OT: suggest a printer

Kamog · #1 March 3rd, 2005, 02:21 AM

I recently purchased a Brother printer / scanner / fax multi-function unit. The black ink cartridges are $32 each and it's supposed to last for 400 or 500 pages. So far I have printed about 50 pages and it's already more than half empty! What do they mean when they say 500 pages, they must mean a mostly blank page with a couple of lines of text in tiny font at the top.

I looked into refilling the cartridges, and that costs about $20. That saves some money, though it's still expensive. Even though the printer manufacterer recommends not refilling them, of course they would say that to force you to keep buying their expensive cartridges.

Atrocities · #2 March 3rd, 2005, 03:51 AM

They mean 500 test pages. You know the ones with virtually nothing on them. I am serious. The funny thing is, the ink cartrages cost next to nothing to make. They are a cash cow for the printer industry.

Anyone who can make cheap printer cartrages, generic, can make a killing in the industry.

David E. Gervais · #3 March 3rd, 2005, 08:37 AM

I approach buying a printer fram the opposite direction.. I look to see what printer has the less expensive ink cartridges and then check out the printers they fit. I personally have an Epson Stylus 670 and my ink costs $7cdn/Black and $12cdn/Color (Note I buy Print-Rite compatible ink, not original Epson they cost about double.) I get about 500 pages of B&W and about 35 Full color photo quality (8.5" x 11") prints from the color.

My next printer will be a Canon, any one that has the separate color ink cartridges. (I'm leaning towards the Canon PIXMA iP4000, the ink sells for $8cdn each color and $12cdn for a double capacity Black. Oh, and it's quiet & fast.)

nuf said, Cheers!

Mindi · #4 March 3rd, 2005, 11:03 AM

Well this could be true or it could be like my inkjet. I put in cartridges in my inkjet and inevitably it will say I go through ink like crazy! I mean I print 50-100 pages and it's down to less than a quarter of a cartridge for both cartridges on my printer status window. However, in my case, it lies. I can get down to less than a quarter and print 3-5 times the amount I printed in the first 3/4 of the cartridges. Frankly I don't think the software accurately measures the amount of ink in the cartridges. This COULD be your case as well. If not you may want to look into refilled cartridges online. I used to get a lot of mine that way to save money and a lot of them have a good variety of epson, brother, lexmark, etc printer cartridges to chose from. Unfortunately for me, I haven't really found a good place for my hp cartridges that really gives me much of a discount.

Kamog · #5 March 3rd, 2005, 11:50 AM

Thanks. Well, I hope that's the case with my printer; I guess I'll know when I print more pages. I don't think I'm going to remove the cartridge to see how full it is because the printer user manual said it's not a good idea to remove and re-insert the cartridge. Hopefully, this printer doesn't rely on the software to know when the ink is empty.

Another way to refill the cartridge is to buy a do-it-yourself refill kit that comes with bottles of ink, a syringe and a drill. You're supposed to make a hole in the used cartridge and fill it up with new ink using the syringe. This is really inexpensive, but I'm not sure about doing this because I don't know if the ink that comes in the kit is compatible with the printer.

Mindi · #6 March 3rd, 2005, 12:51 PM

I've had good and bad results with refill kits. I used to do this with my epson printer and it worked okay. It was a little bit of a pain to get it to work at first correctly(had to clean the printheads a million times, had to do a bunch of test prints), but this did work. When I tried it with a different printer (might have been a lexmark), it didn't work as well and I could never get it to print right-always had streaks, some colors wouldn't print correctly, etc. So finally I ended up giving up on the refilling idea. Some cartridges seem to take well to it, others don't.

David E. Gervais · #7 March 3rd, 2005, 12:59 PM

Yeah, software 'ink monitors' are bad. When my epson says the ink well is dry, I can still print a good 50 more pages in black and a good 5-6 pages in full color. I now use the old reliable method to know if the ink cart is dry. when the printout dies halfway throught the page. that's one good thing about inkjet printers, they don't fade gradually, they simply die mid-stride. It goes without saying that you 'must-have' a spare cart on hand for these occasions. I always have a spare cart of each black and color ink. when I install it, I usually get a new cart within 24 hours. I have never been in a situation where I couldn't print due to not having ink.

Cheers!

Slynky · #8 March 3rd, 2005, 01:45 PM

Then we should all be interested in this:
News Item

David E. Gervais · #9 March 3rd, 2005, 03:08 PM

interesting tid-bit there.. I had to look at my Print-Rite carts to see if they have an expiration date.. yup, they sure do, mine are 12-2005 so I should be ok.

Cheers!

Mindi · #10 March 3rd, 2005, 03:14 PM

Yes interesting indeed Slynky. I have a combo pack of cartridges I am about to put in my printer. They are HP and they list the following "Minimum 6 month limited warranty from install before date." My install before date is Jan 2006, so I am fine but it is something I will pay attention to in the future. I have never had a problem with my hp cartridges but I imagine that is in large part to the fact that I probably run out of ink and have to get a new cartridge before the old expires.