While I'm not one to usually give in to corporate conspiracy theories, I must admit that I'm a bit skeptical of the inkjet printing industry at the moment. I bought a photo printer with 6 separate ink cartridges so I only have to replace the colors I use the most. Since I generally deal in black and white, I assume that would be the one to go first. Conspiracy #1 Black ink is the most common, and therefore developed in such bulk that it could be half the cost of the other colors, but in fact is twice the price for the same size ink cartridge as the rest of the colors. Oddly enough, the black ink is lasting fine, but the light yellow has gone out, so I replace it, (so I can print a black and white picture with the "black ink only" box checked), and the black and white picture comes out splotchy. I run a test, and apparently one of the nozzles on the black cartridge is clogged. Naturally, after replacing the light yellow ink, and being sure enough black ink is in there, I run a cartridge cleaning cycle. Oops, I'm out of ink again and need to replace the "indicated cartridge". No cartridge is indiciated, so I just click "OK" until the screen goes away so I can bring up the diagnostics again to see what needs replacing. Oops again, the screen doesn't go away, and just freezes up telling me it can no longer talk to my printer, and being the girl that my printer software is, implied that if I didn't know what's wrong, it wasn't going to tell me. So when I try to close the window, Windows asks me if I want to end the program, I say "end now" since it is the only option that will get me anywhere. Poof the (unsaved) document I was working on is gone as windows closes the entire application that called the printer dialog. (thanks windows, and thanks again for not keeping it stored in memory somewhere for retrieval.) Anyway, back to replacing ink. I replace the light cyan, and take note that it is the only cartridge with a warning sign on it. After replacing it, two more warnings pop up on two other cartridges!! Conspiracy #2 Replacing one ink cartridge drains the others. I replace them, and run the diagnoistics again. ANOTHER Ink Cartridge needs replacing Conspiracy #3 No seriously, replacing ink cartridges do drain the others. In the end, because one cartridge was marked as low, I have replaced 5 cartridges, and my black ink is still splotchy and in need of a cleaning! (which is sure to drain my ink even further) All this because I wanted to print a black ink only document! Conspiracy #4 I hate Epson and Epson hates me. Holy hell, I kid you not, I just opened the diagnostics, and guess what? Black ink is low! W!!T!!F!!?? Conspiracy #5 All the color cartridges being replaced trains the black cartridge. And of course, the final 2 conspiracies: Conspiracy #6 Your ink is low. Period. Conspiracy #7 Oneseventeen uses the word Conspiracy incorrectly in his posts just because he is so angry at the ink cartridge industry. Somewhere, deep in the jungle, the missing link between monkeys and humans is making a fortune off of selling ink cartridges and devising a way to take advantage of next-gen DRM to resell the same product to the same customer over and over again. missing link monkey that probably has bad posture and sells me ink cartridges, I bite my thumb at you, and I strongly encourage you to eat as much yellow snow as your half-evolved stomach can handle.
I'm thinking www.mazda6clutch.com may have to come down so I can put inkcartridgeconspiracy.com up in its place.... Stupid manufacturing corporations crapping on their customers because it costs too much to walk to the bathroom... (oh, and I Just went to print something, and yellow has already lost about 5% of its ink since the beginning of this whole ink changing game)
Incredible. Downright incredible. And so true. It's cheaper to buy a new printer and ebay the old one (sans ink) than replace all of the cartridges every time! :smiles at laser printer: You sure you don't have some prototype e-ink display?
Oh, and just a quick update, all of the ink replacing has drained about 5% of my yellow ink that I replaced first, since it was the only one! So I guess that when you replace a cartridge and it "charges the ink", it charges all of the cartridges, not just the new one, therefore expelling craploads of ink for no real purpose other than to cost more money. I'm not a hippie or anything, but I might start riding my bike and reusing paper towels and whatnot if manufacturers don't start considering the economics of consumers when producing this crap.
I have a rule of thumb personaly. No epson printers, no ms perihersals and no generic hard disks. Well rules of thumb. And oh yeh no store bought pc's.
Isn't it well known by now that Printing companieas all make money off by selling print cartridges? and there are gimmicks like the tests toor other things in HP programs which are supposed to diagnose (after priting 5 million sheets) and fix u rproblem but the secret evil thing it does isdrain your ink so again you have to go buy another cartridge and we all know how much those damned things cost sorry im not using any punctuation etc etc the keyboard is half broken here at school... :/
Uhh.... no? lol +1 I took apart an "empty" cartridge once - totally stained my hands and workbench. It was at least a third full. Lies, I tell you, lies! *tries to dig up the pic I took of that giant mess*
Always print on draft quality - more than adequate for most things. And buy a laser for B+W work - much cheaper in the long run. I only ever install the basic drivers for printers - not gonna have some trumped-up little program tell ME when I'm out of ink dammit! But the Stylus R300 on my desk at work does still flash it's stupid LCD at me when epson profits dip below the acceptable...
AND not only that but the cartrages are getting smaller too!!!!! Had an old lexmark, did its job and all was well. Only changed the cartrages a few times AND it printed black and white pages with the black and white ONLY. Problem was that its wasnt USB and of course they stopped making the cartrages. Got a new one and LOW, small iddy cartrages that you STILL cant get when you need them!!!! Oh it makes me SOOOO ANGRY! Morral, dont own a printer and print your stuff off at work.
I have a Canon Multipurpose (MP800) and both the printer and canon's software told me I was running low in magenta. So I bought magenta. Now it's low in cyan. My old HP printer had 2 cartridges. A few times, one color would go out and I had to shell out for a new tri-color cartridge. The black worked amazing though... one cartridge lasted through a reem of paper on draft setting. My new canon goes through ink a lot faster, but I also print a LOT more color prints. Some companies put the printhead on the cartridges which drives the cost way up. This probably yields so-so construction so that by the time the ink runs out, the heads are clogged up or otherwise worn. You also pay a lot of R&D. A human hair is roughly 100 microns in diameter. My printer can print 9600 by 2400 dpi. For simplicity, round up to 10000 by 2500 dpi. An inch is about 2.5 cm. 4000 by 1000 dots per centimeter. That's 40 by 10 dots per 100 microns. Even in the shorter dimension, you'd have 10 dots across the width of a human hair. As you can imagine, the R&D for that is going to be extremely costly. I think the only way to determine if a printer is a color consumer or not is to test it out. Some cheap printers consume ink slowly, some costly printers are ink hogs. Sometimes it's the other way around. It's a gamble.
I use a bulk ink system with my Epson Photo 900, though I also use SSC service Utility to monitor my ink usage, as well as clean heads (it allows you to clean black and colour heads seperately) etc. When I used to use cartridges, I could make them last about 25% more than without SSC. It allows you to freeze the ink count values so you can all the ink out of the cart, not just what epson wants you to get If you use an Epson inkjet, SSC is a must have http://www.ssclg.com/epsone.shtml
I never rely on the computer diagnosis, I actually wait until it's obvious the ink is running low on the printouts, then I replace the colour (cyan needs replacing now as a matter of fact ). But I have to agree that the printer wastes ink, just check out that foam thing in the printer that absorbs spilt ink, it's just completely full of liquid. I have the R200 and it is a great printer, and I never buy official cartridges, inks from http://www.calibrecomputing.co.uk is really cheap and just the same quality as the official cartridges, so wasting ink isn't so much of a problem.
I havent had a printer for years i jsut caned the one at school and now the one at work. colour lasers are fun.
I saw an article a while back in one of the magazines that Lexmark is now including an EULA with their printer cartridges that prohibits you from refilling them. What are they going to do, form the Printer Manufactuers Association of America (PMAA) and start suing people for refilling printer cartridges? When I was workng down in Mississippi with FEMA I found it was easier to buy a new $25 printer at Walmart and toss it in the dumpster each time I moved than try to take it with me. I did try to ship the last one home in the original box, but it didn't survise the trip. My home printer is a Laserjet 4+ and I doubt I'll ever use up a 65,000 page toner cartridge.
I've had my hp all in one for a year and half and havent replaced the ink on it once. It keeps telling me I'm low but I ignore it, been doing that since xmas and its still printing fine. (I print a couple of pages a week).
i like my printer at work its a HP 1050 Plus A0 printer, 4 ink cartridges at 400ml each cart!! it takes about 6 moths to empty one cart, and we are going to upgrade this year to the 4000 series with 800ml cartridges, that should last a while, but a 400ml cart is around £80 i think
Awsome! I was wondering how I could ignore the warnings. For those asking why I don't ignore it, it is simply because the windows drivers they have written force you to replace ink when they consider it low, otherwise it won't print. I'll try the SSC software, as soon as I figure out whether or not it impacts the ability to print directly to CD. For Bulk Ink Systems, the only thing I'm worried about is most that I've found say they have: "Magenta, Photo Magenta, Cyan, Photo Cyan, Yellow, and Black" I was expecting: "Magenta, Light Magenta, Cyan, Light Cyan, Yellow, and Black" Is there a difference? It looks like a bulk system would cost about the same as replacing cartridges once... so a large bulk system with the estimated life span of 5x the amount of a normal cartridge would cost about $75 including shipping, and I usually spend about $70 and just drive to the store. Any tips on preferred brands? (preferrably ones found in the US)
i have a HP all in one d145, which is pretty good the ink seems to last quite a while on it actually. I used to print alot of my stuff off at school, but they now charge to make print outs.
I have an HP one It wouldn't let me print a black and white document at all, until I replaced my colour cartridge, which is very annoying.
