Slashdot Mirror
Getting Around Printer-Manufacturer Abuse
An anonymous reader writes "Here's a guy that demonstrates how printer companies abuse their clients. He found that Lexmark cartridges are a perfect replacement for Xerox ones, with only minor modifications to the printer.
It's well illustrated with may photographs."
Don't use it if you don't like it. It's not like there are only 8 brand of printer. Oh wait...
...That Xerox tries to sue this guy to take down the information?
Not sure what law they'd pull out of their hat for the job, especially since this guy is not US based, but this just seems like it's raining on their parade a bit too much for Xerox to not pull out the lawyers.
Information doesn't want to be anthropomorphized anymore.
Unfortunately, HP has different connectors on the back of their cartridges across their product line, which makes it impossible to use cartridges which doesn't officially support your printer.
Yes, I know that there might be valid reasons for this (e.g different and better features regarding to ink-economy etc), but why isn't it possible to enable some kind of "legacy-mode" to enable us to use any DeskJet print cartridge across HP's product line?
If cartridges were really overpriced, then a 3rd party would enter the market. That's capitalism 101.
An when a third party enters the market, they get sued under the DCMA. That's capitalism 102.
Which is the reason the printer manufacturers are using every trick in the book to block copycat cartridges with copyright and patent law.
Unfortunately these kinds of abuses are prevalent throughout this industry, this specific one brings to mind the advert with for OfficeDepot, I think it is, where the guy reads out the cartridge numbers like it he is reading out lottery numbers.
It is annoying that standardisation has spread through the majority of hardware issues, but still remains stubborn when it comes to printer cartridges.
Post apocalyptic gaming goodness
Except that the printers are designed with part of the electronics in the ink cartridge, making it expensive and difficult to copy. This is a game played by the printer manufacturers to control this market.
Advanced course in Capitalism,
First off didn't read the article yet...but I can tell you that despite the bad practices of printer manufacturers, using third party stuff could void your warranty.
In this case, we have a tektronix (before xerox bought the printing division) that was damaged because someone moved it before properly letting the wax ink dry.
We had a xerox authorized rep, come and take a look at it, telling us how to try to fix it and telling us she suspected that the problem was two fold. Someone had moved the printer before letting the wax dry out into a solid, so that the wax liquid had gotten into some of the nozzles...and also she said that the damage was probably caused by our use of third party wax ink cartridges.
Something to do with the ink in the tektronic being a patented (term?) chemical mixture meant to work in a certain way when it was heated. Although you can use third party ink for it, it is not the same type of mixture and thus can have unexpected side effects.
So short answer is make sure you know what you are giving up by using third party stuff, as it may end up voiding your warranty and possibly ruining your printer (in this case an expensive $1,000 or so printer).
Sure for a cheap inkjet it probably doesnt matter, as if it breaks it's cheap to replace.
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this just reminds me of how they give you those "starter" ink cart. when you first buy the printer, some tell you, some dont...
had a brother fax machine at work once... "this is a sample toner cart. that will only make around 40 faxes" wtf? cheap ass brother...
nothing too new i guess....
"an eye for an eye only makes the whole world blind"
I remember buying my Epson 880 thinking "I only print once in a while, it doesn't matter that the cartridges are $40 bucks a pop, I'll buy one a year tops". Boy did I feel dumb (and taken) when I found out the ink drys in about 3 months or so. It ticks me off I can't find a decent 24 pin dot matrix (not counting high end check printers) new anymore. Used just doesn't cut it, by the time I get ahold of 'em they've been run into the ground (usually the paper feed mechanism jams ever 4 pages or so). The printer market is probably the best example in history of the market working against consumers. Maybe some gov't regulation is called for. Europe did it I think. At least they should do something to keep all those printer cartridges out of land fills. It's ridiculous to needlessly waste resources so companies can sell more product.
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If cartridges were really overpriced, then a 3rd party would enter the market. That's capitalism 101.
Unless, of course, the cartidge connection design is patented. In which case, for the third party to enter the market they would need to negotiate a license for the patent which would essentially be equal to or greater than the profit made per unit.
But that's capitalism 202.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Normally I found that Lexmark cartridges are insanely prices compared to the other brands which shows up furthermore in the price-per-page comparisons you often see.
:-?
Personally I've gone for the 4-cartridge Canon systems for inkjet and a HP 2200D Laser for the normal stuff (using refurbished toner cartridges - a mere $118 rather than $269 - complete with warranty).
This guy certainly proves that a little bit of searching around sure saves a LOT of money.
The whole printer-ink system reeks of things like the Debeers diamond cartel.
Now, I wonder how long this guy's WWW site will stay up
The lack of compatibility certainly gnaws at the engineers in us but it's hasty to assume that the cost to make them compatible would have been zero, especially when you take into account intangibles such as warranty, service, support, etc. Maybe it's just MuVo 2 (4GB compact flash)-type opportunism but the article doesn't bear that out on its own. More research is due before simply calling it "abuse".
There are no karma whores, only moderation johns
That no one creates a standard for ink carts. If you want to make a cart for someones printer, fine, go for it, they all use the same exact cart, just ink quality will be different.
REmember when computer-parts were proprietary, did it help anyone? Did it make them 'better' no, it made them more expensive, and more of a pain in the ass.
But this will never happen, most inkjet companies make most of their $$ off of the ink, not the printer (think the gilette razor blade scheme, or xBox, but w/o the bonus secondary use)
Im glad
What, we May photograph these cartridges? Has Xerox finally smartened up and started for its research and development?
the American car companies....
I mean, why the hell is there a Chevy Suburban and a GMC Suburban?
Oh, and let us not forget about the Denali, the Cadillac Escalade and other SUVs the have the same base as the Suburban.
(I maybe wrong as to the base of the Escalade and the Suburban..)
So... I just checked an ink vendor and the lexmark cartridges they had (same model numbers from the story) were 2x as expensive as the Xerox ones. Nice to know that you're not locked in to the vendor, but beyond that - I think I'd find the Xerox cartridge a better buy. (The vendor was Laser Monks)
"Used just doesn't cut it, by the time I get ahold of 'em they've been run into the ground (usually the paper feed mechanism jams ever 4 pages or so). "
Take them apart and fix them. And yes I use to be a printer tech. Those printers were built like tanks.
As for the situation mentioned in the story. HP and Lexmark could be using different ink formulations. Not all inks are equal. I don't need to tell you how many printers I've seen in bad shape because someone used a third-party cartridge.
When for about the same price as that cart u get a refill kit that can do 10x the number for nothing, when it wears out your print head cause its bad ink, buy another printer and you've still saved thousands in ink costs.
Article from the Chicago Tribune (free reg needed): http://www.chicagotribune.com/technology/chi-02102 2ink,1,1030029.story
A cartridge conspiracy
By Phillip Robinson
Knight Ridder/Tribune
Published October 22, 2002
Ford and Chevron have partnered to design a new SUV. They claim it will run smoother and longer on a gallon of gas than any other SUV in the same class.
However, you'll have to use a special Chevron Premium gas that costs 30 percent to 70 percent more than typical gas. It's up around the $3- to
$4-a-gallon level. Use any other gas from any other station and a microchip in the tank will detect the difference and prevent the SUV from starting.
That protects you from poor performance and possible damage to the finely tuned engine. In fact, trying to use any other gas can sometimes void your warranty.
Relax. It isn't true. In cars, that is. (My apologies to Ford and Chevron.)
But it is true in computer printers.
Time to stop relaxing.
Some of the biggest inkjet printer makers are implanting chips in inkjet cartridges. These chips monitor the ink supply and let you know when you're getting low. They can even freeze the printer when the cartridge is empty. Supposedly that can permanently damage the printer.
So far, not so bad. Pretty much all cars have a fuel gauge, and all printers should, too. I loved when Lexmark added ink supply monitors to its software, so I could see how much was left. Few things are more annoying than getting halfway through a vital document only to run out of ink.
If and when you do find the cartridge, let's hope it isn't your first time buying replacement ink. First-timers are typically shocked at what they have to pay. That $100 inkjet printer may need three $35 cartridges to get back in a printing mood.
No wonder HP makes more profit on "consumables" such as ink than on anything else. No wonder Dell wants into the business. No wonder there's a busy
"recycling" and "remanufacturing" business in discount ink cartridges.
A growing number of companies refill used cartridges, and then sell them - often on the Internet - for 30 percent to 50 percent less. That saves you a lot of money and saves dumps from piles of dead cartridges.
But the remanufacturers won't be able to put a new chip in this latest cartridge design. Or be able to set the old chip back to recognizing "full."
Once that cartridge is empty, it's kaput. No recycling, no savings. The chip "squeals" on any attempt to reuse.
Some inkjet printer owners use their own refill kits to save even more money on ink. These kits are available even in some standard stores. They include a syringe, large bottles of ink and instructions. You fill the syringe and
then inject your cartridges. There's the danger of a mess, and of voiding the warranty, but there's also the prospect of saving 80 percent to 90
percent.
Smart chips in cartridges will also be able to terminate this savings. Once a cartridge is detected as empty, the chip can refuse to recognize it again as full.
It's called "lock in." Many tech companies are looking for ways to lock their customers in, to make it difficult or impossible for customers to
switch to using other suppliers in the future.
Of course, they don't advertise it that way. And many of their engineers and marketers may honestly not believe it that way.
They'll talk about the quality of the ink they make. How it's as much a part of the printing technology as the hardware and software. How you need all three working together to get the full performance. How they want to protect
you from bad prints, and the clogged inkjet tubes and broken printers that cheap ink can cause.
And you know, they're sometimes right. Cheap ink can make cheap-looking prints. No-name ink can clog those tiny jets in your printer.
But shouldn't you be the one to make the decision about which to use? Do you want the company "protecting" you ag
Xerox: Hello, Lexmark support line.
Caller: Yes I'd like to return my printer for new print heads but it has some... minor modifications.
Xerox: You put a viynl sticker on it?
Caller: Not exactly...
Xerox: You wrote the name of your company or business in large letters on the printer to discourage looting?
Caller: Not quite.....
Xerox: Then what?
Caller: I snapped off some plastic bits, by erm, accident.
Xerox: These wouldn't happen to be the print cartridge grabbing bits would they?
Caller: Why yes! They just so happen to be, coincidentally.
Xerox: No support for you! Call back, one year! (dialtone)
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
Now, comparing the Lexmark 12A1975 (the high-yield variant), we se that this has a list price of $40.99, compared to the Xerox part at $41.99. At amazon.com, you get them at $36.88 and $37.88 respectively.
I actually like that fact that Xerox doesn't seem to ship the low-yield variant.
"Unless, of course, the cartidge connection design is patented. In which case, for the third party to enter the market they would need to negotiate a license for the patent which would essentially be equal to or greater than the profit made per unit."
Or do what AMD did, or the consortiumn that came out with PCI.
I don't think they do an Epson chip resetter, though. Mine cost $19 from some store somewhere and has reset everything it's come into contact with, no problem.
Wow!!!! I Hacked An Ink Cartridge that the guy at the store told me to! Wow!!! IT Works!! IT fits!!! I NEVER WAS ANY GOOD AT PUZZLES BUT WOW!! THIS GUY HELPED ME OUT!!! BLEH BLEH BLEH. Wow!!!!
How much of their profit do Printer companies make from ink, especially for low-end printers? I heard it's quite a bit, akin to how console makers make sell consoles at a loss but make up for it through games.
So if that is indeed the case, I wonder how much more printers would cost if they sold cheaper ink? I also wonder how many of the same people would then be complaining about how expensive printers are.
kind of negates the whole point of the article
wow!!! who would've thought??? and not only that!!! finally an article with enthusiasm!!!
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Is someone actually still using ink-jet printers?
The owls are not what they seem
Aren't people just throwing that word around too much these days?
After a bit of researching I also picked up a canon (i550 model). How refreshing to see the ink cartridges are just that - not cartridges + printheads + drm chips.
The print quality is very good for the price (US $110 or so for the 550) and the inks are sold separately _for each color_ to save you money if one color runs out faster than the others. If you are really a cheap bastard you can use third party ink refilling kits without worry, but I've found the quality to be slightly better using the real canon inks.
Best part - a manufacturer original black ink cartridge costs $15 at normal retail. Try finding that for your lexmark or xerox or hp. There are third party knockoff cartridges even cheaper, but they may not print as well on e.g. glossy photo paper.
The i550 is slightly cheaper than the real "photo quality" ones that have special photo color inks in addition to the regular cmy ink. If you are a real photo quality nut you probably want one of those.
I would buy another one in a heartbeat. Screw all those greedy customer screwing "but look how cheap the printer is" bait and switch bastard manufacturers.
Lexmark, Ink. (pun intended) should be beaten with a rubber hose until they drool on the floor.
I have a old Canon BJ-200, that while the quality is not of Lexmark on its best day, I could plug it in right now and it will work - the carts never dry up. Ever. I am fully confident that the fossil record will show this.
I also have a old Panasonic KX-somthing or other that is noisy as hell but will print my obiturary, I'm sure. Which will most likely be soon, as I can't afford food after buying Lexmark supplies.
Anyhow, if Xerox and Lexmark are using similar carts, that is pretty much a big flag to avoid both companies like a strip bar named 'Fish n' Chips'.
Oh, you might be tempted, but there is something they're not telling you.
It seems it's defeating a security feature...
every lexmark printer i've had to work with (and believe its been a quite a few) has been a cheap piece of crap. Most inkjets are pretty cheesy too. And the scary thing is, you can get quality lasers (samsung ml-1710) for under $100 if you shop hard. No funky multi-meg drivers required either.
Lawyers, MBA's, RIAA? A jedi fears not these things!
Good thing this guy lives in another country. If he were in America, he'd probably get hauled in to court for violating the DMCA.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
He could probably also make som decent savings by cutting down on the exclamation marks!!!
Do we not all remember the stories about Lexmark and the DMCA ( ie Lexmark are sueing manufacturers of compatible toner under the DMCA ).
Lexmark products are also low quality and high priced. I'd prefer to buy from Xerox myself.
I've not seen them in shops for about 2 years now and they look VERY similar to the ones in the article...
Indeed all cartridges are expensive and Xerox double so.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
The whole printer cartridge situation is a joke.
It is almost cheaper to buy a new printer than the replace the ink cartridges.
Just think, the printer is worthless, has no value. All the cost is in the cartridge.
Are HP/Epson/Lexmark etc mad? The next printer I get will be a networked laser printer. Sounds expensive, but the wife and kids can then use it and no more extortionate cartridges.
I found a rather nice solution to the cost of cartridges and "refil" kits. 3rd Party CIS systems.
My mother works for Head Start, and does a hideous ammount of printing. This of course adds up when you have to buy cartridges all the time, as we all know.
One day I heard about Continuous Ink Systems. We decided to give it a shot, 99$ for an Epson Photo 820 printer, and 180$ for the CIS kit, and we haven't looked back since.
It is a bit of a kludge to make the system work, but with a little care it will work, and work hard. As opposed to a contained cartridge, it's a tube fed 6 bottle setup. 4 oz. bottles of Ink provide hundreds and hundreds of prints. Full color.
We've certainly saved on cartridges this way, at the cost of some mild frustration from the kit. But in the end it does work.
Computational Madness in a round package.
by use of the pateNTdead eyecon0meter kode & newclear power.
consult with/trust in yOUR creators.... who's day(s) (& everything else) is it anyway?
I had one of these, and I thought it would be great, given that you just buy ink cartridges, instead of the whole head every time. I was also wrong---don't use it for a week and it starts to dry up. Take a 3 week vacation and the printer is shot--and there's no way to remove the ink head assembly or to clean it, so basically it was a wasted printer. I'm currently using a Lexmark X125 (multifunction fax-style printer) that uses the same cartridges which the article showed. About the same price for ink as the Epson C42UX, but I get a new print head everytime.
interested? heres what i found in 0.74 seconds on google: http://store.ink-refills.net/chipresforep.html http://www.abcprinterrepair.com/epson/chip_resette r.htm
http://www.misterinkjet.com/epson_resetter_instruc tions.htm
I have just left HP's employ, but they do not use the term printer much any more, they are ink delivery devices. It is vital that they get a big slice of the ink/toner market and they will do whatever is required to ensure they do, there very survival depends on it.
I wish I could remember the brand name, but there is a special spray that you can apply to the rollers in a printer or copier that give them back their "stickiness". Many time the problem with paper feed is the rollers, not the mechanism. As the former tech below pointed out, the basic mechanism is great on those beasts. It's the little, and fixable stuff that gives first.
Lastly, there are still plenty of makers of 24 pin dot matrix printers. Some less high end then the check printers you mentioned. They're just no longer advertised in office supply catalogs. Go to Processor.com, or, even better, get the dead tree edition, and you'll find plenty of references and, even better, ads.
-Rustin
Data is the lever, rigor the fulcrum, brains the force that drives it all.
It's well illustrated with [many] photographs.
Translation: the site won't survive 5 minutes of slashdotting.
The shareholder is always right.
Printers are to Ink as Razors are to Razor Blades
...you can get a new Lexmark for about 30 Euro with (full!) back and color cartridges.
You print with it until the cartridges are empty.
Then you drive to Lexmark Germany and throw the now worthless printer without wasting any comments into their front garden and go and buy the next one.
Someday they'll learn and understand.
End of story.
..without which 3rd party refills don't work.
I'm sorry if I haven't offended anyone
Does anyone know where I can get cheap replacements for Epson EPSON T0321 T0422 T0423 T0424 cartridges...I am fed with the high cost of these things
It ticks me off I can't find a decent 24 pin dot matrix new anymore
Epson still make dot-matrix printers. See the Impact Printers category on Epson's website.
They already tried to take the information down... ... they submitted the site to SlashDot ;)
I just bought an ink set and a chip resetter for Epson, and it works like a charm. A little googling goes a long way to find the right stuff.
While I was a student, I worked for a plastics company who made the Lexmark cartridges (in the UK). The amount of work to make sure the cartridges were of a good standard was rather surprising, with spot checks on yields every half hour using very fine measuring equipment and magnifying devices. The plastic that was used (I think it was called Noryl and was supplied by GE) seemed temprimental, with many cartridges being rejected. Add to that the fact I destroyed one of the moulding tools at a cost of 50,000 and you can see where the costs are. To have someone then come along and take the 'good' cartridges and fill them with their own ink without incurring those costs does, perhaps seem unfair.
However, if other companies are able to produce the cartridges (without infringing patents), where's the problem? And indeed, if it is the cost of the cartriage itself the companies are worried about, why don't THEY have a recylcling scheme? Clearly, the 3rd party vendors are making money from it...
I hope this post makes sense, I've just woken up...
That the no-name store brand instant noodles are probably made in the same factory as the premium brand ones.
Theworld's entire supply of exclamation marks would get used up in the resultant ranting...
insured for AIDS RAPE? [crazyninjas.org]
Oh my fucking god... I wonder how many times the dude who created that picture had to vomit till he was finished. THAT THING is really the MOST DISGUSTING I've ever seen.
*laugh* very much what I was thinking. I bought the S520 printer - it's not really a 'photo' printer - but I was very content with it. Canon replacement cartridges are $19 here, $11 '3rd party'. Even better yet is that they are common across many different Canon printers - either marketing in Canon is asleep, or the engineers rule the roost, either way PLEASE DONT CHANGE. Incidently, I don't have a blind-love affair with Canon, I really despise their smaller printers (strangely, they all have all-in-one ink).
yeah... what's up with that shit... where are the nice ceren ercen trolls?
A lot of people get this impression of capitalism as being TINA (there's no alternative). Capitalism is as good as gravitation, magnetism, chemical kinetics: it is a number of phenomena that obey social or physical laws, and the result can or cannot be good for society (depending also on the definition of what "good" is)
Simple capitalism theory, including the demonstration that perfect competition is the most efficient way to produce goods, rests on three pillars:
When some of these assumptions go bananas, so goes efficiency, and that's when your wallet starts aching.
It is maybe worth noting that all requirements are in open contradiction, since you can't have perfect knowledge of a infinite market, nor is everything packed in only one market - e.g. ordering from abroad will cost you an "access fee" in the form of mailing costs, that makes buying a 1% cheaper ice cream in Bucharest unattractive if you live in Miami. This simply means that capitalism is achievable only as an approximation, how good depends on the people who set the rules.
In the case of printer cartridges, 1 goes bananas because every producer is a near-monopolist of his printers; 2 goes bananas because few know that it is possible to hack printers to pay less; and 3 because every printer manufacturer has his cartridge market, sometimes more as their printers are normally not cross-compatible.
So, this is indeed Capitalism 101, but at the distortion of market chapter. What needs to be done is a state-imposed standard on printer cartridges, to reinstate competition and fair pricing. Start bullying your politicians today!
Victims of 9/11: <3000. Traffic in the US: >30,000/y
1. wrong or improper use; misuse: the abuse of privileges.
2. harshly or coarsely insulting language: The officer heaped abuse on his men.
3. bad or improper treatment; maltreatment: The child was subjected to cruel abuse.
4. a corrupt or improper practice or custom: the abuses of a totalitarian regime.
5. rape or sexual assault.
6. Obs.deception.
Seriously, get over yourself.
For Lasers I use the Samsung ML4500 because it is easy to refill its toner - a simple plug pops out and in goes the cheap toner. Also at around USD 100 for the whole laser gets you the first 2000 pages anyway.
For colour inkjets I've used Canon S200/250/300 models as they all have the (same part across many models) bladder-only style refills (no head - the head is a separate part). These are cheap (less than USD 15) for Canon-branded refills and even cheaper for generic brand. No refilling kits needed. If the head goes - I'd probably throw out the whole printer.
Time is money and I'm happy to refill a Laser toner (if its easy and this Samsung is but not all Lasers are) but all inkjets are so fiddly (from experience of refilling HP, Lexmark and Oki).
So don't complain about how expensive ink is or how hard it is to refill - look at the whole of life of your purchase including how expensive and how easy it is to refill.
Also at the school I always reject anyone trying to donate printers to us: this is one thing thats more a burden than a gift ! old monitors are fine !
Is it just me, or are the printer-manufacturing companies bringing on their own demise?
By charging outrageous amounts per page for print, aren't they just making the concept of a paperless office all-the-more appealing?
.... to put the price of the ink per unit.
e.g. "The cost of the ink in this cartridge is xxxx US$ per liter" (or gallon or whatever applies).
Then it would hit the public the big scam that all this is.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Here in Brazil we HAVE 3rd party vendors competing in the cartridge market. And that is very good.
We can buy an Epson cartidge for R$20 (something like US$7).
Unfortunately, HP and Xerox cartridges can't be much cheaper -- mainly because of that horrible chip.
Buy Canon.
I don't know how good their Linux support is, though. My most recent printer of theirs was Mac only and I haven't needed a new one.
You can get a cheap laser, or a decent Canon bubblejet printer ... but as long as there are consumers paying lots of money for crap, crap is what will rule the market (keeping prices for better solutions higher than they should be I might add).
I looked all over the web for the Xerox XK40c, AFAIK it has long been discontinued. None of the current Xerox multifunction color printers use inkjet, they're all color lasers now. No wonder the ink carts are so expensive, they're legacy supplies. Toner is cheaper.
Six(or was it four) of those eight are designed by one company, and sold to the rest.
If you guessed Hewlet packard your correct.
As always there are two sides to this:
One is the fact that ink is too expensive, and manufacturers know that. Price of really cheap printers is intentionally as low as it can be, and by using proprietary ink cartridges, manufacturers are only protecting their investment. They sold you a cheap printer, and hope to get their money back on cartridges. It's not just the cartridges. Ever wondered why most of the printers are shipped without printer cable?
A printer cable can cost as much as $25 for a 3m cable, and yet the real price of the cable must be under $1 in bulk. Talking about profit...
The other side has it with print quality. Printer HAS to know, because of the way it's designed, what kind of ink is in the cartridge. Electronics has to be able to direct correct amount of ink at the right time. Replacement ink usually has different physical properties (boiling point, composition, amount of pigment), and the printer has no way of detecting what really got through to paper surface. So with different cartridges you will get different quality and even different colors on paper.
It's a desperate attempt to hang onto profits despite their product becoming a commodity.
They're trying to push the market uphill, by charging heavily for something that was cheap to make (the cartriges), and sooner or later the market will rebound. At which point the profit margins will fall out the bottom of the printer industry, all but the big few will go bust, and innovation will slow to a trickle.
Of course, if it hadn't been for the patent system totally distorting the market, they could never have pulled this stunt to begin with -- but had that happened, you would probably still be using dot-matrix.
In March?? Does this man have some sort of time machine?
Find funky gifts
My mother in law owns a Con S450, which started generating the error code (flashing orange/green) ...-o-o-o-o-o-o-g-... repeatedly.
... but it seems to me applicable to this topic.
Looking it up on the web, we found this (google cache) and this (google cache).
I'll let people make their own opinions, so that I don't accuse them
Anyhow, we don't have a fix, nor much expectation of getting one.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
This guy tells it like it is, from at least 3 sides to the argument. The only thing I can add is that I've had this experience with HP Inks versus the refill.
The refill is definitely inferior: it runs more easily, when the air is humid. But it is almost as good.
When I want to print something final, I get the HP brand ink -- but if I don't care, then the refill is almost as good, and I like the price drop.
Should it be my decision, or HPs? Well, in the end I really like to be able to choose, but I have to know what printers use the fink inks, ahead of time. Usually, it seems to me that the manufacturers hide that kind of information.
So the first step in not getting defrauded would be in getting full info.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
All it takes is adding something to the ink that makes it a bit more viscous or a bit less, and then modifying the mechanism to cope.
I'm surprised the Big Inkjet Printer Manufacturers haven't already done so.
When I used a printer, I used a laser that someone had tossed out, which worked nicely.
Now, though, I just plain don't print anything. Everyone likes having things in electronic format, anyway. These days, most things handed to someone on paper just get entered into a computer.
May we never see th
4. Consumers are rational.
May we never see th
..Operating systems.
There's this one buy this Scandinavian guy....
It's just as good as Windows, but with less blue screens and price tags....
as other posters have mentioned.
;-)
In Aust., they were selling unbelievably cheap moble phones several years back (might still be, I don't live there ATM) but you had to sign up to a rediculously expensive usage plan. Eventually the Govt. made the companies print an expected cost over 1 year of normal use on all advertising.
A similar regulation for printers might solve what is esentially the same problem in a different consumer sector.
Or we could just keep it in mind and calculate it ourselves. Are we not geeks?!
The man with no surname and a silly hat
On the universe: It's bunk.
That seems to me not to be related like ... at all.
If they really wanted to, couldn't manufacturers embed a passive RFID tag inside the body of the cartridge to ensure "their" printer only uses "their" brand ink?
I think for that to happen, they would however need a way to make the cartridges non-refillable.
To-do List: Receive telemarketing call during a tornado warning. Check.
Back in the days when dot matrix was the only game in town, ribbons were exhorbitantly priced, with little "features" to ensure a revenue stream to the manufacturer. The first workaround was ribbon re-inkers. You could place a little block of felt near the ribbon intake and put a few drops of ink onto the felt every so often. Ultimately, generic knock-offs solved most of the problem.
Wow!!!! He sure was happy to get that hack to work!!! He must've shorted his hand across the transformer a couple of times!!!
You are checking your backups, aren't you?
From the article: "Here are both of them side to side, see they are almost the same except for the label."... My first reaction was 'just switch the labels and Bobs your dad's brother'.. 8)
-Copyright law #69:Whenever Mickey Mouse is about to enter the public domain,copyrights get extended by 25 years.
When I ponder the ink cartridge issue in my head I try to relate it to the auto industry. With manufacturers oursourcing their pars more and more, the chances of two products from competing products containing the same or very similar parts increases. On the one hand the manufacturer is trying to determine the value of manufacturing a component over its lifetime. On the other hand the consumer wants the parts as cheaply as they can get them. Either way the R&D and engineering that want into designing the component should be reimbursed. Same thing with drugs. Same thing with art.
But then again the gas and fuel filling recepticles on cars are universal. But in that case the engineers in one industry (automotive) were makeing their product compatible with a system designed by another industry (petroleum). Maybe a company should come along and supply really good ink at commodity prices. Maybe printer companies wouold then have an incentive to standardize. Of course they would also probably have to char 5X for the printer or just plain get out of the printer business.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
...and sold their own-brand cartridges (i.e. not the printer manufacturers') for cheaper and for a wider range of models than is usually advertised on the printer manufacturers' cartridges.
I always thought that the lack of a printer cable was just a way to make the retailer happy. The retailer isn't making much of a profit on the printer, but cables are almost 100% profit. USB cables are ridiculously overpriced.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
when your landfile/dump/wherever you put your trash get full???
Arf!
http://www.philipkdick.com/works_novels_ubik.html
I have a GCC technologies Elite Xl-20/800 that is toner and fuser compaticble with an Apple LaserWriter and a Fugi-Xerox P880 print engine. It's for sale BTW... so if interested email me. ;-)
HP is also considering (or already has implemented) an ink cartridge with a chip in it so you can't refill them or use third party brands.
As corporate greed grows the life of your purchased product and options declines (thank God for the software and hardware hackers that find ways around this stuff)
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Fuck you!!! Fuck you all dammit ! Stick a porcupine up your ass! You know you love it! Now stick a pineapple up your ass! You know you love it! Now stick a pinecone up your ass! You know you love it! You are all stuck up mama's boys!! heeyah!!!!
You work for Xerox, don't you?
Wasn't that you, by a chance, who designed that pieces of crap the guy removed to insert the cartridges?
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I have bought a Lexmark inkjet printer yesterday.
Lexmark Z605, complete with two cartridges - color and black. The printer costs 240 PLN (Polish zloty), the black cartridge costs 120 PLN and the color cartridge costs 140 PLN. That makes 260 PLN for the whole set, which is 20 PLN more than the printer that comes with the cartridges!
I asked the guy if it made any sense to him... He just said that he sells more printers than ink and told me that as soon as the ink runs out, I should sell mine to someone in need and come to buy another printer (newer model, unused, yet cheaper than ink).
Next time they'll be handing new cars with every gallon at gas stations!
I had an upper end QMS departmental printer, about UDS 30000. One day a Ricoh salesman came through, and looked at my printer and started laughing. Turns out most of it the same hardware. Then, I accidentally found out that Digital was selling the same printer.
So I compared consumables prices, and the same toner cartridges, OPC kits, etc. were at wildly different prices. I bought my stuff from Digital and cut my monthly costs in half.
If you got a $100 bill, put your hands up...
They way printer manufacturers try to sell cheap printers only to then make money by selling the ink has gotten really ridiculous. Let me tell you an example: Somebody I know has a small PC shop in addition to his normal job. Some weeks ago, he got an offer from one of the sellers he gets his hardware from about a pretty cheap Lexmark printer (Z65pro IIRC, some color ink printer with integrated 10/100 print server). They offered the printer to him for about 60 Euros, including a "high capacity" color ink cartridge. Since this was pretty cheap, he ordered fifteen printers and then sold them to some of his customers who were looking for a cheap printer to go with their new computer. Some of them also wanted an additional ink cartridge, just in case. My colleague then looked what a new original Lexmark ink cartridge for this printer would cost - 70 Euros!
...
End result: he ended up buying ten additional PRINTERS, stripped them of the ink cartridge (which he then sold to his customers) and sold the printers, without ink cartridge, for a few Euros each on eBay. It was actually FAR CHEAPER to buy a WHOLE NEW PRINTER than to buy an additional ink cartridge.
Instead of buying ink - just throw the printer away and buy a new one
I'm pretty sure we have an old Epson lying around somewhere that we used with the Apple ][c. I remember needing/wanting to print something out but not being able to because the rest of the house was sleeping. The last time I used one of those things was when I was working as a manager for Haggar Clothing and the print quality is only tolerable. If you're not looking for nice printouts for reports or whatever (and not printing graphics), dot matrix is fine.
I have a Canon BJC-1000 which has black catridges that cost about $25 bucks a pop. I've had the latest catridge for much more than three months and it hasn't dried out. I'm not sure how many hundreds of pages I get out of it but it's up there. At 500 pages it works out to 5 cents a page which isn't terrible. I paid maybe $50 for the printer and I've had it for 5 years or more.
"At least they should do something to keep all those printer cartridges out of land fills."
There's a cartridge refilling shop at my university. You don't have to throw them away. You just need to be proactive in finding a place that will refill them.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
...and will keep doing so till it dies natural death. The only difference between "low-yield" and "high-yield" cartridges is that "low-yield" are sold half-empty anyway.
I actually like that fact that Xerox doesn't seem to ship the low-yield variant.
Spend $20 on low-yield, $30 on 3 "double" refill sets till cartridge dies. Cost: $50, print: 6.5 cartridgefuls of ink.
Spend $40 on high-yield, $30 on 3 "double" refill sets till cartridge dies. Cost: $70, print: 7 cartridgefuls of ink.
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I recently bought a 12 year old HP Laserjet 4+. It's reliable, sharp and reasonably fast (they don't make em like they used to). I recently ran out of toner, and purchased a refilled one. What can I do with my empty one - is there somewhere I can send it to be refilled? (I'm in UK if that makes any difference).
SpamNet - a spam blocker that really works
Using the DMCA to block 3rd party cartridge makers is an example of socialism. It is using the government to take form one group of citizens on behalf of another.
The fact the the group benefitting is a business does not make it any less socialistic.
Considering that after 6 months HP won't even answer an e-mail without payment for a support contract, I'm not quite sure exactly what I'd be forfeiting if I used a cheaper cartridge. Actually, I'm thinking of upgrading to a Canon next time I replace my printer. I've been more than happy with a scanner of theirs and the HP has a software quirk that makes it go bananas sometimes and start spitting out sheets with one or two lines of garbage on them. I can't count the number of times I've hollered to myself, "damn bastards--never again." HP's problem is they keep putting out new models for no good reason that just look a little different with no real improvements at all. Maybe they think they're M$ or something?
"Is this Winkhorst a nova criminal?" "No just a technical sergeant wanted for interrogation."
Lexmark obviously makes the Xerox printer in question. They design in little differences, like that ink clip, in order to create separate ink streams, which are where the money is. The article shows how one person got around one such difference.
Dell printers are also Lexmark; I don't know if they differentiate on ink. But if you read the printer reviews in the PC mags, you'll see the estimated per-page ink prices. Guess whose are highest? Lexmark ink is much costlier than the other major brands (HP, Canon, Epson), with Dell-branded ink usually a notch higher yet.
After taking a lexmark inkjet out back and having an Office Space session with it I purchased the i550. It is hands down the only ink jet printer I've ever owned that I am satisfied with:
* Ink is inexpensive
* Cartridges can easily be refilled if you want to.
* No DRM, no false "your ink is low" messages
* It has never ever jammed on anything.
* It's very quiet compared to the HP, Lexmarks and Xeroxes I've owned in the past.
* It is built like a tank (especially compared to Lexmark which is built like a cereal box).
* it is $99 at Office Max/Depot/Whatever
-- $G
I've been in the photocopier/fax/printer business for over 23 years. It is very common for manufacturers to produce machines for different companies, then when they sell them the cartridges, "fix" them in some way so they will not fit the OEM cartridge, but only the "branded" cartridge. Toshiba builds many of it's low end fax/copiers for Xerox, and the Toshiba cartridges will not fit the Xerox unless you break off some plastic tabs. Also, all of the newer Toshiba digital copiers have a "patiented" cartridge design (a small plastic tab) that, when the cartridge rotates, pushes against a microswitch. The purpose? If someone puts in an aftermarket cartridge, it will run, but will pop up on the display "use genuine Toshiba toner only". Inkjets are a little different, but if you knew the variations in quality of powder toner, you would understand why we don't want anything but OEM toner circulating inside. I've seen some of the cheap "toner pirate" toner that was all clumped together inside the bottle. I tell my customers, who don't have a service contract (toner is included in the contract), that if you insist on using non Toshiba toner, please call me first so I can check it out BEFORE you install it.
Here's another vote for Canon. I switched to an i860 colour printer after having 2 different Epson inkjets turn into boat anchors within months of purchase (using Epson print carts). They simply refused to honour the warranty, even though I had receipts showing the printers were only months old and receipts showing the purchase of Epson carts. I'll never use Epson for anything ever again.
I'd really like to see that with FIAT replacements for my brand new FERRARI! :)
THAT would beat SOME price difference, no?
I don't have the figure handy, but my estimate is a figure with, oh, 6 digits.....
8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
This is an other example on why companies like Lexmark and Xerox have to work harder and harder to make their products less standardized.
Well dealing with corporations there are some truths and fallacies.
Truth: A corporation goal is to make money. They will do whatever possible to try to stay completive and maintain the highest possible profit.
False: There goal is to screw everyone over. And purposely sell crap.
I have dealt with a lot of different companies in different industries and working with a lot of the middle to upper management. (One of the advantages of being a onsite consultant). I think almost all of the managers I have talked to would much rather sell top quality product with a low overall TCO. But the consumers don't want that anymore or at least wont pay for it. So except for paying $300 for a quality low end printer the consumers demand that they sell the printer for $75. Of course we all should know the cost to build these things are more then just the cost of parts, There is research, design, costs (with consumers also requesting new and better ones every year so there is a lot of research and design constantly going on), Labor costs, Advertising and marketing costs, Taxes, and a lot more. So $75 for a quality printer is tough to make at cost. So what options can they do? Either they can do shortcuts in the design to make the product with less quality. Or Sell the printer at a loss and make it up selling supplies. Or sometimes a combination of the both. Well lowering quality is often a tricky thing to do because if you make the quality to low then you do not get return customers (Packard Bells^M^M^M^M^MHells anyone?) So they have to rase prices on ink and supplies for the company to make a profit. So now they are doing this, and they company is doing fine. Then you get some people out there who found a way to put in 3rd party Ink or not you ink into your product. Your options are this. Lower your Ink Prices (and Rase your printer prices), well this option isn't to good because people will not buy the more expensive printers when they have your competitors $75 Printer right next to yours. Or you redesign you printer and or cartridges to be harder to copy. For ink cartridges on the low end printers they estimate that the average person (You may not be an average person) will replace the ink in their printer every 4 months over 4 years after 4 years most people get a new printer so that is 12 cartridges per printer lets say cartridge should cost $15 but the mark it up 120% ($18) so now it is $33 per cartridge so over the 4 years they are paying $216 extra for the cartridge. So that plus the $75 for the printer is $291 for the total printer cost. And Wow that is about the same price that they would want to sell their printer for anyways.
Now if all of you people were better consumers, and you shelled out more money for a more expensive printer where the ink cost is less then then printer company will go back to selling cheaper ink again.
I have a major problem with people who try to beat the system. Because when people start beating the system in the long run we all loose. Because it can force companies to stop letting a lot of things from sliding (Say if the sold the printer for $300, then the 3rd party ink people were selling ink for cheaper) Then the company can let it slide and/or be more competitive on their ink because they are running at a profit for printer sales. But when they are selling product at a loss and people start beating the system and going 3rd party. Then the company is loosing money and will try to keep itself alive. So then we all pay because tighter laws are made other companies begin jumping on the same train.
If most americans were responsible consumers. Paying extra for the printer xor Paying the extra cost for 1st party ink. Not Pirating software. Repurchase and recommend brands that you fine to be quality, Once in a while financially supporting you favorite linux distribution. Then the economy will A. Be a lot better, and B. Most companies will be a lot more fair and produce better products.
Just something to think about before you going everyone who makes money is evil because I cant afford what they are selling.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Speaking as an author who actually does have to deal with 500 page manuscripts on a regular basis, I've learned quite a bit about printers. I started off with a dot matrix when I was in university, and then, when I was moving to my apartment in Kingston, had to choose between a laser and an inkjet.
I'll freely admit, even now, that a dot matrix is much more economical than an inkjet. But, for the purposes of writing, they're just too slow. I don't have the time to have my printer occupied for an entire day printing out that book that I'm sending off to the publisher. So, the dot matrix was cancelled out immediately.
When I did my research on the inkjets, I learned one important thing - the inkjet printers sell for less than they cost to make. Every time an inkjet printer is sold, it's at a loss to the company making it. They make their money off the ink. I'm not sure if it's honest or not - I imagine if you're just going to be printing out the occasional webpage, it doesn't matter all that much. For a writer, though, it would be a disaster.
On to the laser printer. At the time I bought, the lasers were printing at least ten pages per minute, and the toner cartridges lasted (and still do) for around 3-6,000 sheets (I use a Brother). I can't complain about the print quality at all. As an author, the laser was the logical choice.
But here's the thing - I'm an author, but most people aren't. There are a lot of casual users who don't use that much paper with their computer at all. It takes them a year to print out what I would print out in a month. To them, a dot matrix or a laser printer is overkill.
I wonder, however, just how many people bother to do the research that I did before deciding which printer to buy.
Robert B. Marks
Author, Demonsbane in Diablo Archive
So, this is indeed Capitalism 101, but at the distortion of market chapter. What needs to be done is a state-imposed standard on printer cartridges, to reinstate competition and fair pricing. Start bullying your politicians today!
Look, I know to the average geek ink prices are a big deal. But in the grand scheme of things printer ink cost isn't that important. It is a luxury item, after all. We don't *need* to print color pictures after all to live.
If you call the government in on such a minor issue would risk a nanny state where we need the government's permission to do anything. The government needs to be aware of the important stuff--food, water, housing, etc. But printer ink? Come on. If it begins to be enough of a problem someone will come along and sell a $200 printer with guaranteed $10 ink carts.
Heck, I can see Dell selling a $100 printer for $10 ink carts just to screw over HP's most profitable business.
Brian Ellenberger
I too, love canon's 8xx and 9xx line ;) They really are the only thing i'd consider buying (for my needs, home use) right now...
:)
Epson wants some insane amount for their wide format printer ink (they use 4-7 carts, each at around 80-90$ from epson) that's available at places like lasermonks for $15... They're just as bad as lexmark, only their throwaway printers aren't as cheap
Whatever you say, moon-god worshipper.
Thanks to this story the AdWords column is now displaying text ads for Xerox
Ironic, no?
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
Lexmark is winning this case although I think appeals are still going on.
Best. Comment. Ever. Enjoy!
"No warrantor of a consumer product may condition his written or implied warranty of such product on the consumers using, in connection with such product, any article or service (other than article or service provided without charge under the terms of the warranty) which is identified by brand, trade or corporate name
Simply put, the warrantor can not void a warranty because of the use of an aftermarket part. Furthermore the warrantor must show that an aftermarket part caused the damage in question that they wish to void the warranty over. While this act was passed to protect automotive aftermarket part manufacturers I'm guessing it could be applied to this situation. Maybe someone with Westlaw access could check.
Check out "Understanding the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act" for some more information.
Of course getting a manufacturer to obey the law and not try to weasel out of their obligations is something completely different.
"And a voice was screaming: 'Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?'" - HST
I have no problems with people using refilled carts. HOWEVER, what most people using these fail to realize is that there is no way in hell I'm going to support your "poor print quality" when you are using the 4.00 refills that you bought at a convienance store. I'm a tech support supervisor\2nd level tech and we constantly get people calling in saying that ink has leaked all over their printer after they refilled their carts. Should HP, Lexmark or Epson be responsible for fixing or repairing the printer when the customer does something with it that we do not support? Or how about when someone overrides the chip on the carriage and now no cartridge is detected properly? Is that the companies fault? If AMD and Intel don't support mods to their chips in the form of overclocking why in the hell should the HP?
I don't think it's any big secret that Lexmark's (and most other inkjet manufacturer's) business model is to sell the printer cheaply (or even at or below cost) and make money later on ink/toner refills. If you could buy an inkjet printer for $400 with $10 cartridge refills instead of a $50 printer with $30 cartridge refills would you? Maybe some other printer manufacturer should give it a try, or maybe none of them do because it just won't sell.
I used to work for Lexmark in their laser printer division and can say that they create rebadged printers for other companies and in some cases buy printers from other manufacturers and put the Lexmark name on them as well. In some cases they would buy say a low end printer from Samsung, sell it with their name on it, and then also OEM to other companies like Dell who then put their name on it. All of their higher end printers are designed in-house though.
For laser printers, a smartchip is used on the toner cartridges to protect the refill revenue stream for Lexmark or for the company they are OEM'ing the printer for. I don't think it's evil, it's just the way they've chosen to market and make money.
Tell us so we could avoid buying their products!
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I have Panasonic cordless phones -- two phones with one battery each, and one spare battery recharging in the base station. The Panasonic batteries were expensive and hard to find, but I found an identical, generic battery at Sears. The battery didn't fit -- until I removed an extraneous bit of plastic with a Dremmel tool. Works like a charm...
I really hate the fact that the cost of replacement carts can and often do exceed the cost of an inexpensive printer. I don't do a whole lot of printing anymore because of the excessive cost of these danged carts.
When you buy replacement part for a car, you have several choices. You can buy parts from the OEM, you can buy parts on the secondary market from after market manufacturers and you can buy parts from rebuilders. There are advantages and disadvadvantages to each. You know those advantages and purchase accordingly.
It used to be the same with replacement parts for printers but with the DCMA and other regulations, it is now more or less a thing of the past. It is wrong. The manufacturer is now able to say "One of the things that you do when you buy this printer from us is you enter into a relationship with us for as long as you own the printer." This is not what I expected. I wonder what's next - will they develop a printer that only works with the paper they make?
I've contemplated buying a printer and modifying it so that I can easily refill it using syringes filled with ink. But I understand that Lexmark, HP and others have started building in "smart chips" that kind of count the ink that the cart dispenses. These chips then simply shut down after a perscribed amount of time. I don't know how true this is but I think I'll try this with my $35 Lexmark just to see.
...to get modded +5, Informative, I simply have to make two factual statements, one of which is wrong, and the other monumentally obvious.
Fantastic
www.lasermonks.com
Computer Geeks has two listed: a narrow carriage industrial printer (Citizen 500) and a wide carriage model (Citizen GSX-195). The former is $84.99, the latter is $99. For a further discount, start at FatCash and link from there for a rebate, and also use coupon code FATWALLET for another 10% off.
And no, I don't work for any of these companies and really wish you would buy an IBM printer instead. IBM's models start at about $2600. They're called "impact printers," by the way. Just about every printer (except the old daisy wheel and band printers) uses dot matrix technology (a matrix o' dots).
This is synonymous with the razor business. Have you ever noticed that Gillette practically gives away the razors? They make all their money selling you replacement blades. My for-work-only Epson Stylus Photo 915 cost around $200 dollars. I spend more than that on ink every 2-3 months.
python -c "x='python -c %sx=%s; print x%%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))%s'; print x%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))"
Unless you need to print color, you can do better by going to eBay and buying a used laser printer that (a) will work with Linux without any fuss since it understands PCL and that (b) doesn't require expensive ink cartridge refills, as you can simply buy toner in bulk and refill the toner cartridge yourself every 5,000 sheets for very little money.
I myself got an fabu-tastic HP Laserjet 4L for $35 + shipping, and it has given me zero problems from day one. Great little printer, and no ink refills to pay for.
[ home ]
Perhaps I've come up with a good idea - OpenConsumables. Why do us users get together to try and encourage the manufacturers to be more open with the consumables and not lock us into purchasing only their brand consumables.
Let's be honest, no manufacturer forces you to stick their brand on paper into their equipment (so the free-market applies)... but when it comes to consumables they will, if they can, lock you in.
Yes, I know that a lot of mnufacturers sell their machines with hardly any margin and recoup all their profit from the consumables, but when the same consumable is sold by two different manufacturers at at 50% price differential, it does make you think.
Time to form the Free Consumables Foundation - with free as in choice
I smell a DMCA lawsuit brewing. *mirrors page really quickly*
You must have a very small boat.
OTOH, i had an epson c62 (super cheap) in denmark. i dropped it when moving. i told epson this, and they sent a guy out the next next day with a replacement under warranty.
I've got an HP Officejet D Series and have always wondered why black is printed with CMYK by default instead of pure black. Perhaps the manufacturers are trying to come up with the MOST INEFFICIENT way to consume your consumeables. =P
If you are ever in the situation where an empty non-black cartridge is preventing you from printing black text, look to see if there is a printer option that allows you to specify not only "greyscale" printing but "black only" printing. On my HP at least, this will create perfectly serviceable black text using only the black ink cartridge.
-ST
Can you still print if one of the cartridges is empty, yet still installed?
I'm a big retard who forgot to log out of Slashdot on Mike's computer! LOOK AT ME.
either marketing in Canon is asleep, or the engineers rule the roost
Or maybe there are enough people like me who'll happily pay more for an equivalent-spec Canon because they have simple (and cheaper) tank replacement.
Yeah, sometimes I replace the tanks with compatibles, sometimes not. Canon will still make more money from me than Lexmark ever will.
I really despise their smaller printers (strangely, they all have all-in-one ink).
Does the i450/i455 count as a smaller printer? The print quality is incredible given the price.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
I recently bought a Dell A920 printer. (I wouldn't normally buy a Dell printer but I was helping someone out how bought it and couldn't use it).
,lo, it looks almost identical to the ones in this article. The "knob" on top is shaped different, and it seems to be "keyed" by the shape of it, but the rest of it looks the same.
Anyway, I was fairly pissed off to find that the cartriges are only availble from Dell, directly. After a little research I discovered that Lexmark makes the printer and they "key" the cartriges differently for the different "models".
Now, with this article, I actually LOOKED at the cartrige and
Now I have to look into modifications......sigh...
Interestingly, this is also true in the laser printer realm. I got sick of paying ~$35 every two months or so for an ink cartridge, so I started looking for a decent personal laser printer. I settled on the Lexmark e210 because it's fast, cheap, and uses USB. Though I don't have to replace the toner often, it's still expensive (about $70 a pop!) and I didn't feel like shouldering the expense. That's when I discovered that the Samsung ML1210 takes the EXACT SAME toner except for a minor difference. The Lexmark toner has tamper-proof screws; the Samsung doesn't. So, you make your slight modification to the printer, you buy one Samsung toner cartridge, and then dump toner in whenever you need more.
No, I'm referring to even smaller things, like their 1000 series printers (from a few years back).
However, my preference for Canon really starts at their bottom-level multi-cartridge systems and works up from there.
I'm going to need and A3 printer one of these days and it looks like another Canon will be the choice.
I don't mind that printer companies offer 'small flakey' printers, so long as they do offer the 'robust reliable and efficient' ones as well (Even at a price premium).
Regards.
The reason your ink counter reset is because you removed the cartridge. Newer cartridges would not reset on their new line; they have a chip that meters ink usage. The reason they do this is quite simple; if you use the printer without ink it will ruin the head. Epson uses a micromechatronic head system consisting of a diamond attenuating in a pressurized chamber. If you run their ink system without ink "which acts as a cooling agent and a lubricant", you will fry the head and/or the quality will degrade considerably. The reason it refuses to print after the color is empty, even if you are just printing b&w is due to the fact it primes and cleans the heads before use, which uses both cartridges. If you do that without ink, you will hurt and/or fry the head. I've seen many of their old systems get fried because of this; fortunately their new system isn't as susceptible to this workaround of the protection system.
Save more by printing less.
How much do you print? Is it easier to distribute info to machines directly?
Know your pads. One time pad: good for cryptography. Two timing pad: where to take your mistress.
epson print nozzles dry out- without this cleaning cycle (basically just forcing ink thru into a tank) if you used it for black printing only, and there was no color ink in the cart, the color wouldn't work next time you used the printer.. the nozzles would be fulla gunked up ink
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Interestingly enough, if you think that it might not yield the full cartridge with this metering system, you would be correct. I did several tests on all their printers available in the past two years and have noticed on every single one there is usually some ink left in the cartridge when it says it is empty. It is much worse on the C80/82/84's however. Those had quite a bit of ink left, enough so that when I reset the chip, it was able to print about 200 or more pages after it claimed it was empty. The 800/825/925, however, had enough for a few pages at best due to evaporative losses. If you want to play around with yield comparisons, this device is available in a few places which you can find on goodle.
Yes, you can fit cheaper ink carts into your printer with a minor modification. Big fscking deal.
You can fit a skoda oil filter into your audi with minor modifications too, but you wouldn't.
I hope the "we should be able to use any cartridge in any printer" people do win the battle. And then when printer prices skyrocket back up to 10x what they are now we'll wonder what happened.
www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
And here we see the fallacy and why the 'tricks' people use to save on printing will never scale:
When the original cartridge was just too bad to recycle it it was time to finally buy a new one, but we were unable to find it in Rosario nor in Buenos Aires.
The original cartridge was unavailable because nobody is buying them. In a world where everybody refills, there won't be any cartridges to refill.
---
Heck, I can see Dell selling a $100 printer for $10 ink carts just to screw over HP's most profitable business.
:)
If the battery and light bulb markers, worldwide, aren't enough to convince you this will never happen, then nothing will. I want some of what you've been smoking
Welcome to Print Club.
Rule 1. Do not buy inkjet printer for b&w jobs.
Rule 2. Do NOT buy inkjet printer for b&w jobs.
Try laserjet. You can find some on Ebay for about the same price as inkjet printer + ink tray + ink cartridge. And for as low as $5-$10 worth of toner, you can refill your own toner cartridges. Toner is better on presentation transparencies since its NOT drippy ink.
This link says a commodity is:
A physical substance, such as food, grains, and metals, which is interchangeable with another product of the same type, and which investors buy or sell, usually through futures contracts. The price of the commodity is subject to supply and demand. Risk is actually the reason exchange trading of the basic agricultural products began. For example, a farmer risks the cost of producing a product ready for market at sometime in the future because he doesn't know what the selling price will be.
I don't see printer cartridges fitting this definition at all.
As an Epson tech. I've always found the wet-printing process a bit of an oddity. Look at one of these printers after a year or two. Yuck! It would have been better if these printers had a seperate fluid just for head cleaning. Either that, or the color lasers become much cheaper.
I've got two HP printers, different ones bought at different times. Both share the same annoying habit of letting me know months in advance that I am "LOW ON INK" and that I should go get me some more 40 -50 dollar ink cartridges as soon as possible and change it out. No thanks HP, why don't you allow me to turn off this annoying warning and let me buy cartridges when I darn well feel like it. This isn't even mentioning that the two printers require four different cartridges and that the older printer doesn't even accept the proper ink cartridges any longer. Ahhh, the frustration of printers. Thus sayeth gadlaw.
Enjoy your Karma, after all you earned it. Feel your Karma Joe, feel it burn.
"Free as in Printer Cartriges"?
paintball
Why do you think it cost you 30 Euro to buy the printer in the first place... Their gardener hoses off the printers, and puts them back in a box, and ships it back to the stores.
I'd do that, if I were them.
By "going to a printer" I mean a print shop like kinkos or similar.
Ink cartridges have been in the range of $30-$50 for about 10 years now. I can't beleive this is because the technology is not getting any cheaper or that the features are significantly improving.
Consumers are simply being raked over the coals. The inket companies have a "gentlemen's pact" with each other to share their patents with each other, so I suspect they do the same with cartridge pricing.
Until the patents expire, they will continue to have us by the balls. I just wonder if inkjets would have still been invented when they were if we did not have patent laws.
Table-ized A.I.
Why buy color printers?
If I want to print a digital photo, I can do so much better and cheaper at the nearest developer. Or I send it over the net, receiving the prints in the mail.
Sure, there are special applications (I wrote a medical planning system, and it had to print in color), but not that many.
If I just want to print, why would I buy an ink-jet? A liter of ink costs me about as much as a kilo of gold (US: 1 liter = 0.22 gallons, 1 kg = 2.2 pounds).
Instead, I bought a used laser printer. Neat paper tray, crisp 600 dpi, postscript with 48MB, network, serial and parallel port, very reliable, and it cost me about $150.
I don't print that much, and after two years I still haven't changed the toner.
*shrug*
Free PC version of ChipWits at http://www.breueronline.de/klaus/chipwits/
off hand do you know if the Samsung ML1710 toner cart can be refilled?
80% of HP's revenue comes from imaging and printing, aka mostly ink. Their strategy, and this is applicable to Lexmakr et. al., is to maintain and expand that cash cow while somehow keeping the consumer from (a) discovering it and (b) finding a different route to the same ends (printed stuff). As long as we pay, they will pursue this strategy.
Is the juice worth the sqeeze?
I have the same printer, I bought it about 3 years ago here in Chile (south america), when I upgraded to WindowsXP I found out the did not support the scaner in XP, when I called the representatives of the company here in Chile, they told me, tha I "must downgrade to Win98, beacause that was the deal when I bought the printer"?,
We are talking here about a 3 year old model... so, next time I want to buy a new periferic, I should ask "Whill this model be supported with whateve OS Microsoft release next year??"
So basicaly, I'm stuck with a very expensive bad idea.....
Long story short, I bought a Lexmark SC1275 Color Laser on eBay for under $600. Worth every single penny. You can get the SC1270's for less than $300 on eBay. The printer can sit *forever* and print just fine when you need it to. And now that color is so cheap and easy, I print *everything* in color. It makes a difference when everything you send to a customer has at least your logo in color, and when you use really bright white (100+) paper. They notice the difference. I've received a number of compliments.
Linux IT Consulting and Domino Development in Michigan
I have an Epson Deskjet 842C and for most printing I simply print in draft mode and grayscale. Then I noticed that the other day, despite this setting, the printer is using magenta when it prints in grayscale, along with the black. Since when do I need colour to print grays!?
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
I agree with you on batteries, but the light bulb cartel seems to have been broken in recent years. Shop carefully and a 60 watt incandescent bulb is in the 25 to 50 cent range.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
I was going to say. If some startup electronics firm wants to get ahold of the inkjet printer market, what better way to do it than to advertise cheap refills? Maybe even allow the first 2 refills to be included in the cost of the printer, which will be a little higher than the existing models. Then inkjet refills will become commoditized just like the printers themselves.
I didn't mind paying $300 for an inkjet printer that lasted almost 10 years (HP 540C). I wouldn't mind doing so again. Buying "throw-away" $50 printers with $80 cartridges is just a marketing ploy. If it stops working, sure, it'll swing back, good for us; we'll pay for what we're supposed to pay for.
I'd love to buy high-quality photo ink from one company and use it in the high-quality photo printer from the other company.
Who says the same people develop both the best print technology and the best ink?
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
I certainly hate being forced to pay $32+ USD for a stupid ink cartridge, but haven't we gone over the reasons why this is so? The printers are sold either at a loss, or at a very low margin. The cost is made up through the sale of the cartridges. This seriously screws users that expect to use a printer for a long time (my DJ870c is seven years old), but I see many folks getting a printer every 2-3 years.
Folks look at the prices and say, "wow, this printer has a higher resolution and it's under $200!" So, if most of us are buying on that schedule, this business model will be sustained. I hate it, but I have to admit that the printer manufacturers came up with a good plan. Consumers are generally penny-wise and pound foolish, so it works. Hey, WalMart makes a ton of money off people by selling them less for more.
If consumers wise up, things will change. I remember the desktop scanner price war a number of years back. It seems like every company was selling junky parallel or USB scanners for under $100 USD. I told my father to sink the big bucks into a SCSI HP model, because it would be built better, and SCSI would be faster than a parallel port. At first he didn't listen, and he bought some cheap model at an unbelievably low price. Well, this scanner had a carriage for the reader that was driven on one side, and it bound up and got broken within two days. He returned it and bought the SCSI model. He hasn't had a problem since. Apparently a lot of consumers bought junk and complained, because it is very difficult to find an ultra-cheap scanner now.
So, my typical long-winded anecdote aside, why is this fellow surprised that the cartridges are priced differently for two different printers? That tells me that it costs Xerox more to manufacture its printer.
Fred
"A fool and his freedom are soon parted"
-RMS
I have an HP Deskjet 832C, and I tried shaking the cartridge once, and the ink splattered all over the damn place. It actually took me a moment to figure out WTF was going on, before my brain told my arm to stop shaking. Be advised, cover the ink nozzle before you shake!
-- paper
Obviously, the underlying technologies were very similar for these different OEM products. For purely marketing reasons, the products were made noncompatible. Engineers always resent this, but we need to realize that, like it or not, engineering is less a predictor of product success than marketing.
Disabling the keying features to allow your printer to use different ink cartridges is not very useful. You still must buy a new ink cartridge. Not much savings.
Refilling is theoretically a better way to save money, but it's problematic. Much as toner isn't just black dust, all inks are not created equal. Reliable inkjet printing is actually a surprisingly technical matter once you're past the consumer impression of "spray ink on a page" and you get down to the complex underlying chemistry and physics. The ink formulation is very important. I could go into tedious detail, but there probably isn't much general interest, and I do not want to take the chance of violating a nondisclosure agreement. Information that seems like common knowledge to an engineer is often considered a trade secret.
My conclusion is, you may or may not be able to drill and fill ink cartridges with some generic ink. The cheap ink refill kits are very likely to be a complete waste of time and money. The more expensive kits aren't really that much cheaper than the cartridges for the hassle involved, and they still may or may not work, and even when they work the print quality will suffer.
I've experimented with drilling and filling myself for my own very small scale use, with mixed results. You might reasonably expect to get one more use out of a filled cartridge on average, but the print quality will be worse because of unrecoverable clogged nozzles or burned out heaters. But keep in mind that I already knew a lot about the inner workings. YMMV.
A much better strategy to save money on ink cartridges is eBay. Don't buy the "remanufactured" cartridges. Those are just cartridges that someone else has drilled and filled, with about the same questionable results you could obtain for a lot less money. Instead, buy new cartridges in the manufacturer's sealed bags. They usually sell for less than half the price of online discount office supply stores. That makes them about the same price as the better refill kits, for a lot less hassle, and with a lot better print quality.
The fundamental issue here is, and always will be, marketing. It isn't just Lexmark. Our consumer habits force printer companies to sell printers at a loss and make up for this by inflating the price of supplies. The often used razor blade analogy is exactly correct. Companies are in business to make money. This is a good thing. You know the situation is screwed up when the price of an inkjet printer is consistently the same as the cost of the cartridges that ship with it. Of course, this does nothing to foster brand loyalty. When you can buy a printer with ink cartridges for the price of the replacement ink, that's what a lot of people do. Sadly, the printers go to the landfill as a monument to our consumption obsessed society. But I repeat, this problem is industry wide. It is not unique to Lexmark.
Low cost printing tips:
1) About half of Lexmark inkjets are Linux compatible. Check www.linuxprinting.org to see which work with Linux.
2) For volume printing, get a laser printer. Both color and mono lasers and toner are widely available on eBay. Printer prices start at about $40. Try to get a printer you can pick up locally, because shipping is usually $40-$80. All
You're at a +4, keep pedalling ...
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
- Correction of any problems after the fact is acceptable.
This means that consumers can see which producers are providing value and change to their products after a certain number of transactions have occurred, based on their experience. In the case of printers, people buy equipment and use it, find that it is too expensive, and reject it for another producer's.This model does not always work (think prescription drugs) and that is why a pure free market must be tempered by restrictions (laws) enacted to protect people before transactions take place.
Or should that be dot-matrices?
.
I have two absolutely ancient dot matrix printers that I used with my Amiga, 15 years ago! I dug them out a few months back, plugged them into my Dell laptop, installed the drivers (standard with Windows, amazingly), and they still printed
They were still on the original ribbons, too!
By contrast, every inkjet I've ever owned since has packed up within 2 years, and got through ink cartridges at a stupid rate.
For printing out plain text, you really can't beat an inkjet. And you really know you're printing with that amazing noise!
When my old Lexmark Optra EP postscript 600dpi laser printer ran out of toner, I noticed that it cost approx. (CAD)$90 to buy a replacement. This is too expensive, when I can buy a used Lexmark Optra LX+ postscript 1200dpi laser with a higher resolution and a larger and full toner cartridge for only (CAD)$120, although the LX+ is a huge and noisy beast compared to my small EP.
:-)
Anyways, since I had 3 empty laser toner cartridges, which have removeable soft plastic stoppers to the toner reservor, I thought, why not refill them myself? After all, people with inkjets typically use refill kits, so why not just buy the laser toner powder. Well it took a while, but I managed to find a shop in Toronto that sold bottles of the black laser toner powder specific to my printer. (Different types of laser printers may have fusers, which melt toner, set at different temperature, so one has to make sure to get the toner powder that is proper for their printer.)
These bottles of laser toner powder come in a case of 10 for less than (CAD)$80, with each bottle containing 85g of black powder which will fill up a toner cartridge to the brim for less than (CAD)$8 each. Since it was raining outside, I took a funnel and refilled 3 of my empty cartridges in the bathtub in case of spills. And not only was it quick and easy, without any mess, my refilled cartridges print just like new. And since I bought the case of 10 bottles, I can print all I want for several years without worring about toner.
Alicia.
n/t
With a little dye (food coloring), water and isopropyl alcohol, you can make your own ink. Now, I do NOT recommend you try this at home unless you have a printer you don't care about, because there's no guarantee that the specific coloring you use won't gum up the heads and such. Also, not recommended for quality (esp. photographic) prints, as most household food colorings/etc. are not available in exact CMYK compositions.
Try something like 1 part isopropyl to 1 part distilled water, and add dye til you feel it's entirely too much (the print will end up considerably lighter than you might expect from looking at the 'ink' itself!). If you want to do it proper, the official formulas probably call for extra ingredients such as glycol, detergents (to prevent gumming up the heads), etc.
Caveat Emptor is not a business model.
Whatever you say, moon-god worshipper.
r ea d=42815
It would do you some good to open your eyes!
The true irony is: Christians and Jews unknowingly worship Baal!
http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?
You will soon be required to sacrifice your children. Just wait and see. (Bush will steal another election, and then global war will be unleashed. You know it's true.)
All your lives, you Judeo-Christian fools have believed in a LIE!
Well, thanks for pointing out a niche definition of commodity. Let me point you to a niche definition of asshole.
You missed the parent's idea completely. Good job!
Now then, if we use a general English dictionary, the definition is a little more broad:
An article of trade or commerce, especially an agricultural or mining product that can be processed and resold.
Note that it said especially, not exclusively. Next?
Xerox was forced to abandon their SOHO products a little while back. The "razor-blade" model didn't work on a class of products where you could just chuck the machine and get a replacement with mo' "dpi" on sale at Office Max for the same price as a new cartridge.
And since you can't get free human support for those products anymore at their call centers, Xerox probably isn't concerned about the cost of supporting "unofficial" uses. Yeah, there's probably still a trickle of "razor-blade" revenue still coming in, but compared to the cost of buying rights to that Blue Koala painting they plastered everywhere to sell the things, they've probably written all that off long ago.
Kineska: Cinema, soapbox, music & musings
Yes. I know lasers are really expensive, at least compared to inkjets, and color lasers arent as good as their inkjet counterparts, they have one really good point: the consumables prices.
A black cartridge of ink, costs somewhere between 30 to 60 US dollars here in Argentina, and it yields about 300 pages.
My HP 1100 uses a C4092A cartidge, which costs about US$ 100. How many pages do you get? According to the page counter, last time I changed it, after three years of use, it gave 3000 pages. Yeah. And i didnt replace it actually. I refilled it for US $10.
I print mostly black, so it's the same thing for me. But it also has other advantages:
1) SPEED! Lasers are FAST. If your printer says it prints at 11PPM, it does! It doesnt matter if you printed just a line or a whole page of black, the speed is the same. Inkjets are rated at 10 - 20 ppm... and in the small letters it says "printing a 5% coverage of the page". WTF do I do in real life with 5%?
2) QUALITY: you cannot beat laser text with any inkjet. And dont get me started with line art.
3) LIGHT AND WATER PROOF. I dont know about light proofing on black, but if you leave an inkjet color print in the sun for a couple of weeks, you end up with a cyan stain on the paper. I wonder why cyan is the color that stays in the paper? Also, waterproofing is not usual on inkjet, except for those lexmark cartridges. If a water drop gets in your inkjet print, you are screwed. On laser, you can get away with it.
4) Ink penetration: Toner stays in the surface. You can even print on news paper and it will look great. You can't do that with inkjet.
5) Drying speed: Toner is dry before entering the printer and stays dry while printing. Ink is liquid, and if you are in a hurry, you have to be very careful of not touching the printed area.
6) Consumables price: You can replace the cartridge for $100 or refill it for $10. And you can keep refilling it forever, as long as the drum is OK. When the drum goes bad, you replace it and it still costs less than an new cartidge. Also toner is mostly generic so you dont need 20 different kinds of ink for every printer out there.
7) Consumables shelf life and useful life: Toner is forever. You dont find an expiration date on toner boxes, as with you do with ink jet catridges. And you dont need to print something every week to keep your nozzles from blocking! My toner catridge lasted THREE YEARS. One time i left it in storage for 2 months: i unplugged it, and packed it. Try to do that with an Inkjet and see if it prints afterwards.
8) and the most important feature about toner cartridges is that THEY ARE HUGE ASS CATRIDGES. You pull the lid and the whole printer is for you to see and then you take the cartridge which is almost as big as a kitchen paper roll. Unlike those wussy ink jets that fit in your pocket. REAL MEN CARRY TONER CARTIDGES. Inkjets are for the ladies' purses.
Now seriously, laser printers are heavy, and they look and ARE very solid. They dont move around or rock your desk. They make a soft, continuous whine when printing.
The only bad thing about lasers is that they draw LOTS of power. About 1000 watts when cold and 300 watts printing. Some more. So you can't plug them into your UPS.
The other thing is that sometimes you get clearer bands on the printer. If the bands are vertical, you shake the cartridge around to spread the toner evenly. If the bands are horizontal, or if there is "regular noise" around the paper, the drum is screwed and needs to be replaced. It happens if you put a paper that is dirty or too thick.
Oh and also the price. But it pays for itself in a couple of years, even if you don't use it often. If you buy a good laser printer it will last for life. They are designed with that in mind, unlike inkjets.
I think that laser printer was my best investment ever.
Canon BC-02 cartridges ran _perfectly_ in old Apple StyleWriter IIs, with only minor modifications to the cartridge case - and I've still got one going today with that exact method.
Damn old machines. They just refuse to die.
Striking fear in the authors of godawful fanfiction, I am here, appearing in darkness, Tuxedo Jack!
As I understand it, inkjet printers tend to be sold at cost and the companies are using the consumables as the source of their profit. I believe that when most consumers are faced with two feature identical printers - one "Proprietary Consumable" for $125 and another that is "Open Consumables" for $250 - most will see the price difference and go with the Proprietary one regardless that the total cost of ownership is much higher. IT professionals look at TCO, average consumers do not.
Are you telling me that Lexmark printer cartridges are actually CHEAPER than Xeron cartridges?!?
Twenties Retirement
No, you cannot.
Building a better backup.
Zettabyte Storage
I only mention it because I'm in it :)
Do Canon inkjet printers work well in a Free driver framework such as CUPS? Or have you tried them only on Microsoft's operating systems?
Inkjet printers are hardly economical for light usage either. A sealed ink cartridge will last for a long time, but as soon as you open it up and print from it, its lifetime is strictly limited. So you are more or less guaranteed to be replacing your ink cartridges on a strict timetable (3-9 months depending on the manufacturer), unless you are a heavy user--in which case you will replace them faster.
It therefore makes sense even for light users to go laser. Yes, the printer itself is more expensive--but it should last a very long time. My previous printer was an HP LaserJet 6P I got used. It took 4 years heavy use (abuse, rather) in a hospital office, and then 4 years of light use from me. It finally died after I (stupidly) printed several hundred pages with inadequate space to let it cool, and some of the rear rollers melted. In 4 years, I only needed to replace the toner cartridge once, and that was starting from a partially used cartridge. I'm now using a used LaserJet 1200, and I expect to get at least 6 years use from it. Overall, very inexpensive printing.
Of course, a laser printer generally doesn't do color, unless you get a color laser. A color laser printer is way more expensive, but you really should ask yourself--how often do you need color? And how much is it costing you to print that color? A lot of people will find that it is cheaper to just take their color jobs to Kinko's. Their online price for a single-sided color laser print job on 28lb paper (nice and thick) is only $1.00--send it off and pick it up when it's done. The quality could hardly be better. And Kinko's is the high end of print shops--I'm sure one can find better prices elsewhere.
Very few people have an excuse to use a inkjet printer. Yes, lasers are more expensive up front, but it isn't 5x anymore, more like 3x to 2x. And even for light users, the consumables costs of inkjets add up very fast. Unless there's some insane deal ($10 printer and 5 free ink carts!), I will never again own an inkjet printer.
Funny, here I spell colour like colour and not like color, and I can pronounce nuclear correctly too.
New Zealand is part of the English speaking world, not the American Speaking World.
Type unto others as you would have them type unto you.
Remember back when Lexmark was suing 3rd party printer cartridge manufacturers? Didn't they claim that there was a special chip needed for the cartridge to communicate with the printer, and the behavior of this chip was copyrighted so nobody could use it but them?
Now we find the Xerox and Lexmark printers have a compatible chip in them, allowing them to be interchangable? So I'm guessing Lexmark licensed this chip from Xerox... Or maybe Xerox licensed it from Lexmark? Something just seems very strange about that to me.
of what we post than impresing those who have nothing constructive of their own to contribute and resent others who may have.
The man with no surname and a silly hat
On the universe: It's bunk.
Afraid I'll stick you on my foes list and mod you off my version of the board, eh? Do me a favor and foe me off your life horizon. Please!
The man with no surname and a silly hat
On the universe: It's bunk.
Funny thing you mentioned Dell. My wife just bought a new dell computer and they included an all-in-one printer/scanner/fax. It's a Dell A920. The funny thing is they sent instructions to use the printer box and a UPS label they provided to send them your old printer for recycling. This sounded OK, but I opened the printer and took at the itsy-bitsy printer cartridges. They are about a quarter the size of the HP cartridges. I decided to figure cost per page. I looked on the cartridge, the literature, and the Dell website looking for the capacity or yeild of the cartridges. This information is not provided anywhere! However their cartridges are about the same price as the half full HP cartridges. Shipping and handeling are extra. I can get HP cartridges localy without S&H charges. I have a good flatbed scanner. I have a FAX program. I tried networking the printer. There are no drivers for it except for Windows XP and Windows 2000. In a nutshell it won't work with any machine on my network except the new PC from Dell running XP home. I wished I could post pictures of the Dell cartridges sitting on my HP cartridges for size comparison.
Anybody want to guess which old printer gets sent back for recycling at their expense as soon as it's out of ink? It's the one that is the most expensive to operate and is not compatible with old versions of Windows and any version of Linux.
The truth shall set you free!
Uh, the prescription drugs analogy is false. People often do switch from one prescription drug to another, and sometimes even try older, over-the-counter drugs, before they and their physician find exactly the right one (if it even exists) for the patient's situation.
Not to mention that the quality is GREAT. I take a lot of digital pictures and love making huge blow ups of the really good shots. I turned a box of photo paper into a really awesome 8/10 gallery for about $50, in ink and paper...with borderless printing (basically just full bleed).
Hey freaks: now you're ju
If that guy watched SD last night he would have seen the part about the website case that came on right after the fourth commercial
"One is the fact that ink is too expensive, and manufacturers know that. "
Here's a little factoid you didn't know.
I worked for one of the big printer makers as a repair tech for their main repair center. We had ink by the palletload. We would throw away barely empty cartridges. Couple flushes, some printing. into the trash. You should have seen the crusher out back. Same with the nylon ribbons for the impact printers. Couple uses, throw away. Paper too. And of course employees could buy ink by the case for much cheaper than retail. In the later years they did tighten up a bit i.e. Use cartridge until empty, print on both sides of paper, reuse as much ribbons. But it still was quite a bit that ended up in the crusher. And the printheads...
1) Buy a legacy dying business,
2) seach for missleading IP rights
3) Claim you have KEY rights on the new technology
4) Keep the IP detail secret
5) Start Sueing anyone bocking your way to be filfy rich.
NOTE: 302 lecture will teach you to corrupt judges and politiciant. stay tuned.
For each imigrant to the US there are many other emigrating elsewhere and several billions not thinking about it.
The US fabled advantage as an imigration hot spot is vastly overstated.
By the way, I would never want to live in the US, I dislike teocentric countries.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Mexico did support Cuba for 40 years, from the start of the Cuban Revolution, specially during the most difficult periods during which the only country in the American Continent that had diplomatic relations with Cuba was Mexico (to the historical shame of the rest of the Latinamerican countries, which can be partially excused by the fact that most of them had right wing dictatorships, many of them supported or imposed from the US).
Given the obvious preasure that the US could inflict in Mexico during all those years, I think that overdue gestures of friendship to Cuba from other countris is nothing to boast about.
Hopefully real friendship will help Cuba to get out of the dictatorial system they have today towards a genuinely democratic one, and hopefully never again will Latinamerican countries will abandon a brother country just to please thge superpower that has shown very little regard for our aspirations, specialy during time we have been divided.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I just changed a faulty CPU. No questions asked, I had my refund 10 days later.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
.... but I still would like to see the ink priced in a measure we all can relate to.
I am pretty sure it will be so expensive that it will make people think twice before continuing this bubble jet frency.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Check them there, a cable that would sot me 13 GBP elsewhere costed me 0.90 there.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Is it too much to hope there's a mirror of this information somewhere?
is black cheaper? no it's not and try telling my dad that. Without the ability to print he wouldn't be able to send out invoices to his customer's and get paid so he can afford food to be able to live.
Fortunatley he lives in the UK and can save himelf 20 ever fortnight about 500 a year not hugh saving but the main thing is it means some rip off merchants arn't getting a penny of his money.
Saying Apple is better than MS is like saying Botulism is better than rabies.
It's not false at all. I was writing about groups like the FDA that have the legal right/obligation to stop some products being sold.
If a drug is developed, isn't it to society's advantage to learn about harmful effects before it is marketed, rather than allowing "market corrections" to take place afterwards?
My point is that if the consequences are severe enough, there is a very good reason not to rely exclusively on the free market to work its (purely remedial) magic on businesses and products.
http://www.refill-toner.co.uk/samsungRefill.html
I still think the toner bottle is priced like snakeoil but its cheaper than new ones !.
A friend pointed me at retrofit bulk ink systems which totally eliminate the nasty little cartridges. The bulk ink containers are no more expensive than the Mfg. cartridge. Some initial investment which would pay off in fairly short order. Probably aimed at busy photographers, designers, etc. But might make sense for a busy average user. Go here: http://www.mediastreet.com/cgi-bin/tame/mediastree t/n2.tam
I know that there are several aftermarket kits, but I'd like to see this built into a printer at the factory.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Another assumption that often goes overlooked:
You're right indeed for printer cartridges, but I'll observe other businesses as car sale or real estate can make a correction more difficult if possible at all, while others, such as candybars, are even easier.
Victims of 9/11: <3000. Traffic in the US: >30,000/y