HP re-manufactured cartridges 'sudden death'

[John Marsh]

For over a year, I have been using retail re-manufactured cartridges in an HP Deskjet D1470 printer. Last week, it stopped working with them: constant blinking from the LED in the power button; 'printer busy' message on PC. This occurred both with a re-manufactured cartridge that had been working OK and with a fresh re-manufactured cartridge from a major high street retailer.

I tried powering printer and PC off->on; also disabled the ink level warning on the PC end.

Interestingly, my other HP item, a Deskjet F380 similarly refuses to accept the re-manufactured cartridges.

More tales like this are reported here (http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Other-Printing-Questions/HP-says-I-can-t-use-refilled-ink/td-p/227083/page/2).

The HP problems occurred just when I needed to make copies of important documents!:ugh::ugh:

I have now converted to Canon. Their Pixma MP280 series is more refill-friendly.:ok:

[bingofuel]

I had an Epson printer that suddenly stopped and gave the on screen message 'some internal components have reached the end of their operational life' and the printer never worked again.
Made me wonder if Epson has a built in page counter or clock that shuts everything down at a pre set point in time? What really annoyed me was it was printing perfectly up until that moment.

[Milo Minderbinder]

2Made me wonder if Epson has a built in page counter or clock that shuts everything down"


Correct, Epson do have that
Its supposedly to stop excess waste ink being dumped into the waste pads and spilling out of the machine - the idea is you change the pads and reset the counter - and pay a service engineer to do it

Usually the pads are OK and you can just reset the machie. Some need a specific key combination at startup, so a diagnostic utilty running

What model of Epson was it?

[bingofuel]

If I recall it was an Epson Stylus of some sort. Cheaper to buy a new one than consider repair.
The throwaway society we live in!

[Milo Minderbinder]

too late now, but you could have sorted it yourself

[taxydual]

SSC Service Utility for Epson Stylus Printer. (http://www.ssclg.com/epsone.shtml)

Only for Epson printers, unfortunately.

A word of warning though. Don't reset too often. Waste pads DO eventually fill up and guess where the waste ink goes then!

[Milo Minderbinder]

that SSC utility doesn't work on ALL epsons
Some have a model-specific utility, others a key combination as you power them up
Best to Google it each time - you can usually find the instructions

[OFSO]

I found it impossible to change the ink waste pad on my Epson: talked to Mr Serviceman who said yes I can do it but it will cost more than a new printer.

Slight Drift, but I had endless problems with Epson nozzles clogging up in the summer if I didn't use the printer for 7 - 10 days. Wrote to the Spanish Epson dealer who passed my letter to the factory who wrote back saying little. All I could do was run the "clean nozzles" routine every time I wanted to use it. Expensive in ink !

So when the ink waste pad incident came up I junked the Epson (couldn't even give it away for spares to friends with Epsons) and bought an HP: nozzles/ink has not clogged once in three years.

[vulcanised]

My best printer purchase has been/is a Canon MP490. I don't use the printer side much and it's still happily using the original cartridges after 18 months in a room which gets very hot at times.

New cartridges are very reasonably priced. It's better than my old HP and I have always avoided Epson because there's too many gotchas.

[Milo Minderbinder]

From a reliability point of view
If you want an inkjet get a Canon. Some of the larger Brothers are good too,
If you want a lazer get a Samsung or Brother - they come out of the same plant anyway

Epsons are unreliable ****e. Lexmarks aren't much better. Kodaks are liabilities as theres no certainty of future availability of ink
Hewlett Packards are generally reliable, but the software is bloated, is often a PITA to install and often fails to install
Dell printers are rebadged something else, reengineered to only use Dell;s own expensive ink

[mixture]

If you want a l@ser get a Samsung or Brother - they come out of the same plant anyway

If you want laser, go HP or Xerox. Samsung and Brother make laser wannabe units for the home users.... cheap and nasty.... spend a little more and get a business grade machine, it'll last ya !

(Milo's point about drivers does not apply to HP lasers, just their ink jets)

Epsons are unreliable ****e.

No, they are not. Cheap epson inkjets are not great, I'll give you that, but the decent epson inkjets are reliable and produce great output.

[Lancelot37]

Being a poor pensioner with only £3 a week pocket money I bought my latest re-manufactured ink cartridges from Printer Cartridges, Cheap Ink Cartridges, Printer Inks, Laser Toner & Inkjet Cartridges (http://www.cartridgepeople.com/)

They work and are less than one third of H.P cartridges.

I'm not connected to them but if they want to send a few freebies for the advert I'll not object.

[CharlieOneSix]

Don't throw away an Epson printer with a full waste pad, i.e. with the "some internal components have reached the end of their operational life" warning before you google OctoInkJet and see if one of their waste ink boxes is available for your printer - around £9.75 each.

I did this after I got that warning about three years ago and my Stylus Photo RX700 is still going strong - I don't think the boxes/reset utility are available for every model though. As far as I remember you disconnect the tube from the printer to the ink pad, leaving the full ink pad in the printer, and connect that tube to the new tube leading to an external ink box (a modified "lock and lock" box) and run a reset utility. My box is only a third full after 3 years and just needs emptying whenever it suits.

[reynoldsno1]

I watched a documentary a few months ago that looked at built-in obsolesence. Printers were one of the products targetted, and a bloke in Russia had apparently devised a software program that would reset the 'counter chip' in printers that renders them inoperative ...

[Saab Dastard]

I'll second Mixture's comment about HP business laser printers. I got a LJ4050N with duplexer that was surplus to office requirements 10 years ago, and it's still going strong. I choose to use HP toner carts - the 10,000 page jobbies, as it works out better value than the standard ones.

I have found HP printing and scanning kit equally impressive in the office environment too!

SD

[Milo Minderbinder]

I think mixture and I are very much comparing apples and oranges here.
When I posted I was very much thinking of the kind of machine a home user would have - its clear his experience is with larger scale office machines.

My dislike of Epsons is deep-seated. For several years one company I worked with was Epsons biggest UK customer, and we were for periods getting failure rates of 80% - on sales volumes in excess of 100,000 units / year. Cost us a fortune in goodwill - so much so that we gave up on them and switched to HP, despite the much higher initial purchase cost.
They're better now, but still below par.
I agree the office oriented Epson machines are more reliable, and I also accept the print quality on some models is outstanding - but the units aimed at the home consumer are utter garbage. Failure prone, and built in obselesence in the form of the ink pad counter described earlier.
As for lasers, for a home user Brothers and Samsungs are prefectly acceptable - I've examples of both lasting over five years (in fact I've not had to replace one of either brand at a customer so far). I'd certainly agree that a Xerox is going to be a better bet in a high print environment though.

As regards my comment about the HP software being bloated and unreliable - yes, that comment was very specifically aimed at their inkjets, not the lasers.

[Load Toad]

It is a constant amazement to me that in 2012 no one has made a printer that is reliable & works...;-/

[MCDU2]

I watched a documentary a few months ago that looked at built-in obsolesence. Printers were one of the products targetted, and a bloke in Russia had apparently devised a software program that would reset the 'counter chip' in printers that renders them inoperative ...

There is a guy on ebay that does this for around a tenner from memory. Involves you pushing a combination of buttons on your printer to print out various reports which give him firmware and other useful details. You email these across to him. He then emails you back with a full instruction guide and a zip file which includes a new firmware exe file which resets the printer counter to zero and keeps it that way. You can then fill up your laser with a 3rd party toner. This generally involves drilling a small hole on the end or pulling off a plastic cover and pouring in the toner and covering the hole up again. Of course printer drums don't last forever but at least you will get a few years out of your laser without having to dump it since it is generally cheaper to buy a new printer than pay full whack for an OEM toner cartridge.

[Milo Minderbinder]

If you Google the model number of your Epson, along with the words "reset" or "ink counter" you can nearly always find the correct instructions or utility on the web for free
These people who charge for the task online are scamming

[Ancient Observer]

I'll second that negative comment about HP Inkjet software. It is massively over-bloated.

After one bunch of problems, I finally got full "how to remove the software completely" from an HP techie.

I figured that doing what he said would take me longer than I have left on the planet.

AND - the software designed for my machine/XP does not support Win 7....so the dead scanner stays dead.

[Milo Minderbinder]

Ancient
which HP model is it?
Microsoft were aware of HP playing silly games with the Windows 7 drivers and actually wrote of number of generic drivers for older HP kit themselves.
Windows update can often find a driver even if HP says it doesn't exist...

[Ancient Observer]

Milo,
thanks. It's an old HP PSC 1355. Everything works other than the scanner, so my plan is to leave it alone until my ink stocks have run out, and then to buy something new.
Daughter has a Canon MG which seems to meet my needs. I don't know how they shrank the 1800cc engine to fit in to it , though. Changing the ink cartridges on the MG is more difficult than lowering the soft top.

[obgraham]

VueScan software works well with an HP all-in-one that I decided to usea bit longer. Much better than the HP bloatware.

Otherwise, HP inkjet systems are complete shyte. A cheap Canon from Wal-Mart has worked well for me out of the box, never a glitch.

[Milo Minderbinder]

Ancient

yep, thats one that HP didn't bother writing Windows 7 drivers for

The basic driver than downloads through windows update gives you basic printing and scanning, but none of the buttons on the printer will work. You have to scan using a third party utility e.g windows picture editor or similar

see The Driver for Your Product Is Included in the Windows 7 Operating System HP PSC 1355 All-in-One Printer - HP Customer Care (United States - English) (http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c01796879&cc=us&dlc=en&lc=en&os=4062&product=306898&sw_lang=#N479)

[Sunnyjohn]

It is a constant amazement to me that in 2012 no one has made a printer that is reliable & works...;-/ I've just bought my third Canon. The first, a Pixma, was retired because the quality was going due to me using cheap ink cartridges. The second, an iP5200 worked superbly for five years until the motherboard went. I could fix it but it's not worth the cost. Just bought a Canon MG5350 - superb colour, really quiet, excellent all-round and all for £119. I expect it to last me another five years - I'll let you know!

[Ancient Observer]

Milo,
thanks.
That worked. It'll certainly do until I have run down my print stocks. I've never used Windows scan before. Maybe it was new for 7? It was quicker than the HP software.

The HP is not so much an MG. More a broken down 105E.

[peterh337]

I don't think there is a single outstanding printer manufacturer.

I've had Epsons, Lexmarks, Canons, HP.

I've just had two Canon i850s stop working. The LED just flashes 7? times. Spent an hour or two on google on ways of resetting it but nothing works. One got binned and some parts from it were used to fix the other one (printhead replaced). They go for a lot of money on Ebay in working condition (more than the new cost) and one can see why: any printer which can run the old 3e cartridges is much sought after. That's why almost every new inkjet generation uses different cartridges :yuk:

At home we have an HP duplexing colour laser; cost £450 to buy and the refills cost £250 :yuk: There is no doubt that a duplexing inkjet will cost less to run and will deliver reasonable colours. I use £90 fake Ebay refills for the laser but they don't last very long and fail randomly.

Printing is a very expensive game - unless you want just B&W in which case an old HP Laserjet from c. 15 years ago will last almost for ever :)

[mixture]

to buy and the refills cost £250

Erm, exactly how much printing are you doing peterh337 ?

The point is that yes, toner cartridges for lasers are more expensive. But they last a lot longer than inkjet cartridges and the cost per page is substantially better !

For example in the below, yeah the toners are not cheap if you look at the capex, but the opex is substantially better than any inkjet I've ever used at home.

http://i50.tinypic.com/qntcf8.jpg

[BigEndBob]

I'm sure most of the electrical stuff today has some form of doomsday chip ticking away inside.
My HP c4480 printer software is 200mb, when you untick all the bloatware you end up with a 5mb file that actually drives the printer.
The best printer i had was an early Hp were you pulled the memory battery and used the cartridges to you hearts content. Then one day the doomsday chip kicked in and no matter what i did, it wouldn't work. Didn't even have the satisfaction of seeing it smash into pieces when i threw it on the floor, it just bounced:}

My wireless headset just stopped working for no reason again when i opened up the base station full of chips, who knows whats going on inside those.