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Anti-Competitive Behavior in the Printer Industry?
Greyfox writes: "Here is an interesting story about the printer industry versus ink-cartridge refillers. Anyone who's bought a low-cost inkjet knows that you can spend over half the cost of the printer on ink. So it was only natural that an industry would spring up around refilling the cartridges. Well the printer industry has apparently been fighting back, trying to protect their market share. As with all good stories, legislation is being considered. Worth a read." Sort of like spyware -- it's a back-and-forth battle.
This is all well and good for your average home user. But god I would hate to try to do technical support on this stuff. Could you imagine trying to explain to someone why their colors look off?
Str8Dog
using System.Darkside; public
HP seems to be the most expensive, with Epson a close second. Canon however has some decent prices on the dual cartridge packs.
I have tried the refill cartridges (a LONG time ago) and found out it was not even worth the effort the first time, much less the third attempt to refill the same cartridge.
You keep going until you die..."Me".
Yeah, every time you buy more ink. Over the lifetime of the printer you may well end up spending several times the original printer cost on ink cartridges.
I don't see what the big deal is. Printer makers have a tough sell trying to get people to pay more to not recycle, and rightly so. One of these companies will eventually have the balls to start making easily refillable cartridges. Their lower margins will be accounted for by their boom in sales.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
The printer business is just latching onto the "razor and blade" business model that worked so well for other industries, especially the video game business.
Sony dumps the PS2 below cost, and then I have to buy only Sony-approved games at high prices. A portion of that goes back to Sony and pays off the real cost of the box.
Is congress investigating them as well?
Gotta love HP. Their new printers use ink refills with "Smart Chips". The chips check ink levels and if they ever increase, the printer refuses to use that cartridge. No more refilling the cartridges. I don't like H-Paq very much.
Do you want to remove linux?
I know someone who doesn't bother buying new cartridges. He just picks up a new printer each time and sells the old one off second hand. He saves about GBP5 a shot doing it that way.
Epson are the worst for this. They have some device on the cartridges which stops you from refilling them (to 'improve quality' apparently). The catch? Take a cartridge out before moving a printer, put it back in again, the printer refuses it.
This reminds me of a certain piece of software which won't work if you change your computer... Except you can't ring up Epson and get them to re-'certify' the ink...
I've found quite a few toner refill services that were top-notch. I've only seen one instance where we had a heavy-duty laser printer that actually got damaged from using a refilled toner cartridge.
And, quite on the other hand, I've had a great many inkjet printer get ruined by those crappy Re-Ink refill kits that just don't work.
For starters, there's the human error issue. If I don't fill the cartridge in *just* the right way, the vacuum could force the cartridge to squirt ink back into the printer, and then I have a $200 doorstop. Also, the ink formulas are protected, so Re-Ink and others have to "reverse engineer" them. I imagine they may or may not also have the same facilities for ink production, so with them, I have less of a guarantee that their refill ink will have the proper color-matching...or that the pigment particles will be of a uniform size, and that they won't quickly clog the printhead nozzles.
And that, of course, doesn't factor in that printhead nozzles *will* clog over time, so refilling those cartridges is like trying to increase the pump strength on your water system when the pressure goes down in the shower, but in reality it's because water contaminants got caught in the head nozzle (you could always clean it, but that's beside the point).
Of course, if the printer manufacturer made their cartridges easily refillable, they'd lose a fairly obvious leg up on ink competitors, since your average Joe-blow won't care if he loses some print quality since he saved $10 on the cartridges.
"Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
There's just no point in buying black and color ink carts for $60, when you can buy a new printer, albeit an "older" model, $60-80 that has the ink already. I've bought about 5 printers in the past 2 years now.
I guess I'm not doing my part to "prevent these carts from clogging up landfills" as Lexmark, et al, would like me to do.
the refill ink is usually not the same consistency and composition of ink made by the manufacturer - and hence ruins the printhead on ALL inkjet/bubblejets. This is the reason why it is not recommended, and sometimes forbidden to use the refill ink.
with that being said, inkjet and bubblejet printer makers are involved in a cut throat environment, which causes them to sell printers for less than cost. Money is made up from the ink you buy. You didn't think you could get bubble jet or piezo technology for that cheap, did you?
We're like rats, in some experiment! -- George Costanza
Not only are legislative solutions being put forth, but technological ones are being used as well.
I own the Epson 777i. It's cartridges have a memory unit on them that stores how much ink they have. You can refill them as much as you like, but the printer will not allow you to use the cartridges because they remember that they're empty.
The only way around this is to put new cartridges in the printer, get the printer to release the cartridges and sneak the refilled ones in, fooling the printer into accepting the refilled cartridges. It then re-writes the memory on the cartridges as full.
Thankfully, cartridge memory isn't an access control for a copyrighted media, or I'd be in violation of the DMCA.
This is the same as: Sell the Razor at a loss, make the profit on the blades.
I don't understand why something that's okay at the $3.00 range (blades) isn't okay at the $50 range. I mean really, do you think these guys are making a profit on a $50 printer when the _packaging_ for that printer's gotta cost $12?
Buy a laser printer. The toner doesn't dry out or age. Print 99% of your slashdot articles on it. Buy a cheapie inkjet for the occasional color print you need. Not only is the laser printer faster and easier to read, You'll go 2 or 3 years before needing a new toner cart. (I've got an NEC superscript 870. Bought it in 1997. The first toner cartridge lasted four years and printed 2200 pages with one misfeed. It's on it's second toner cartridge)
Besides, by the time you need ink on your color printer, the NEW color printer will be higher quality. (or USB, or whatever)
I'm actually considering buying a dedicated photo printer as that's all I really use color for now anyway!
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
How about for people who don't print a lot? I rarely use the printer these days.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
At work we have a Tektronix 860 that uses Wax Sticks Compared to Ink Cartreges or Toner Although the printer is expensive (For the avereage user competitive for buisness use) it comes with free black ink for the life of the printer. (The Color Wax sticks are more expensive) But what you do is just print in black and white and you can save a bundle on expenses. Of course Xerox wants you to print in color more often (and wont tell you that you can setup your print server to print in B and W). But at least the Printer is worth more then the ink.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
The printing industry doesn't even compare to Sony's PS2 market. Had they sold their PS2 for $80 and charged you $150 per game, and made you renew your license on the game every month or so, then it would be similar.
I've put up with my lexmark and its $40-$50 cartridges simply because it's no better for any other company. You would think a company would come along and sell their printer for a higher price, and drop the ink price... that would drive everyone out of business no? I know I sure as hell would buy it, along with pretty much everyone I know...
Finally all those emails I sent to Epson about being able to track my ink usage and other printing statistics have come to fruition! Because isn't that what we all want? I'd pay twice as much for this feature.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Since I've noticed I'm not the only guy with the razor and blade analogy, I thought I'd carry it further:
How many people can picture a CowBoyNeal type cursing a blue streak, with band-aids on his fingers trying to re-load a shick Slim Twin razor with a refill kit?
I wonder how much it really costs per page, adjusted for pr0n?
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
"This printer is licensed to you, not sold. By printing anything with this printer, you indicate your agreement to use only genuine HI-PRIKED replacement ink cartridges. Any other use invalidates your license. You may terminate this agreement by destroying the printer."
This will be called a breakthrough in ineffectual property.
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)
The solution is all you people who want laws, throw your money into a corporation, and COMPETE.
If you can do it for cheaper, THEN DO IT.
I, myself, can not. I looked at the cost of getting it all to work. There is no way to do it. Since they know you won't pay $600 for a printer, and $5 for cartridges, they do it the way they have to do it to make a profit, albeit a small one.
Epson, HP, Canon, they're not in bed together. This is no boat race. They found out that the average American barely uses their printer, but enough that spending $100-$150 a year on cartridges is not a bad deal, rather than paying $500 for a new printer and $25 a year on cartridges.
There are numerous other ways to print in color. I bought an HP Color LaserJet 4500. I print everything. The damn thing is a personal printer for me, and it runs ALL the time. The cost over the past year? Maybe $200, including tons of toner (thousands of pages printed). I love it. I will NEVER go back to Ink Jet.
Go, compete. The market is open. Once the government regulates, you think it'll help us, or help HP and Epson?
Think hard. I know you can...
That explains why so many helpful merchants are able to help me "SAVE UP TO 80% ON INKJET REFILLS! ALL MAKES AND MODELS!"
Haven't they ever heard of laser printers? Or how about purchasing from a reseller and getting better prices. Leave it to the government to pay retail for everything.
"Ink costs half what the printer does"
Guess what folks? So do an awful lot of things you buy. I can go out and pick up a $30 discman, and the CDs are still $15+. The discman (or printer) is just a delivery mechanism, it's what you put in it that actually matters at the end.
What I found lacking in the article (and all posts so far) is a biggie for me: most printer manufacturers will void your warranty if you use recycled cartridges, and with good reason. Last time I had to maintain several laser printers, every time some dingbat (read: the boss) went and ordered a recycled toner cartridge, the printer(s) died within a few weeks of using it. Recycled toner and ink cartridges tend to be a LOT lower quality than new ones, they leak all over the place, etc. I'm not even going to start with those needle-injection packages you can buy for the home.
Although I don't think printer manufacturers should be able to PREVENT someone else selling ink, they sure as hell shouldn't have to pay (because of damage) for someone else's incompetence. Oh, and for those that bring up the old "Honda doesn't force you to buy their gasoline" argument... go pick up a new car and install a 3rd party stereo system sometime, and see just what your warranty covers now.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
Look at the economics -- a printer is a one-time sale; you've collected the customer's money, and they've got their printer. Ink is a fungible; it gets used up, and you have to buy more. If a printer manufacturer can come up with a mechanism to ensure that the people who buy their printers have to buy their ink, they have a steady revenue stream.
Look at the relative costs. Printer prices have been going down almost as fast as memory prices. With some of the low-end ink-jet printers, once you buy more than one or two OEM ink cartridges, you've spent more on cartridges than you did on the printer. And over the printer's lifetime, looking at the OEM costs for some of these ink-jet cartridges, you're going to spend on ink several times what you spent on the printer. Think about what the automobile market would be like if you had to buy your oil, gasoline, tires, and every other consumable or replacement component for your car from the company that made your car. That's what the printer manufacturers want.
Several companies tried, back when the high-resolution ink-jet printers were first coming out, to achieve that kind of control over the other fungible supply for printers -- paper. They brought out special ink-jet paper 'specially designed for high-resolution printing' and ran ad campaigns suggesting that you would be producing sub-standard printouts if you used non-OEM paper. That lasted until the big paper manufacturers ramped up to produce the same products, and unlike ink cartridges, there was no way for the printer manufacturers to put in mechanisms to force consumers to use OEM paper.
Printer manufacturers have also claimed that using non-OEM inks would damage their printers, and that using non-OEM inks would void the warranty. However, the manufacturers were required to stop this tactic; under the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act and general principles of the Federal Trade Commission Act, a manufacturer may not require the use of any brand of ink (or any other article) unless the manufacturer provides the item free of charge under the terms of the warranty. This hasn't prevented salesdroids and tech-support people from claiming that, but they'll fold if you press them.
It may be an ongoing back-and-forth struggle, but market forces are going to continue to pry fungible supplies sales away from printer manufacturers.
I remember reading someone who went over HP's books, and concluded the printer consumables business was basically propping up the rest of the company.
Stupid job ads, weird spam, occasional insight at
The situation in regards the high cost of replacement inkjet cartridges reminds me a lot of the famous case where the US government said that IBM could not force users of punch card readers to use ONLY punch cards manufactured by IBM. I think what will end up happening is that the Feds may end up forcing every printer manufacturer to sell off their inkjet cartridge/laser printer toner cartridge manufacturing operations to 3-4 third parties so you do have competition in terms of pricing for printer consumables.
:-)
It's a good thing my printer is an Epson Stylus COLOR 860--the last of the Epson models to NOT use the ink cartridge with the computer chip. That way, I can get a replacment ink cartridge set (B&W and color) for US$14.
Remember the people who made knock-off Nintendo games? When Nintendo started trying to ship consoles that wouldn't play those games, the government came down on them.
So, it's only a matter of time before somebody figures out how to make ps2 games (or ink cartridges). Or is that against the DMCA now? Is the smartchip on a printer cartridge an encryption device? Now here's a thought (for all you conspiracy lovers out there): Put a chip on every widget you sell, and make the widget communicate with the mother widget to function. Bam, you've got the DMCA in your ammo box.
Slashdot 's editors are dickheads
My wife has an Epson Color 440 and she insists on refilling using Pellican refills. The printer works like crap. I suspect the ink refills suck ass.
Does anybody recommend a better brand?
I keep telling her to throw away the printer, but that's not right in her opinion.
You can do refills pretty easily with some printers.
I've been refilling my Canon BJC-4000 for over 3 years now. It's not a process for the faint of heart (or those that hate to get dirty!), but it can be done.
I use the big BC-21 black ink tanks which have a plug in the top that you can get out fairly easily. Then I just inject the ink into the sponge inside with a syringe. A bit of cleanup, put the plug back in, and it's done. It takes less than 10 minutes.
Not only that, the ink from the supplier I found is, IMO, much better than Canon's. It's darker and seems to print a bit clearer.
I bought a big (500mL) bottle of ink for $99CDN and by the time I'm done with it I'll have got close to 50 refills out of it. A cartridge costs $40CDN. Do the math!
Well, actually I can only get about 3-5 refills out of a cartridge before the print head gets too clogged, at which point I still have to buy a new cartridge. But that's a lot better than buying a new one every single time!
I simply couldn't afford to own a printer without refills. It's something I intend to look into carefully when I buy my next printer. If a manufacturer goes out of the way to make refilling difficult, then I'll go out of my way to avoid buying their product.
Before I got a job as a Beowulf admin, I used to work at a company that refills and remanufactures printer cartridges. It is absolutely amazing the profit levels that HP, Canon, et. al. must make. We resell the cartridge for a fraction of the amount as the OEM's and make a handsome profit.
Think about it: you're spending $40 for a tiny package of carbon black. The printing industry has been taking notes from De Beers on how to extort money from carbon.
I tried the drill into the top and refill it yourself once. The image quality dropped to that of an Imagewriter. What's worse is even after buying a new cartridge the printer was never quite the same. I ended up buying another printer. I'll never buy refills or recycled again.
I've hit Karma 50 and gotten a Score:5, Troll... I win!
I own a TI Microlaser Pro and it is insane the protections they have built into the the thing. In this particular printer there is an imaging cartridge as well as toner. You are supposed to replace the imaging piece every 10,000 prints, but those things still look good at 30,000 prints and up. But they have a little fuze in them that will get tripped when the print count gets that high. Plus there is an internal counter on the toner and the imager that if not reset properly will turn off the printer. Luckily the TI division was bought out by HP and they don't make that printer anymore and so they have released the secret reset codes for the TI. But it was a pain in the ass to get the thing reset the counters and allow me to continue printing.
-Matt
I have an assortment of Epson printers. It appears that their evolution on this front has been:
As I say, I don't have one of the latest types and I never will buy one.
Cannon has some printers that actually use a detector of ink prescence. I haven't tried it but in theory adding ink would suffice. If I were buying again, I would give them a try.
Lexmark does (did not) publish yield numbers. When I corresponded with them, they still did not provide info but offered to do so on a per model basis.
All of this digging was targeted at the dream of decent home photo printing. In the end I find that the online photo services are superior. Most of the prints that are done in color would be just fine in B/W anyway.
The only thing that this attitude from the inkjet vendors has done is increase my appreciation for my LED printers and renew my commitment to keeping them operational.
All my previous sigs now look like this one, I wish they were permanetly recorded when used.
2 years ago, I bought a digital camera. I won't mention the brand - it was a junky $100 job from Best Buy. It used its own proprietary batteries, which costed about $10 a piece. With the price of batteries alone, I was spending about $10/hr to use my camera.
So I dumped the camera for another one, spending $400 this time (got a much better camera), and also found one that took AA batteries. Alkaline batteries drain a little faster - but they are so much cheaper because they are massed produced - now I pay about $2/hr to use my camera - still too expensive, but better than before.
So apply this to printers - if someone developed a 'universal' print cartridge that would work in multiple printers, the cost of production would drop, and likewise the consumer's cost would also drop.
The big question is, who would be the first printer company to turn down their profits from ink-cartridge sales and develop the universal cartridge?
"The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away" -- "Step Right Up", Tom Waits
I have two printers, a Laser and an Inkjet. Lasers have a great economics with cost per page. Office depot brand toner cartriges are $58 a piece for my HP laserjet 4L. The inkjet is much more expensive per page, but I have found the my local Costco has inkjet cartridges @ $30 for a 2 pack. I really don't like the idea of buying a cheap printer to throw out, seems like an awful disrespect to the environment. If really want to go on the cheap, find yourself a used laserjet. A local shop near me, has plenty of laserjet 3,4,and 5 series printer at around $100, including toner. I have had mine since 1995 without any problems, doesn't get more cost effective than that. Too bad HP and Compaq are merging, HP was once a great company that made great products.
So I got an "Epson chip resetting kit" and generic ink cartridges. It's pretty easy to use - you take out the old ink cartridge, pop out the chip with a little plastic tool that comes with the resetter, insert the chip in the resetter. Wait a couple of seconds for an LED to change color, then insert the chip in the new cartridge. Then install the new cartridge as Epson's instructions direct.
The chip resetter wasn't cheap - $36, but the ink was - $7 and $9 for B/W and color, respectively. I figure the total fixed cost of $116 for printer and resetter is still reasonable, and $16 for a pair of cartridges is much more reasonable. Also, I got my mother an identical printer, so I can just reuse the resetter since I am her official administrator.
Then again, if I were printing a lot, I'd get a refurbed laser printer. Their per-page cost is way lower than inkjet.
There are continuous refill systems that store ink in large printer-external reservoires.
is that Primus quote from the Brown (read: shit) albumn? get something off Chesse or Frizzle Fry for god's sake....
I knew I'd be telling this story sooner or later...
Last summer I was the tech guy at a small place at a time when the annual report was just going into production. The boss decided that we could make the covers in-house and printed on nice 'hardboard' paper as opposed to pay certain outrageous artwork & printing costs. The the boss herself designed some (rather nice) artwork and got it all set up in the paint program.
Next, we had to print 600 copies of it on a Canon BJC bubble jet printer.
So over the next two weeks, we printed maybe 50-60 of these per day. This cover was more heavy on blue than the other colours. Fortunately, this canon printer allowed you to change the cartridges individually, so you wouldn't be wasting the other colours. We must've gone through about 5 blues and 3 of the other cartridges in those weeks.
Hooray for Canon, allowing us to change the ink cartridges individually.
Those Epsons are complete lemons. My Dad bought one, and the paper feed stopped working. He swapped it under warranty, but then the paper feed broke on the new one. Thise time it was out of warranty, so I took it apart. A tiny spring had come off the hook on the feed cam. Five minutes later, and it was as good as new. Those things are built like a cheap Tawianese toy.
www.lucernesys.comHorizon: Calendar-based personal finance
Which printers DON'T use these tactics?
(i.e. which could I buy with a clean conscience?)
Another reason for the chip to count/disable/whatever is to thwart those companies who take empty carts, refill them them selves then sell them as "Oringinal" carts for full price. We have seen a lot of that here. People order their ink carts online, paying a slightly reduced price. Turns out, they were buying refilled carts and had no idea.
They prey on the people who don't want to refill their carts, and think they're getting a good deal.
Jason
He's totally creeping out the Great One, eh...
I'll drink to that. The printer manufacturers are essentially trying to lock people, by both technological (like smartchips and whatnot) and legislative (?!?) means into using just their ink.
I can see only one possible reason to even try to lock consumers into using one and only one source for their ink -- because each manufacturer uses a different configuration of ink paths and print nozzles in their cartridges, and a sufficiently wrong third party formulation of ink might leak out, print funny, etc.
But then it gets back to the question of why the printer manufacturers would object if the printer got busted and leaked all over everything, since it's the customer's fault for "tampering" with the standard operation of the printer.
More likely they don't want the consumer thinking "Ho hum, this printer's broken, might as well go out and by another underpriced printer."
You cannot truly appreciate Dilbert until you read it in the original Klingon.
I'm surprised that I can't find any posts explaining why printer manufacturers are against refills (other than the knee jerk "they want all my money" response).
I had the chance to meet one of the inventors of ink jet printing awhile back, and he explained why the HP "smart chip" would be (it wasn't rolled out yet then), a Good Thing(tm).
Most ink cartridges today have print heads on them already, which is a big part of their cost. Now obviously, the print head on an inkjet cartridge doesn't last forever. With today's really high printing resolutions, this head is a device which has to spit out pico-liters of ink with very precise timing. The ink must be at the correct temperature so as not to evaporate before hitting the paper or to stay wet on the paper for too long. All this requires a pretty sophistocated print head which wears down with use. After enough use, printing performance actually suffers.
The only way to guarantee printing quality under these conditions is to make sure the printing head is replaced periodically (i.e. with a new cartridge). By allowing cartridge refilling, there's no way to guarantee the print head gets replaced when it needs to be, and thus they wouldn't be able to guarantee that "an HP printer will always print quality." So there's actually a QA issue.
HP has developed a separate print head / ink assembly, but generally only very high volume printers use this type of solution (because it's not cost effective for Joe Q. Consumer to buy a gallon container of red ink), and even then they have to separately replace the print head occasionally.
This might not be true but a few people have said that they've noticed an interesting quirk with their HP printers.
They've said that they bought generic brand photo paper for their printers and selected 'other photo paper' in the HP drivers.. and the prints came out fine.
They then decided to select 'HP Photo Paper' in the drivers, and the prints came out far better!
Could this be similar behavior to that mentioned in the story?
mogorific carpentry experiments
once they figure out how to force you legally to use their ink... printer prices will skyrocket too.
Is it just me.. or did it used to be the other way. They would come out with a new model of printer every year and redesign the ink cartridge... the effect being the old ink cartridges would get more and more expensive and harder to find.. forcing you to buy a new printer.
Subject says it.
I spent a year in Iraq looking for WMD and all I found was this lousy sig.
I have a number of friends who work printer support, and those cheapass "refill" kits are mostly a scam. Number of problems: the jet heads clog if they go dry. The jet heads clog if you get case fragments into them. The refill kits don't always seal properly and leak ink.
Why does this impact the printer company? Because the same cheapskate who won't buy another cartridge then sees the shitty print quality, and calls them demanding a new cartridge... Quite often, if under warantee, they end up getting one. Good luck proving someone refilled theirs.
For me, it's a non-issue. The only printers I use take toner by the gallon. Crappy streaky inkjets are worth exactly what you pay for them. (Nothing after a rebate, usually) And it's nothing but an idiot tax. Buy a more expensive printer, pay less per page down the road. Gee, buy a better car, pay less in gas milage later too. I don't see people forcing those gas-guzzling SUVs off the road anytime soon.
BTW: The printer is nothing but a paper-dispenser and a power supply. Most of the expensive bits are in the cartridge. They're not dumping, and they're not charging you $50 for 2 oz of ink.
--Dan
It's been more than 5 years now, but I used to work repairing printers, and the refills (for both inkjet and laser printers) were bad news. Part of this can be chalked up to poor printer design. Most printers on the market today have the "print head" and the ink tank bundeled into one package, or in the case of laser printers, the imaging drum and the toner bundled into one package. Refills work on the principle that the print head/imaging drum is more durable than the resevoir, so in theory you should be able to replace one without the other.
This is true, on a well-designed printer where the two parts are separate assemblies. (Some canon printers operate this way; a replacement ink tank is only a few dollars while a whole cartridge is ~$30 - 50 US.) The problem is that refills, at least in those days, were difficult to perform correctly. I believe that it is even harder today, as cartridges are more complex while the refill technology doesn't appear to have improved. We used to see a large number of printers come into our shop damaged by improperly performed refills. Of course, in those days this was worse news, as a new inkjet was typically around $300 US and a new cartridge was around $30 US. This is true of a good printer today as well.
In short, if you have a good printer, the refills are not worth it. You most likely will wind up damaging the printer, and of course the warranty does not cover damage from non-approved cartridges/refills. If it's a really cheap printer, the risk/reward scenario is quite different. The cartridges do not last as long on the cheapies, and represent a higher proportion of the cost of the printer. I prefer a nice printer and a lower cost per page, though. If this is your situation, the refills are almost certainly a false economy.
.sig: file not found
Yeah, he's testy, but he's right. I, too, am sick of the Libertarian bullshit of telling me to start a company every time that I voice a complaint about a product or service.
I'm sick of hearing about how the "free market" will fix everything. The only thing that the free market will guarantee is a lot of companies that are very efficient at generating profits. If the free market is so f****** wonderful, explain Microsoft!
I'd rather have consumer protection laws passed and enforced by a government with no stake in the transactions than have a bunch of big companies collude to cheat consumers.
Don't you worry about that evil old government. Enron is working for your best interests.
For the last year+ Canon's mid to high end inkjets have had separate tanks for each color. The newest Epson (or maybe the most recent 2 or 3) also seem to be doing this. Of corse the Epson has the added twist of needing a different "black" for the matte paper...
At the office where I work, we've got a little cardboard-box contraption which dispenses single-dose medication -- Tylenol, Excedrin, etc. This device says, in large red letters: "Warning! Use only genuine refills", and then goes on about how not only would it be illegal to put Tylenol obtained from some other source in the dispenser, it would also be very dangerous.
I am not making this up.
All the paper selection does is select the volume and pause time between droplets. Generally for HP photopaper settings they will use a fairly high volume droplet and set the pause time a little higher. This is due to knowing the clay contents and finish of their photopaper. For generic photopaper they assume a semiglossy stock and so they use smaller droplets with a shorter pause time to avoid bleeding in the paper fibers.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Except Sony didn't sell Playstations at a loss. Atari tried to sue them for dumping, because the announced introductory price was so outrageously low compared to the competition. But Sony was able produce them for cheaper, and the exchange rate helped them too. Read the story here.
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
I just bought an epson for about 40 bucks, sold my canon for twenty. And I'll get 15 bucks back for the rebate.
So I spend 5 bucks every year on a new printer. Of course in about 2 years there going to stop including ink cartidges, but I'll deal with that then.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Buy cheap printers and expect to pay cheap ink prices. I spent a little more on my printer then the average person would because I use my printer. My carts, while expensive, are well under the cost of the printer combined (color +B&W). My printer doesn't jam, can do Duplex printing (with a $79 option) and with another option, can even be put on a jet direct server. I bought a HP Photosmart 1115 for around $299. It was only 200 more then the cheap Lexmark my brother bought. He constantly complains about jams and stuff with his while I have had nary a problem. Anyone see the problem?? His ink costs about the price of the printer to replace (or within a few bucks...). Anyone see a point here? You can't get a cheap printer and expect to have equally cheap ink. It will never happen. You CAN buy a moderately priced printer and get quality, decent priced ink and less hassle.
I think that printer manufactures low prices are not just to hike up cartrdige prices...I think it's to get users to dump old printers. We have several printers on campus that out lasted the computers they were bought for (or bought to service). This is OK because businesses almost always by HP Ink. PLus they know if the printer lasts, then you will buy 10 more printers when the old ones get old. It's called assuring income. Those same printers that last 10 years at work will last 20 plus years at home because we don't print as much at home. Money has to be made somewhere.
My point is if you spend more then 100 bucks on a printer, you are going to have a good experience. If you cheap out on it, well, you'll have a printer....and you may as well buy a new printer when it's ink runs out.
Gorkman
They then decided to select 'HP Photo Paper' in the drivers, and the prints came out far better!
This might not be a conspiricy - most 'Photo' paper is designed to be non-absorbing. It's designed to keep the ink at the surface of the paper so it looks vibrent. The 'Other Photo Paper' is probably set to squirt out a small amount of ink, so that it doesen't run on really non-absorbant paper.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
One of the reasons I like Kyocera laser printers. Very very low cost per page running costs. Almost 1/10 the cost per page of other laser printers.
Inkjets are spectacularly expensive per page. A cartridge only lasts a couple of hundred pages. That's fine if you only print 100 pages per year at regular intervals since they clog as well.
My next home printer will be a laser.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
"Those things are built like a cheap Tawianese toy."
thats because they are...
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Last year, I picked up a Xerox WorkCentre M940 for less than $100 at OfficeMax - not bad for a decent scanner, copier, and printer, especially one with indiviual ink taks for each color so you don't have to waste ink just because one color wears out.
I was a bit shocked when I went in to buy an extra set of cartridges at the same store: I was looking at almost $150 for a set of replacement cartridges (to be fair, that included the higher capacity black cartridge.)
Anyway, I balked and went online to find a better deal. I ordered from AcuJetUSA, since it looked like they had a high quality, professinal cartridge. Whn I finally tried them, I found that the AcuJet ink (these were replaceemnt cartridges, not some cheesy refill kit) was of a VASTLY DIFFERENT COMPOSITION from the Xerox originals. After replacing only the black cartridge, it's now impossible to print anything with multiple colors - the black ink bleeds almost 1/16" into any adjacent colored area, something that never happened with the Xerox ink. In addition, the AcuJet ink is "wetter", leaving the paper puckered and wavy from moisture even when printing an all-black page.
To AcuJet's credit, even though the normal 30-day return period was up, they've agreed to take all the cartridges back and return my money. (I'll send them back in a day or two, and we'll see.)
I will be buying geniune Xerox cartridges from now on, though. The hassle of returning these alone isn't worth the money I would have saved. Amazon seems to have about the best deal among the reliable vendors. (I don't want a refilled cartridge passed off as new...)
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
Most lasers cost 1 - 3p per page, most injets are 4 - 12p per page.
Kyocera laser printers running costs are 0.3p per page. The trick is the drum is ceramic and is guaranteed for 100,000 pages. Their toner is also inexpensive.
Their printers are marginally more expensive than the others in the market but in a small business they pay for the difference within the first 10,000 pages.
Have you noticed how magazine articles on printers never quote the cost per page? This is the solution for keeping running costs down. Insist that the magazines quote costs per page.
Deleted
Fast, low operating costs, free black ink, fantastic color. If only there were consumer models...
Chances are, it'll be faster and have better output... and just imageine all the dead printers you can use to make decorative borders for your garden!
Better yet, just sell the old printer on eBay and get a little bit of money back from it. If you were lucky, this could actually make getting a new printer cheaper than getting the new ink cartridges.
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
Several of the compaines that make the print heads and other printer bits decided to get into the Point of Sale area. The POS people have been using $4 ribbons and cheap paper for a long time using nice 8 pin dot matrix and are very sensitive to the consumbales costs. The result is that now there are some very long life good inkjets that will use any ink you care to dump in them and have running costs lower than dot matrix printers. The big players aren't going to intorduce these into the consumer or business market yet but the noname tiawan compaines have already started. In a few years these $75 printers that use $50 worth of ink every week will be gone but only if people stop buying name brand printers. BTW the epson RX80 I got for a birhtday present in '82 still works great for program listings so I can see why people can get loyal to a printer brand.
To turn your argument around a little, once I've bought the printer, where's the manufacturer's God-given right to tell me what I may and may not do with it? Once I buy it, it's mine. And if I find a way to refill their evil, proprietary, page-counting, rent-a-printer cartridges, I guess it sucks to be them.
That said, I've never bought a printer for which I couldn't second source supplies, and if I found that I had inadvertently purchased a printer with "chipped" cartridges that were non-refillable and/or refused to work after printing some fixed n number of pages, regardless of the ink/toner left in them, I would immediately return it. If the return were refused, I would dispute the charge with my credit card company (costing the store some money and sending a message about that manufacturer's gear, whether or not the chargeback is successful).
Please don't mod this up. I'm capped, and some dickless coward will us an "Overrated" on it. Feel free to mod it down, though.
CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.
It's not cheaper to just buy a new printer, if you have the right model Epson that is. I have an Epson model 640 that I bought for $100-$140 a few years ago. I can buy generic cartridges from SimplyBargins.com for a few dollars. A generic black cartridge costs $1.85 and a generic color cartridge costs $4.10. I've used many of them and had no problems. It pays to check the cost of consumables before you buy a printer!
I have an Epson Stylus Color 800 printer and am surprised at the high cost of replacement ink cartridges. There's no printhead in the cartridge or a chip. I have started buying non-OEM print cartridges and have found that often the quality is at least as good and in some cases much better than the original Epson cartridges. Not to mention that the alternatives are often a fraction the price.
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I recently bought an Epson Stylus Photo 820 printer, because it was top-rated for the price at printing photos - mainly due to the fact that it uses a 6 color ink system.
I hoped that this time around, I'd at least be able to buy 3rd. party ink cartridges and get decent performance. (My last inkjet was a Stylus Photo 700, and every time I used anything other than real Epson ink, it would clog up after 2 or 3 pages were printed - and nothing would unclog it again, short of putting new Epson cartridges in and running it through 14 or 15 cleaning cycles.)
My first experience with ink carts. off eBay was dismal though. The colors just wouldn't print uniformily. Every time I printed a test pattern, one color would be missing completely or streaked up. Sure enough, putting in a real Epson cartridge made it start working again.
I think with these high DPI Epson printers, Epson must be putting some type of thinner or solvent in their ink that nobody else is using. Everything else seems to clog up their nozzles real fast. Quite frustrating.....
I've got an old HP 672C that basically refuses to die... It uses an older cart that is readily available from Pelikan and other 3rd parties that keeps it going cheaply.
;)
;)
But, I never really use it for anything serious, just printing out some docs, FAQ's etc, and the occasional shot of Britney
I wouldn't even think of replacing it until the thing dies. When it does go, I'd more than likely go with another HP. Or possibly one of the Okidata LED's.
I wish I could afford a HP LaserJet 4500C for home use though
=== The price of freedom is eternal vigilance
(However, I would never, ever, under any circumstances, use an inkjet as a primary printer. Try to find a cheap used laser printer. I've been using an Epson ActionLaser 1500 for pretty much all my life, it's served me extremely well. The printer claims it's printed 9600 pages, and I'm not sure it hasn't reset. I would never, ever deal with the noise, lack of speed, and cost of printing homework and so forth on an inkjet, and nobody else should either. Inkjet text looks nasty awful, anyway. Laser prints look muuuch nicer.)
They can't actually void your warrenty for using other ink unless they prove that the part of the printer that failed was directly caused by using the cheap ink cart
I also violently agree. But only if the printer companies haven't colluded. If they have colluded to not compete in this space by using these devices and pricing similarly, then they should be smacked down with extreme prejudice.
Please don't mod this up. I'm capped, and some dickless coward will use an "Overrated" on it. Feel free to mod it down, though.
CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.
I work retail, so I hear people complaining all the damned time about the cost of ink refills. Here's an easy way to figure it out: The cheaper the printer, the more expensive the cartridge. Simple as that.
Go buy a cheapie Lexmark z23 and marvel at the ~$33 cost for the black ink. Now buy an HP 900-series, and notice how the price drops to ~$30. Now buy their D135 all-in-one unit and (HOLY SHIT!) the price for the black is $22. Is anyone else surprised, because I'm not.
Is it an honest way to do business? That depends on your perspective. I always try to show a customer the fact that the $20 they're saving here is going right out the window when they replace the ink for the first time.
I have a laser that I use for 95% of my printing. You can snag a good quality home-oriented laser in the $250 range if you shop it. I have a couple of old color units that I use if I NEED color. I might pick up one of the photo-type units if for some reason the SO decided she wanted more of the digital pics printed out. Under no circumstances would I ever try to print the volume of papers that I routinely print (I'm an english major... typical Sunday evening has about 50 pages worth of printing in its future) on an inket. You wouldn't try to run a DNS on a Win95 box, and you wouldn't try to go off-road in your Cavalier, so why do so many people insist on using an el-cheapo inkjet for a job that a laser is so much better suited (and cheaper) for.
So are we complaining when the free cell phone requires a two-year contract? Two cliches come to mind: "Pay me now or pay me later", and "you get what you pay for".
Canon has spouted that same line about print quality since their first inkjets came out, long before there was any such thing as a high-resolution inkjet printer.
I had a BJ200, which I used enough that the moving parts finally wore out. I found that contrary to Canon's claims, the better cartridges could be refilled indefinitely (not all carts were exactly alike in quality; there were four carts that fit this printer, and the one labeled for their fax unit was best). I've refilled some as many as *8* times, and only lost carts at that point because I accidentally bumped the printhead and damaged it.
The trick is to keep the printhead clean -- swish it thru denatured alcohol every time you refill it, and make sure you keep the track area clean and free of dust. Use a high quality refill ink, like Fillmore brand (which is considerably better ink than Canon's original ink, at about 5% the cost). Don't overfill the cart -- half-full works better in many cases. If it gets cranky, next time it's empty run a little alcohol thru the cart itself, and print a few demo pages to let it clean out the printhead from the inside, then do the regular refill. (I've even resurrected "dead" dried-out carts that way -- turned out good as new.)
With proper care, inkjet printheads provide the same print quality throughout their lifetime, which is a helluva lot longer than the time it takes to use up that first ink resevoir.
Note: I've seem similar results with high-resolution HP and Epson inkjet refills, but my hands-on experience was with Canon.
And thanks for the heads-up on the newer HP units -- personally, I wouldn't buy an inkjet that rejects being refilled. At some 25 cents per page to print with "original" ink, inkjets cost too damn much to run. (Compare to about 5 cents/page for laser printers, and barely above cost of paper for pin impact.)
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
I used a Roland wide format printer and an Epson 3000, both of which took physically the same ink cartridge. The boss ordered cheap refills to save money (the 200ml Roland cartridges were $250 each).
Next thing you know, the Epson can't print very good quality anymore, and neither can the Roland. We ended up having to replace three heads and an ink line (cracked open, ink everywhere) on the Roland for over $2,000 apparently because of the bad chemical composition of the cheap ink and that it dries too fast.
The Roland's been on good quality ink for a couple years now with no problems at all, but I think the Epson's trashed.
Either I didn't see them myself, or they weren't much cheaper than the Epson ones. Inkjet cartridges run out quite often, so there's good reason to keep your per-cartridge cost as low as possible.
I can't find the information on the website. Care to give a more direct pointer?
Sure, I posted the home page for the supplier as I didn't want to be single printer specific. However the instructions for the HP printers is here. http://www.atlascopy.com/_inkjet/000001ae.htm
It includes all the revelant codes to do the service mode printouts including the print cartridge serial numbers and estimated ink levels. No PC required to access this information. It prints hardcopy.
Info for other printers is also given. It's a goldmine of useful information regarding refilling. I recommend spending time reading to pick up all the tips and tricks.
The truth shall set you free!
The cartridge chip contains a serial number. There is no sensor on ink level. The printer keeps track of the amount of use of each nozzle. When a cartridge has had so much use, the printer assumes it is empty. The printer refuses to use the cartridge only because it remembers it by serial number. If that same cartridge were put in another printer, the printer will recognise it as a new full cartridge whether it has been filled or not. The service mode of the 900 series printers will print out the serial numbers of the current cartridges along with nozzle counts and estimated ink levels AND the serial numbers of the previous set of cartridges.
The truth shall set you free!