Reducing TCO of an Inkjet Printer?

AtariDatacenter asks: "Everyone knows that inkjet printers are cheap, but the cartridges cost a bundle. I was trying to find one with the lowest total cost of ownership for a modest twenty or so pages a week. This PC Magazine article kind of takes this on, but with a small sample group. Are there any printers today that should be avoided? Is ink reducing software like inkSaver as good as they claim?" Inkjets have a lot of drawbacks when it comes to laser printers except one thing: the initial price. When it comes to printing lots of text that you intend to keep for an indefinite period of time, which works out better over the short-term and long-term? I've already had Inkjet printers die after a few years of normal usage, are laser printers any better?

Comments

Continuous ink systems

[eXtro]

You can buy extremely high quality ink (or cheap ink) in bulk and use a continuous ink system. A lot of professional shops make use of these. Once I run the free cartridge that came with my Epson 1280 out I'll be adding one to my system.

The ink becomes a lot cheaper. I'll be using the archival inks from inkjetmall.com as well as their continuous ink system.

Re:Continuous ink systems

[quintessent]

Thanks for pointing me to inkjetmall. I had looked around a while back, but was unable to find 3rd-party inks that interested me. Now, there are some really interesting offerings.

The cheapest way???

[OneFix]

I don't know if this is cheaper, but I do it this way...

First, find the cheapest printer you can...Circuit City has the Lexmark Z25 for $39.99 after rebate this week, but a better deal is at Office Max...Hewlett Packard DeskJet 825C for $49.99 (no rebate required), plus it's USB and it also comes with a free USB cable ($15 value).

And, don't worry about the speed of the printer, because if you wanted speed you'ld be buying a Laser Printer for much more $$$.
Then make sure you buy one of the InkJet refill kits...WalMart and CompUSA sell a Universal kit for Color and Black (seperately), but if you go to a Computer Show, you can buy a huge kit that should last you a while for the cost of both.

Now, sit back as the Printer pays for itself in saved cartridges. I don't know about you, but I'm reluctant to use refills on a $200 printer, but have no problems with doing it to a $50 printer. Most cartridges can be refilled 2 or 3 times before they go bad...this means that after only 6 refills, the printer should have paid for itself...

A few notes, in general, stay away from Lexmark and No-Name printers...try to stick with HP, Cannon, Epson, etc.

And don't worry about speed or resolution, if you wanted that, you'ld be buying a Laser Printer, and $$$ wouldn't be your first concern.

The whole idea of this is that Moore's Law works for you here...by the time you need to get a new printer, you can get something much better for the lower price...

Re:The cheapest way???

[inkfox]

First, find the cheapest printer [salescircular.com] you can...Circuit City has the Lexmark Z25 for $39.99 after rebate this week, but a better deal is at Office Max...Hewlett Packard DeskJet 825C for $49.99 (no rebate required), plus it's USB and it also comes with a free USB cable ($15 value).

It's worth mentioning that you should do your refill research before you pick the printer. A few of the cheaper printers (and many of the more expensive HP ones) have chips or fuses in a circuit on the print cartridge which tells it to expect no more than a certain amount of ink to thwart refills, or that the cart should be invalidated permanently.

Remember that printer manufacturers don't make money on low-end inkjets. They all but give them away, hoping to make their money back on expensive cartridges. And they're going to do all they can to try and prevent you from going elsewhere for 'em.

Re:The cheapest way???

[OneFix]

Agreed, but all you have to do is make sure that aftermarket refills are available for it...I don't know of many printers that you cant refill the cartridge at least twice.

Re:The cheapest way???

[inkfox]

Actually, many HP units had (still have?) bags of ink inside, compressed by metal leaf springs. If you puncture the cartridge to attempt a refill, it won't work. If you puncture the cartridge and the bag inside, you're in for a surprise when the ink all comes squirting out the hole afterward.

Re:The cheapest way???

[OneFix]

But, that's only if you damage the "bag". I never said it was an idiot-proof process...but then again, many ppl still do it (and I've yet to have a problem). The only thing you really have to remember is to replace the cartridge when you've refilled after the third time...I have a method where I made stickers that I place on the cartridge with boxes to cross off...I know when the last one is crossed off, it can't be refilled again. You should also make sure that you buy the HP cartridges and not the aftermarket cartridges because they are usually no good for refills.

Re:The cheapest way???

[CMiYC]

They all but give them away, hoping to make their money back on expensive cartridges.

Exactly. So if you can find a color inkjet for $49.95, buy a couple of them. If its $24.95 for the black cartridge and $34.95 for the color cart, then you'll be saving money. Not to mention the fact being a cheap low-end printer its probably better to replace it every couple of months anyway.

Re:The cheapest way???

[inkfox]

They all but give them away, hoping to make their money back on expensive cartridges.

Exactly. So if you can find a color inkjet for $49.95, buy a couple of them. If its $24.95 for the black cartridge and $34.95 for the color cart, then you'll be saving money. Not to mention the fact being a cheap low-end printer its probably better to replace it every couple of months anyway

Careful. The cartridges included with HP printers are only filled half way.

Theft

[Anonymous Coward]

Get one that uses the same cartigages as where you work.

Hidden Agenda?

[Futurepower(R)]

Sometimes I wonder about PC Magazine. Sometimes I wonder if they have hidden agendas. Here's a quote from the article:

"We've added $25 for the cost of the USB printer cable..."

USB cables are less than $3.00 wholesale. If PC Magazine is helping us, why is it helping retailers make outrageous profits on cables?

Re:Hidden Agenda?

[quintessent]

Sadly, the figure isn't that unreleastic. Your local Staples or Circuit City will probably charge that much for the cable, knowing that most people, having just paid a lot for a printer, will pay the premium rather than shop around.

Same goes for their extended warrantees and a number of other "useful" accessories.

HP LJIII

[JabberWokky]

I've already had Inkjet printers die after a few years of normal usage, are laser printers any better?

While I swear by HP business printers in general for sheer rock solid stability and longevity (note the phrase "business printers" there), the one model that is starting to scare me is the Hewlett-Packard LaserJet III. Those monsters are the size of several modern sedans, and the *will* *not* *stop*. I keep seeing them in offices - sometimes not in use, in a supply closet, whereupon I'll ask and be told "yeah, it works fine when we last plugged it in, we just got new printers". I swear that to stop one of these things, you have to freeze it and ship it to the Arctic.

--
Evan

Re:HP LJIII

[adolf]

I'll second that. I've got an LJ III sitting in the closet, which worked fine when last used.

It does need a new paper feed roller, but that should be cheap or easily salvaged from a surplus machine.

Re:HP LJIII

[penguinboy]

This is definitely true. I've got LJ III units here at home that are 10+ years old but still work fine. It's amazing how heavily built they are (55lbs), but I suppose you get what you pay for sometimes - IIRC, it retailed for ~$2000 when it was sold from 1990-1992.

Re:HP LJIII

[Raetsel]

There is a computer recycling / used computer store in Seattle called RePC. They buy stuff from companies (or charge 'em to haul the crap away) dust it off, and then sell it.

While browsing through their printers, I found a HP 5si/MX with the printer test page taped to the top... the page count was over 500,000. When I remarked on its' long and presumably rough life, the reply was "Oh, that's a young one! They usually don't wear out until about 2 million pages."

DAMN.

I had the misfortune to have to install some of those monsters when they were new... they came in on a 1/4-size oak pallet, and had to be moved by (1) a pallet jack, or (2) two burly men or three IT geeks. (They weigh well over 300 pounds.)

Personally, I have a LaserJet 4+ upgraded to 16MB RAM, and a IIIP with 5MB. They've served me for... good Lord, almost 5 and 8 years, respectively! I bought the 4+ used, and I've never had to replace the toner cartridge... so for 5 years of use it has cost me $150. (I think that's what I paid for it...)

The only desire to upgrade that I have experienced is when I found HP's LaserJet 8550 series -- color, prints on 11x17 paper. The 8000 series is the replacement for the 5si, so these things put out something on the order of 25 pages/minute B&W, and perhaps 1/4 that when using color. The estimated cost per page? About 3 cents, not including the purchase price of the machine.

As for me, I'll be looking for a used one. (Probably about 3 years from now.)

Re:HP LJIII

[alizard]

I'm not surprised. I'm still running a LaserJet II... it does need to have the paper feed serviced, but it prints as cleanly as it did back in the pre-Windows era in which it was built. When I say pre-Windows... the docs contained NO reference to ANY Windoze version.

Too bad all that's left of the company that built that is the brand name.

Re:HP LJIII

[CaptCosmic]

I used to work for a company that did warranty repair for HP. I went in to many offices to repair LJIII's. And the most frequent comment I'd get from the secretary was "This is the first time we've ever had to have it fixed". And usually I was fixing something simple like a worn pickup roller, or a blown fuser.

I would love to have one, but I wouldn't have any room in my house to put it. Besides, they're so old, they don't have USB ports for my Mac. :-)

Re:HP LJIII

[AdamInParadise]

We have a HP5 at work (can't remember the exact model). The header page shows that this printer already printed 1.2 million pages, probabl and should hit the 2 million page mark sometimes next Spring. What do we do? It's a computer science research lab. People here invent tomorrow's computer systems (well at least a little bit), but our office is still full of paper. So much for the paperless office...

Re:HP LJIII

[Reziac]

Yeah, and the same for the HPLJ II -- even in an environment of malignant neglect, they'll usually outlive their owners.

BTW, the HPLJ IIISi was M$'s printer of choice in the Win3.1/95 era, as evidenced by its driver being referenced in all the template files that shipped with Word.

And if you're having trouble with some off-brand laser printer, try one of those two drivers (HPLJ2 or 3Si) as most printers emulate one or the other.

Re:HP LJIII

[Wanker]

I have one of these tanks that's just about to re-enter service, replacing a dying Canon inkjet one twentieth its age. The only reason it left service was because of an ominous "50 Service Error" that kept popping up on the screen.

Now, some months later my friendly neighborhood Linux users' group pointed me to:

http://www.fixyourownprinter.com

And apparently this is a very common problem with LJII/LJIII printers and is due to a failing AC power supply. Makes sense. It's not like this thing has ever seen nice clean UPS power. ;-)

Once I scrape up $70, that LJIII will be back and printing...

Re:HP LJIII

[Art Tatum]

two burly men or three IT geeks. (They weigh well over 300 pounds.)

I'm confused--the two burly men weigh 300 pounds (not really all that much) or the three geeks weigh 300 pounds (just about right)?

Reduce the TCO with a baseball bat

[Bald Wookie]

Step 1. Rent Office Space.

Step 2. Beat the hell out of your inkjet while listening to gangsta rap.

Step 3. Find a decent used HP laserjet. Older 'office model' HPs are built like tanks. I've found a few with page counts into the 100-200 thousand range that still print fine. Look around and you can find refurbed IIs, IIIs, and 4Ps for about a hundred bucks. With a bit more effort you can pick up free IIs and IIIs from small offices cleaning their closets. They might need a fuser or rollers but the work is easy and the parts are usually cheap.

On a 4P (the personal sized version of the 4 series) the toner lasts about 4000 pages. At 20 pages a week you can get nearly four years out of a $70 toner cartrige. Since a lot of refurbs come with some toner, you might spend a hundred bucks for the printer and be printing for a couple of years.

Now that is a reduced TCO...

Re:Reduce the TCO with a baseball bat

[afidel]

100-200k pages is the first scheduled maintenance for most high volume laserjets like the 8500's. These tanks can make it into the millions of pages before enough stuff starts to break that it's not worth fixing. I don't know what the life in pages of a LJ3 is, but the life in years is about as old as I am =) (not really since I'm 23, but close enough)

A nexus

[twilight30]

I had three concerns when looking for a printer:

• It had to print well under Linux
• I wanted to use colour most of the time
• Ink replacement had to be cheap-ish

That said, I selected the Epson Colour Stylus 670, used Mandrake (right after they upgraded to using CUPS), and bought those colour refill kits another poster mentioned.

I killed it in 14 months. I did a lot of printing, and the print heads were completely shot by the very end.

I've thrown out that printer. I've used plenty of printers over the years, and I have to second JabberWokky's assertions. Essentially, LJIIIs render colour printing unnecessary, and my old objections have no relevance today.

LJIIIs *are* built like tanks, and the technologies behind them are very well understood now. The fact that HP supports Linux doesn't hurt, either. True, they don't print colour, and new cartridges can be expensive. However, refurbished cartridges aren't dear any longer, and if I had just found an old LJIII I'm sure it would still be in use. You can often find them at auction houses, or in the classifieds, or eBay.

Upshot, get a used LJIII and print a test page or two to check the quality. You probably will be satisfied.

Laser is superior.

[man_ls]

I'm using an IBM 4019 laser printer. This printer is easily nearly as old as I am -- it was originally hooked up to some type of a 286, than an IBM PS/2, and now to my system.

The 2MB of onboard RAM isn't a lot, and it only has 3 fonts onboard, but the toner cartridge (While costing about $100) is good for between 10,000 and 15,000 pages.

I believe the printer cost $999 when new. It hasn't needed a single replacement part (not even new toner -- same toner it came with) since purchase. Of course, your mileage may vary. Older equipment seems to have been designed to last longer because it was more expensive -- you couldn't afford to replace a printer if it broke, you got it fixed, and they designed them not to break.

Now a days, everything is field replaceable -- which usually means swap the whole unit out for a working one. Cheaper that way.

Priorities?

[Raetsel]

20 pages a week? That's a resonably substansial amount of printing.

1. In color, an inkjet will cost you (rough estimate) $2 to $3/week at that rate. That's not taking the cost of special paper into account. (Ask yourself if you need color -- what are you going to use it for?)
2. At the same rate, a used LaserJet will cost you roughly 50 for the same number of pages.

   Really important point:
   

3. Laser printers produce a lot better output on cheap paper. Inkjets sometimes require paper that costs more than blank CD-Rs! ($1.00/sheet for photo quality paper!)

There certainly are reasons for an inkjet, too. You can't beat the entry price, but it's a Gillette business model -- lose money on the razors (printer), make (lots!) of money on the blades (ink). I recently heard tell a rumor about a disposable (recyclable?) inkjet -- the whole printer was cheaper than 2 replacement cartridges! (Ouch!)

If you really need color, an inkjet is hard to beat.

• HP Inkjet printers can "mix" ink to create better-blended colors on a page. (I don't think they're alone in this capability, either.) HP calls it "Color Layering" -- it works because injets dyes and pigments aren't completely opaque, where laserprinter toner is.

• Color laser printers are limited to placing 4 different colors of toner next to each other and letting your eye perceive something that's not really there. Sure, you could stack pixels just like an inkjet, but instead of blending colors, you'd just see the one on top (best case), or a melted brown smear (worst case).

• Other side of the coin: Dyes fade. Pigments (for the most part) don't. This is why you can still dig out 20-year-old laserjet-printed material and it's perfectly readable. Print out a picture of your cat on an inkjet, leave it tacked up in your cube, and print out a new one -- same printer, same file -- a year later. You'll notice the fading.

  There are some inkjets moving to pigment-based instead of dye-based inks. (It's a premium expense, though.) The output from these is supposed to be colorfast for much longer periods, but I haven't seen this first-hand.

Okay, last point: The Minolta (QMS) Magicolor 2200 color laser. Office Depot sells 'em for $999. Listed on Pricewatch (refurbished) for just shy of $800. 1200 x 600 dpi, 20 PPM B&W, 5 PPM Color. Even comes Ethernet-ready. Yes, it's expensive, but it seems like people drop that much on (new | upgrade) parts for their computer every 6 months.

Re:Priorities?

[n-baxley]

I'm not sure where you shop, but if you pay $2-3 for twenty sheets of regular paper and $1 for photo paper, I have some ocean front property in Arizona to sell you.

Office Depot sells 500 sheets on inkjet paper for $5 and copier paper for $4. I bought 75 sheets of Premium Kodak Photo Paper for $20 at Sam's. Lasers may give better quality, but you'll pay for it.

Re:Priorities?

[Raetsel]

The 2-to-3 dollar figure for 20 pages of printing isn't referring to the cost of paper. It refers to the cost of the consumables that are going on the paper. 10 cents a page, 20 pages... bang. $2. That's for some of the larger-capacity inkjets, too. For the (smaller | cheaper) printers, especially with HP's notorious "economy" refills (read: "screw you, we're selling you a printer with half-empty cartridges"), the cost can be as high as 15/page just for ink. 15 X 20 pages = $3.

"Lasers may give better quality, but you'll pay for it."

You get what you pay for. Yes, the cost of a new printer is higher. (Buy a used one, I did!) Yes, the cost to replace the toner cartridges is psychologically formidable. However, that $94 high-capacity cartridge for my LaserJet 4+ will last me for years, and is rated for (max) 8800 pages! (If I manage to get only half that many, that's still 2.1/page -- 4 to 5 times less than an inkjet!) Also, at 20 pages a week it will take you 4.2 years (!!!) to print 4400 pages.

With penny-a-page paper you get very nice results from a laser printer. Run the same stuff through an inkjet and you will get some bleeding. Not a lot, but it's there. Your photo-quality paper cost you 26.6 per page on sale, and it's required if you want your maximum resolution. Ouch.

Last thing: What happens when you need to print résumés? High-quality résumé paper contains cotton rag. I prefer one paper that's 75% rag, and it bleeds noticably when run through an inkjet. (Yes, I know the alternative -- find someone with a laser or go to Kinko's... but it's nice to have your own.)

Don't mix ink types in Epsons!

[inkfox]

If you buy an Epson inkjet printer, throw away the ink that comes with it. Generic ink cartridges for the Stylus series can be had for under $2 per cartridge (yes, even the color ones) with one catch:

Epson's ink congeals on contact with most generic inks and jams up the ink path, often irreparably. This problem is mega, since Epsons have the printing unit built into the printer, not the cartridge as with HP carts.

I've not had a problem with mixing different kinds of generic ink however, so as long as an Epson never tastes an Epson cart, you're good to go.

It's also worth mentioning that there are replacement assemblies available for the epsons, which use tubes going from specially modified print heads to individual pint-sized ink reservoirs which sit in a box beside the printer. If you get one of these, you can print something like ten thousand pages of color without refilling.

Cheap cartridges for Epson Printers

[Jess]

I own an Epson Stylus Color 640 printer and found that I can buy cartridges very inexpensively for this printer. A generic black cartridge costs $3.75 and color cartridge costs $4.50. I've had no problems with them and the print quality is good.

http://www.lmcomp.com/printer-cartridges---generic -for-epson-inkjet-printers.html

Still, I only use this printer for low-volume printing, so costs are very low.

From the InkSaver FAQ

[orthogonal]

INKSAVER FAQ

Q. How does InkSaver work?

A. InkSaver uses patent pending technology to analyze and control printer data. InkSaver uses advanced algorithms, optimizing printer data so that less ink is laid down on the page and you save money every time you print.

Well, that answers all my questions.

Lemme see:
Q. How does Bresenham's Algorithm work?

A. Bresenham's Algorithm uses technology to analyze and control line data. It uses an advanced algorithm, optimzing line data so that less floating point is used everytime you draw a line.

Oh, that answered my question.

Don't call it a FAQ when it's a press release!

Re:From the InkSaver FAQ

[AtariDatacenter]

> InkSaver uses advanced algorithms, optimizing
> printer data so that less ink is laid down on
> the page.

Yeah. That's why it is called InkSaver. It saves ink. Duh. Now HOW does it work?

PS: I have no relation, direct or indirect to that company. It caught my eye only because it came up in my research as a piece of software designed to meter ink. If there are some good competitors (open source included, of course), I'd love to have options!

Some notes on laser printers...

[(H)elix1]

First off, I picked up couple used laser printers - a couple of HP laserjet 4M+ w/fonts, network, and extra ram for about $75 each. They are pretty quick, do a great job with black and white, and I will get many thousand pages of copy from the toner it came with, with refurbs running about $50 each when the time comes.

On the bad side, these things take a fair amount of power. I plugged the thing into my wife's office and the UPS in my home's server room clicked on. DON'T EVER PLUG ONE INTO A UPS! You may have to run an extra line of power into the room.

so?

[CMiYC]

Careful. The cartridges included with HP printers are only filled half way.

And your point is what? It doesn't matter if the carts are filled half-way or filled entirely. When they run out you are still going to have to drop $50+ to replace them. So why bother buying full carts for over $50 when you can simply buy an entire printer for $50? I'd rather just keep replacing my printer. Personally I (and I suspect many people) don't print enough that it makes a difference how full the carts are. I pratically have to buy new ones everytime I need to print something since the ink has dried up.

Re:so?

[jpmkm]

Yeah, but the new carts are going to last twice as long as the ones that came with the printer. Using your method, one would spend twice as much since he's getting half the use out of it.

8550

[crisco]

We've got an 8550 at work and it is a nice printer. It takes a bit to get the first page out, especially if you've let the power save mode kick in. If you get one get the ethernet adapter for it, those nice full color prints take forever over the parallel port.

Re: Minolta/QMS Color Laser

[Raetsel]

Well, it's good to know that printer sucks. I'd noticed them, but never really considered one. My reaction to seeing one was more of "Gee, would you look at that. Color laser for $1000. (I wonder what corners they had to cut?)" The features are moderately impressive, but (no surprise, really) they don't have 'em plugged in so you can get a demo page.

Personally, I'd love to have an HP 8550 (11x17, 24 PPM, ~$7000), but I'll have to wait until (1) they hit the used market, or (2) I win the lottery.

HP has a bunch of nice color lasers, and don't forget Xerox -- they've been doing the toner-on-paper thing for longer than I've been around. I imagine they have a few nice products as well.