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Ink Cartridges with Built-In Self-Destruct Dates
Linker3000 writes "The Inquirer has an article about HP ink cartridges having a built-in expiry date that can cause them to become unusable even if they aren't empty! Another twist on the 'chipped cartridge' stories--and also another kick in the teeth (and wallet) for the consumer methinks." This isn't really a new problem - here's a good piece about the problem.
That Lexmark are using DMCA against a company that sells chips that allow third-party cartridges to be used...
This just adds to a list of reasons why I will never, ever, own a printer again...
Join the Free Software Foundation
I learned a good while back (I think as long as 7-8 years ago) NOT to stockpile HP printer ink cartriges. I used to buy 1 color and 1 black cart at a time, but I found that the carts I bought and let sit on the shelf until I needed them often would not work if they had been on the shelf for a few months or so.
I appreciate HP's support of Linux and would like to support them, but I stopped buying their printers a few years ago. There's just too many little quirks. The last one I had ran the paper through at a slight angle. I don't think I've seen an HP printer I felt I really trusted since the original Deskjet and Deskjet 500.
Hal
the problem is that if having printer ink cartridges that self-destruct after a certain amount of time becomes the status quo, then pretty much -all- printer manufacturers are going to follow suit and consumers won't be left with any more choices.
They're playing with fire if they do that; printer manufacturers are already under investigation for anticompetitive practices by the EU. If they have any sense, they'll back off fast.
Insightful?
1) HP bought Compaq.
2) Last Year.
3) The print cartridge was manufactured 4.5 years ago.
Synergy is your friend
Of course it is a scandal, however in practice it won't make much difference since HP ink cartridges have always become unusable when not used for too long: they dry out.
I print only very occasionally, maybe a few pages per week or month, sometimes not at all for 1 or 2 months. I was tired to throwing away 90% filled but dry ink cartidges and therefore switched to a laser printer. They work even if you print a page after months without use.
But the cartridges expired in more like 9 months to a year. The kicker was that I never printed many things using color. HOWEVER, if after several months the color cartridge decided that it had expired, the printer wouldn't let you print in plain black ink unless you changed the color cartridge. So even if you never want to use color, you still have to replace the color cartridge once a year in order to print black ink only pages. What a racket.
Basically, companies that can manufacture ink jet cartridges (relatively small products) but cannot manufacture their own printers can be locked out of the market, eliminating consumers' ability to choose to buy from these smaller companies.
Who said it had to be an inkjet? Buy a laser printer. It won't have this tech and it has a much lower cost per page and is faster too!
Reality is that which refuses to go away when I stop believing in it. --Phillip K. Dick (remove SPAM to email)
Try Canon, for one. The S750 I purchased last summer uses the same non-chipped ink tanks as most of their other new-line home and small office printers, so even though I don't see the S750 on their web site any more, I'm pretty sure that they will be making their ink this way for some time to come.
(It's a very good printer, besides, if you were wondering for your own reference... Prints fast (I don't have a ppm count... not nosebleed fast, but notably faster than my roommate's HP), works well with the gimp-print drivers if you use Linux, prints photos well enough for my eyes, and has all sorts of other bells and whistles.)
Offset by the cost of a slightly more pricey printer ($140), the ink is pretty inexpensive. The black cartridge will set you back $15; the full set of three color cartridges costs $30. Canon ink comes in transparent plastic "dumb" cartridges that are completely sucked dry when the driver tells you they're empty... the printer won't cheat you out of any of it, as it actually measures how much ink is left in the tank rather than using HP or Epson style guesswork.
There are a few other non-evil printer manufacturers, I'm sure, but Canon seems to be the best as far as I've heard. Any other suggestions, anyone?
Its full name is the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act and yes, a manufacturer cannot make a "tie-in" requirement that purchasing a part from someone else voids your warranty. You could argue that adding someone else's ink is no different than adding someone else's carbur^H carbo^H transmission, for example.
In my opinion: Canon (except the low end models). Separate cartridge for every color, cartridge design has basically been umodified for years, no stupid chips, separate print heads, no "phone home" function in the drivers (like the one HP has), lowest price per ccm of ink compared with the competition, refill is possible (never tried it though, I just buy a new cartridge whenever I need one instead of messing around with syringes and ink). Prepare to pay a little more for the base printer - the general print quality and the savings in ink over the lifetime of the printer are worth it IMO. Linux support is far from ideal, though.
"There are already a million monkeys on a million typewriters, and Usenet is NOTHING like Shakespeare." - Blair Houghton
You might consider getting a used HP LaserJet with a JetDirect. I did that and I haven't replaced the cartridge yet, it prints for my whole apartment (and a few friends far away with IP printing), and it makes a lovely coffee table. All for not much money.
Honestly-- the witch hunts!
The ink has many chemicals in it, many that don't want to stick together. The lighter elements in the ink tend to evaporate, turning the ink into a thick sludge. The sludge, as you can imagine, has a hard time passing through the nozzles of the print head. This has always has been issue since at least 1996, when we got our first high-end inkjet printers. At that time, you could expect the shelf life of the cart. to be about 6-10 months. In fact, back in those days, stores would occasionally sell you old stock, and there were no date codes printed on the ink carts. You were SOL if you got an "old stock" cart, because HP said it was too old. At least now HP will warrany ANY non-empty ink cart that has a date stamp before the expiry date on the cart.
Think about it-- faster evaporation times on paper mean the ink doesn't soak the paper as much. You can get brigher brights, darker darks, etc. These chemicals in the ink don't magically want to evaporate only once they hit the paper. They always want to evaporate. Remember the $800 inkjet from not so long ago that had a halogen heater? It was to speed up the chemical reaction.
I could understand if the date codes started inching closer and closer-- to like just a month or two weeks. (Keep the ink in the freezer next to the t-bones, anyone? yeah, right)
I don't believe the ink has been engineered to have a shelf-life. It may be that they're in no hurry to improve their shelf-life, but it is nothing new. The date code is to help prevent customers from getting old stock. There may be better alternatives to this kind ink out now, but they're building on their ink research from 10 years ago.. which means it is probably also the cheapest technology. So if you want to claim that for the last decade, HP has been plotting this scheme to get more ink dollars out of people, we'd better put on our tinfoil hats.
The "free market" is an economic model that makes many assumptions. In a "free market" the theoretical consumers make rational decisions all the time, and are perfectly informed.
Not so. This is a simplistic, 19th century model which has been improved upon quite a bit in the last century.
Current economic theory does take into account irrational decisions, but on the whole individual irrational economic decisions do little to affect the economics of the entire population. There will always be some people acting irrationally, but on the whole most will make rational decisions most of the time, the end result of which drives the free market.
Note that a 'rational decision' also requires accurate information. If the population is given incorrect information (either deliberately or otherwise) it will act irrationally because the information available tells it that the irrational is actually rational.
The thing to keep in mind here is that there is no capitalistic model at work in any country in the world (with the possible exception of tiny places like Andorra - couldn't tell you about these mini-nations). Even the 'capitalist' economy of the United States is heavily socialized and government-controlled, although the government control often works opposite to that of fascism (i.e., instead of the government giving orders to corporations, it's usually the other way around). We have no idea - none whatsoever - how a capitalistic free market would work because we don't have any capitalistic free markets to examine. A socialistic, oligarchical corporate state does not a free market make.
So it makes no sense to criticize capitalism or the free market. You do not live in a capitalistic country, and you don't have a free market.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
Lots of items have expiration dates. In many cases, it may even be illegal (or leave you open to a lawsuit) for a store to sell an item past its expiration date (think meat) or to use an item past its expiration date (think sterile medical products). The difference is that in almost every case, nothing is forcing the end user not to use the item past the expiration date. You can always put those expired batteries in your MP3 player if you only want a few hours use. You are also free to eat expired meat if you so choose. If you are crazy (or desperate) enough, you can even use expired medical products on yourself.
HP, however, seems to have chosen to make the expiration date manditory. Don't care about degraded print quality? Too bad, buy a new cartiridge. In my mind, it would be perfectly ok for HP to do what you mention compaq and sun have done: Warn the user that the cartiridge has reached the end of its life-expectancy so the user can make an informed decision regarding whether to replace the cartiridge or to continue using it.
Come test your mettle in the world of Alter Aeon!
But is Canon evil in the sense of not revealing information needed to write open source device drivers for their inkjet printers? linuxprinting.org only grades Canon a C-.
Engine control is not exactly rocket science. My ECU has a 3MHz microcontroller and some counters on it, and that's pretty much it. Then there's a fuel map, a little 2d chart that says at so many RPMs and so much airflow, supply this much fuel, and keep adding more until the speed matches the throttle position. Admittedly, there's a bit more to it, like monitoring the O2 sensor and making the mixture richer or leaner or adjusting timing (usually the latter) to ensure that the maximum amount of fuel is burned, leading to higher efficiency and thus lower emissions, but you must realize that to just get a car to run and develop power you don't need to do all that shit. Cars were making hundreds of horsepower through forced induction before the invention of fuel injection, even. Check out some old studebakers if you don't believe me.
Tuners do reverse engineer that stuff, but there's really no need to because you can do it somewhat by the dimensions of the engine and somewhat by trial and error, especially watching the O2 sensor output. It becomes slightly more complex when you add in VTEC and the like because for staged VVT you must have two maps for different cam profiles, and for phased VVT you can adjust the timing much more broadly, but all of that can be reduced to relatively simple formulas, all of which will be adjusted by the sensor inputs.
Anyway even for VTEC (and other VVT, everyone seems to have it these days) you can replace the computer entirely, without doing any reverse engineering whatsoever, and just start from a basic set of assumptions about what an engine of that bore, stroke, and compression ratio will need in the way of fuel and air, and design a map accordingly.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"