Ruminations on printer ink

[Bushfiva]

I just commissioned a very, very expensive printer. Poring over the instructions, I'm initially confused by, well, many things.

FIrstly, the beast takes HP ink cartridges. Well, I think, that can't keep the running costs down, I mean it's a 400 kg printer.

Secondly, it confusingly has very large ink tanks that are fed from even larger containers.

Thirdly, it wants a black HP ink cartridge in each color printhead slot. I'm not reading the instructions in my native language, so it takes me about 30 minutes to get my head around that bit. Imagine Ozzy Osbourne, Printer Repair Man. Anyway, since there are only black ink cartridges in the box, I finally guess it must be true.

Dubiously pressing the "load" button provokes the machine into an orgy of cartridge vandalization: it sucks all the black ink out of the cartridges, stuffs violently pointy things into them, then flushes them through with colored ink.

I don't know whether to weep at the unceremonious dumping of so much HP gold, or to ululate wildly shouting "take that, you HP ink cartridge you."

Anyway, we all stand looking at the printer thinking you wouldn't want to make it unhappy. I mean, if it will do that to get a print head...

[mixture]

A 400kg printer taking HP ink cartridges ?

I know digipresses take oversized toner carts and normal presses use ink drums..... but HP ink carts ?

Maybe it's just your wording... but one is awfully confused.

[Bushfiva]

400 kg. HP ink carts.

[mixture]

hmmm...most enligtening answer, thanks Bushfiva.

Well, I'll leave you to it...... and hope you took out a maintenance contract from the people you bought it from.

Good luck.

[TheShadow]

Canon, HP and Brother inkjets, even Lexmark inkjets are reliable printers, even though of quite dissimilar performance.

However because EPSON inkjet printers are so unreliable they are best steered clear of. Go away on a four week holiday and the printheads dry up. You'd be lucky to ever clear them. New printheads cost as much as a printer. Six to seven weeks without use and they are DEAD DEAD DEAD.

I've wasted over a $1000 on EPSON printers, mainly because when they're working they perform well, although they only use 80% of the ink in a cartridge before the automatic chip in each cartridge says it's empty. The chips in the cartridges on the older EPSONS used to be able to be reset and the cartridge refilled. Now EPSON has made them unresettable so you can only utilise their expensive cartridges.

I've resolved NEVER to EVER buy another EPSON printer (inkjet or not) and I'll never bypass an opportunity to educate the rest of the world about what a rip-off the EPSON brand is. EPSON is the only inkjet that suffers from this printhead clogging malady. All the others have found a way around it, including incorporating the printhead in the cartridge itself.

[cats_five]

So go on, having teased us with a bit of description, what model printer is it?

[call100]

Canon, HP and Brother inkjets, even Lexmark inkjets are reliable printers, even though of quite dissimilar performance.

However because EPSON inkjet printers are so unreliable they are best steered clear of. Go away on a four week holiday and the printheads dry up. You'd be lucky to ever clear them. New printheads cost as much as a printer. Six to seven weeks without use and they are DEAD DEAD DEAD.

I've wasted over a $1000 on EPSON printers, mainly because when they're working they perform well, although they only use 80% of the ink in a cartridge before the automatic chip in each cartridge says it's empty. The chips in the cartridges on the older EPSONS used to be able to be reset and the cartridge refilled. Now EPSON has made them unresettable so you can only utilise their expensive cartridges.

I've resolved NEVER to EVER buy another EPSON printer (inkjet or not) and I'll never bypass an opportunity to educate the rest of the world about what a rip-off the EPSON brand is. EPSON is the only inkjet that suffers from this printhead clogging malady. All the others have found a way around it, including incorporating the printhead in the cartridge itself.
Seconded!!

[P.Pilcher]

Not too long ago on this forum I asked for comments/advice as to what to replace my ancient trusty Epson 925 colour printer with. The consensus was to acquire a Canon Pixma iP4700. I thus acquired one of these together with the refillable cartridges which make a refill cost about 40p in ink.
Since that time I have been totally delighted with it compared to my old Epson. Ink jets rarely if ever clog. Colour prints are superb, automatic two side printing is also possible and it is even possible to print on CDs.
Ink jet printing has certainly come a long way since I acquired by old Epson. I have also obtained a Brother one for my wife and a friend. They are also impressive units, and their (third party) ink refills are reasonably priced as well. Even then Brother cartridges do not appear to be the rip-off that some other manufacturers ones are.

P.P.

[al446]

Epson? Crap.

[sea oxen]

Bushfiva

It's been a while since I had to do this sort of stuff. I took a woeful colour laser and assigned it to non-production duty and bought two very expensive machines to replace it - which subsequently malfunctioned.

As part of the transaction, though, we were given on-site support at any time we wanted it. Once they'd replaced them a few times with newer models and I'd made some death threats, we had a functioning site with redundancy. I must draw into question the wisdom of putting all one's eggs into one basket - but it's your show.

It might be worth your while to track down your salesweasel and obtain some after-sales support. Did you sign off on this? I suspect that you didn't.

SO