Slashdot Mirror
HP Explains Why Printer Ink Is So Expensive
CWmike writes "'There's a perception that [printer] ink is one of the most expensive substances in the world,' says Thom Brown, marketing manager at HP. Well, yeah. One might get that feeling walking out of a store having spent $35 for a single ink cartridge that appears to contain fewer fluid ounces of product than a Heinz ketchup packet. Brown was ready to explain. He presented a series of PowerPoint slides aptly titled 'Why is printer ink so expensive?' I was ready for answers. The key point in a nutshell: Ink technology is expensive, and you pay for reliability and image quality. 'These liquids are completely different from a technology standpoint,' Brown says, adding that users concerned about cost per page can buy 'XL' ink cartridges from HP that last two to three times longer. (Competitors do the same.) The message: You get value for the money. No getting around it though — ink is still expensive, particularly if you have to use that inkjet printer for black-and-white text pages."
Of course, apparently HP has a patent on a way of making toner abrasive so it wears out the drum faster, allowing them to sell more drums to customers. In fact most HP printers combine the toner with the drum, making their printers some of the more expensive ones to replace toner in.
I got to spend some time with the HP engineers a bunch of years back when I was building printers. We used empty HP cartridges, filled them with our own ink formulations, and drove them with custom electronics. Yeah they 'work' just fine with just about any fluid imaginable (ink, food coloring, PCB etch resist, antifreeze, perfume) as long as you're flexible with your definition of 'work'. The 'ink' cant eat the cartridge body, clog the orifice plate, leave residue (cogation) on the heating elements, form crust on the plate or orifices, have sufficient surface tension to draw ink into the head when printing at 100% duty cycle, exactly the right surface tension and viscosity to form exactly one single droplet for every heating cycle (no satellites, now!), not dribble during shipping, have exactly the same properties when using (at least) four different dye formulations, not evaporate in the printer, form consistent droplet sizes and shapes that travel at exactly the same velocity, stick to paper without splattering, penetrate the paper coating without bleeding and not smudge after just seconds, have proper thermal mass to carry waste heat away from the head, and the list just goes on and on and on. HP was even doing things like tuning the heating profile to get cavitation in the ink reservoir at the just right frequency to act like a microscopic ultrasonic cleaner to blast impurities away from the heating elements. Maybe I impress easily but I was impressed.
And thats just the ink. The R&D and engineering that goes into the cartridge and printer is unbelievable, and you get one of them for your $35 too, your own little piece of a few billion invested in R&D, tooling, and cartridge factory. It stinks to have to throw it away, but that's the model you bought into when you bought a cheap printer with disposable cartridges. There used to be lots of piezo-base (and other) printing technologies, but while the ink refills came in pints for cheap the printers were expensive, and no one bought them (not my printers, anyway).
If your idea of accurate pricing is how much a refill maker charges to rip off HP's formulations, have HP effectively give away the cartridges, and have you do the labor filling them, then I guess you could say the ink is cheap. I hate spending money on those cartridges too (more so my large format Epson), and I refill them sometimes, but I dont begrudge HP their business model, especially since we are all the people that made it the dominant technology by buying into it.
Hogwash. All of it.
There's no way it actually costs that much. Consider that an HP #15 black ink cartridge (a common cartridge for HP consumer inkjets) contains 25mL of actual ink and costs $35.99 US. That comes to $1,439.60 per litre or $6535.78 per gallon. Right, HP, we totally believe that ink costs this much.
If you must buy an inkjet, be sure to check, beforehand, that there are realistically-priced replacements cartridges available from third-parties. I have an older Epson printer (model C62) for which I can buy replacement cartridges at about five bucks a pop. This actually makes inkjet printing a practical option. There is nothing wrong with the ink either; the results are perfect and glossy photo prints are great. I wouldn't expect them to last for years and years without fading, but if I want an archival print, I'll take it down the local print shop to have it professionally done anyways.
HP, do you really expect me to believe that the remaining $30 is for R&D and manufacturing costs?
I worked on the paint and coatings field for 40 years as a Chemist and TD. Waterborne ink raw material cost rarely exceeds $25 per gallon. Even with hyperdisperants and basket mill grinding the cost to produce is about $30 per gallon. The packaging and chip add another buck. The PR from HP is pure BS.
Here's the conclusion I came to after believing the Slashdot line about printer ink: Yes, the manufacturer makes the best ink. The difference is astounding. It doesn't run; it doesn't clog. It's worth the money.
And here's a little tidbit from a different source:
I once interviewed with a company that made rubber. Yes, rubber. Any kind of rubber whatzit. I walked in thinking "what am I doing here?" and walked out thinking "rubber is fucking cool!" I didn't get the job, though.
But I digress.
One of this company's clients was HP. This company's materials scientists worked closely with HP on the R&D of the rubber bumpers and stoppers used in HP inkjet printers. They had to design a rubber that could be molded properly, etc., and not be corroded away by the ink. The guy interviewing me got quite excited when he was talking about this project. Evidently, all the parts--especially rubber--that will be in contact with the ink have to be developed alongside it because many inks ate through rubber, given enough use. So it was an added hurdle in the design process, and one the guy was very proud of getting over. And it was he who ended it with, "And that's why we don't refill our cartridges around here--we know that other stuff will slowly eat away the stoppers we designed."
So if you want to believe that everything is a lie and everyone is out to get you, fine. But it's not true. There's no question the ink is marked way up to cover the loss on the printers. But that doesn't mean that all inks were created equal.