMark broke. I wanted a $100 B&W laser, but my family wanted color so we ended up with the cheapo $80 Epson. Once in College I just printed everything at the school, it was cheaper and easier at 8 cents a page than buying paper and cartridges.

Edit: I also didn't have home Internet at the time, so I couldn't really do any research.

I'll never buy an Epson again though, that's for sure. I guess their strategy is to scam people with faulty cartridges, we'll see how long it lasts.

[Sharessa]

I thought they had made color laser printers. Oh well, they still remain my favorite and I'd get one if I can afford it. You always get something crisp and non-smeared from them along with the whole ink-saving property.

[Maes]

Color lasers existed almost since laser printers hit the market (along with color xerox machines, they are based on the same principle) but they were in the 4-figure price category, at least until recently.

Even if you may occasionally find a rebated unit at under the $1000 or Eur 1000 mark, the consumables are so expensive that with a single complete cartridge change you may end up paying for the value of the printer all over, let alone that most of them are way too bulky for home use, the size of a small/medium xerox machine. Typical prices are over $150 for a single color cart, and $70 for a refill.

Still, a color page printed by one of those is significantly cheaper than an inkjet one, and yeah, they can give you rich colors and crisp borders even on common xeror paper.

The downside is that they require much more maintenance (each color head has its own photo-conductor unit, drum etc. and all of them can fail separately) and having worked with "refilled" toner carts for those, expect a mess, as the drums and seals don't age very well. If you ever go with toner refills, make sure you get your own carts refilled and that you trust the refilling company. Often refillers may pass you similar but older/worn out carts!

[exp(x)]

I never need color printing, so my network laser printer is perfect. I wish I had paid a little more for a model with duplex printing, though.

[Dragonsbrethren]

Graf Zahl said:

My last printer was a Canon which was a lot better than the Epson but unfortunately it couldn't handle not being used for extended periods of time and replacing the printer head, even though possible would not be worth the investment. I just don't print enough.

This is exactly what happened to me with a Canon printer.

[Maes]

No way of cleaning/unclogging the print heads? The EPSON ones were pretty bad, but even those could be cleaned with a bit of patience and some scary tools ;-)

[Super Jamie]

Go to work. Print document. Take document home :P

Ink refills can either be really good or really bad. The trick is to find a manufacturer whose ink is the same consistency as original ink of the printer it's trying to refill. When they first came out, alot of printer refills just leaked or clogged as the replacement inks were too thick/thin. Maybe things are better nowadays. I think a mate of mine works at a cartridge refill place around here, I could ask him if you like?

I print so little now, if I was going to spend money on a printer I'd just get an old laser off eBay, you see them for like $1 plus shipping. I can't even remember the last time I needed to print something in color. If I ever needed to I'd probably just go to an office supply place and pay 10c a page or whatever it is.

[Maes]

Super Jamie said:

If I ever needed to I'd probably just go to an office supply place and pay 10c a page or whatever it is.

More like 50c a page in cyber cafes, and even professional print shops will likely overcharge you for small jobs (some even have a minimum fare of several $/Eur)

[Enjay]

Super Jamie said:

Ink refills can either be really good or really bad.

My experience with refills, reconditioned units and "budget" ink cartridges have all been on the really bad side of that balance. Poor print quality, running out quickly, clogging up etc is common place.

Nowadays I usually use a HP laserjet printer. It didn't cost any more than an inkjet and despite the fact that the toner cartridges are pretty pricey, I don't have to replace them anything like as often as I did with ink so I reckon I'm about equal or even cheaper with the laser. And the print quality for BW text etc is much better ant more durable (eg it doesn't run if you get it wet).

If I want colour printing, I still have an inkjet but I also managed to pick up a colour laser printer going very cheap in a sale a couple of years ago and it is very good too. The toner cartridges for it were frighteningly expensive last time I checked but I haven't actually needed to buy any yet so I reckon that, again, it's been a reasonable deal.

[GreyGhost]

Heh - ask me about ink refills. I print infrequently - rarely in colour - and have yet to own an inkjet that hasn't clog it's jets between print jobs. Third-party refills tend to be inconsistent in quality and the manufacturer's cartridges (some of which use built-in region codes to discourage the use of cheaper imports) are too expensive. Sometimes buying a new inkjet when the old one fails appears to be the best solution (they're cheap enough) though the manufacturer's are aware of that strategy, I've seen HP printers shipped with very small capacity cartridges (typically about 20% of a replacement cartridges capacity) and wouldn't be suprised if other manufacturers are following suit.

Stuff inkjets - I'm shopping around for a cheap-but-decent colour laser.