[PCWorld]

Post your comments for The Printer Ink Trap here

[Ferniez]

This article is right on! Printers in general are a pain and ink prices are sky high. One solution that has worked for me is to use two monitors. I have found that much of the printing I did was for reference copies of a document. With a second monitor I have saved lots of ink, paper and hassles. With the price of a good monitor pretty cheap these days it is a good solution if your video card will support it.

[databaseben]

yep, i learned the hard way myself with a multi function printer. i'm not a big printing type of guy, and found that when i was ready to print, the cartridges were dried out or used up little by little during the printers daily self test and cleaning.

but what really "got my goat" is that the scanning capabilities of the multifunction printer would no longer work without a working ink cartridge.

it was nothing more than black mail.

ultimately, i could have bought a set of ink cartridges or got a another machine for almost the same prince.

but i decided not to play the ink games and now use laser jets.

i go through a cartridge of carbon once every 4 years.

unfortunately, the other game when it comes to laser jets, is if one updates their o.s. and there are no drivers available from the laserjet people.

[artzy65]

databaseben, on 28 March 2012 - 06:56 AM, said:

yep, i learned the hard way myself with a multi function printer. i'm not a big printing type of guy, and found that when i was ready to print, the cartridges were dried out or used up little by little during the printers daily self test and cleaning.

but what really "got my goat" is that the scanning capabilities of the multifunction printer would no longer work without a working ink cartridge.

it was nothing more than black mail.

ultimately, i could have bought a set of ink cartridges or got a another machine for almost the same prince.

but i decided not to play the ink games and now use laser jets.

i go through a cartridge of carbon once every 4 years.

unfortunately, the other game when it comes to laser jets, is if one updates their o.s. and there are no drivers available from the laserjet people.

Put the new OS on a partition and keep the older OS for your printer. Or get a new computer, but keep the older one for the printer. Always have a fall-back position... a second computer that handles all the stuff you need to handle going forward. Often, earlier versions of any given software are more efficient than newer, bloated versions.

[ragey2000]

I brought a brother MFC-J6910DW duplex printer & scanner & gave it a CISS - Continuous Ink Supply System & had no problems.

[TheOldTopkick]

I wonder which agency the guy who wrote the article is emplyed by. He obviously has an axe to grind. All too often we for that there is nothing free in this world but contagious desease.

[elvisfan]

TheOldTopkick, on 28 March 2012 - 11:43 AM, said:

I wonder which agency the guy who wrote the article is emplyed by. He obviously has an axe to grind. All too often we for that there is nothing free in this world but contagious desease.

Of course he has an axe to grind. Everyone who has ever bought a inkjet printer should have an axe to grind. However, that is the nature of the business. The author was right on.

[YellowEagle]

Yeah i know the spew to about the cheap printers i have recycled dozens of them.

Have found a decent mid priced one, the ink quality is good and the ink isn't as high priced as it's cheaper cousin. But still high.

When i bought it the cartridges were only about $12.00 bucks in six months they went up to $30.00 apiece. Now that's a rip off on a $250 dollar printer. I don't hardly use it so the cartridges dry out before i use them to.

Though did find to only load the Base driver's and don't let it update. It doesn't run through that test sheet when it's started up. So no waste of ink or paper.

The updates would make it run one every time I started the machine. pretty sneaky of HP. Even called them on that one, yeah you guessed it no answer back either.

Called there corporate headquarters and was able to send a E-mail higher up and got one back, saying they would look into this. yep haven't heard a word in over a year.

Thinking of looking at a canon or something different next time.

[riffdex]

I picked up an HP LaserJet 4100 the other day at a thrift store for $12. It came with 2 full toners! Yeah i know its a ten year old model and only black printing, but for $12 and 10,000 page yield per toner, im happy with it. Im still stuck with my inkjet for color copies, but dont think ill ever have to buy another black ink cartridge!

[AliciaPosadaMaya]

I bought an Epson TX120 and a continuos ink system and it works like a charm, in fact Epson is selling a multifuncional L200 with a continuos ink system already integraded and, of course they sell the bottles of ink too

[KrisLallm2xj]

It's simply too tempting when you see an ad for a low-price, ink-jet printer to not want to buy it. I recently did a fair amount of research to try to determine what type of printer to purchase such that might "subscription" cost for ink wouldn't be too high. I found some good information (eg, buy a laser printer); however, I didn't see anything online that gave a tangible breakdown and rating of which printers cost more or less to maintain.

[PhilHord]

databaseben, on 28 March 2012 - 06:56 AM, said:

but what really "got my goat" is that the scanning capabilities of the multifunction printer would no longer work without a working ink cartridge.

it was nothing more than black mail.

Sounds like the Epson Workforce series. That thing had printing, copying, scanning, ethernet, wifi and a built-in fax modem. But if you ran out of Magenta ink (or any other color), it was unusable as anything. It wouldn't scan, it wouldn't copy or print (even in B&W), it wouldn't fax. All it would do is tell me to go buy magenta ink.

I finally broke down and bought Magenta ink. The printer warmed up, tested things, and then told me to go buy Yellow ink.

I found out this printer has some really nice limit switches and DC motors inside. The rest of it is in the dumpster.

[mjd420nova]

I don't think there's any way to escape the need for ink. I use refills and such for everyday printing and keep a new set for photos. Keeping printing jobs in the spooler cue until I'm ready to print them keeps maintenence to a minimum. I have a shallow tray to set cartridges in alcohol to clear clogs. We lost the disk for the printer so loaded drivers from the internet. If anyone has counted, HP installs no less than 5 processes, the drivers took none. Some ink cartridges have use counters and will not clear the error, it has to be replaced. Lexmark units seem to be immune from any of these faults, refills and even generic cartridges worked fine but I wasn't impressed with the print quiality, even when new with full cartridges. Some of the All In One units are totally disabled if the printer doesn't come ready for what ever reason. That's the biggest reason the initial offerings stalled but once they broke the price barrier, its cheaper to get the AIO unit and replacement doesn't hurt the budget.

This post has been edited by mjd420nova: 31 March 2012 - 07:58 AM

[dlauber]

Sadly this article rings so true. We've stayed with our aging Ricoh Aficio CL4000DN color laser printer because the toner is so inexpensive compared to every other manufacturer's color lasers. We've reached the stage where we're having to replace expensive parts like color photo conductor units ($500) -- but when we priced the toner for all the competitive color lasers, we discovered the first toner replacement for a new printer would cost twice more than it cost us to replace the color photo conductor units plus a full replacement of our color toner cartridges. So it's important to cost out the long term cost of ownership before buying a printer -- at least figure out the cost of replacing toner (or ink) and you'll discover that the bargain-priced printers are money pits that will bleed you dry.

[TheOldTopkick]

elvisfan, on 28 March 2012 - 01:25 PM, said:

TheOldTopkick, on 28 March 2012 - 11:43 AM, said:

I wonder which agency the guy who wrote the article is emplyed by. He obviously has an axe to grind. All too often we for that there is nothing free in this world but contagious desease.

Of course he has an axe to grind. Everyone who has ever bought a inkjet printer should have an axe to grind. However, that is the nature of the business. The author was right on.

Regretably true.

[rgeiken]

My HP 6180 All In One is a real money Sump!!! And if a cartridge is out of date even though it still has plenty of ink, it gives you a hard time and you need to make several manual selections on the printer to get it to start up and print something. It will be 5 years old soon, and HP keeps telling me that using an out of date cartridge might void my warranty. Wish I could get that stuff disabled and leave all the good information in the printer alone. I get my cartridges filled at CostCo for less than buying them new. I like the printer, but feel that HP is raking us 6180 users over the coals.

[trixiesirish]

Another way to cut down on the cost of ink, paper, and grief is to move to electronic files. Since I got a duplex scanner (Fujitsu ScanSnap S1300), and have made sure to have both onsite and offsite backup being done, I hardly buy paper or toner anymore. Yeah, I still need to occasionally print things, but not NEARLY as often.

[Nuke61]

I stayed out of the ink trap by buying a color laser printer a few years ago, and while the up front cost is a lot more, the cost per page over those years is significantly less than an ink jet. I just recently bought a duplex black and while laser to do the vast majority of my printing, only printing using the color laser when it's necessary. For prints of pictures? I send them to the local Walmart or get them from an online service. The quality is better, and the cost is lower than maintaining an inkjet just to print pictures. If you wonder why I don't just use the color laser for pictures... well, it sucks for printing pictures, because there's not enough resolution at 600 dpi, but it works great for color charts and other business color needs.