Kitz Forum
Computers & Hardware => Other Technologies & Hardware => Topic started by: AdrianH on July 02, 2011, 11:03:31 AM
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I have an HP 5940 deskjet, it is a photosmart model. The ink prices are getting totally stupid so I loooked around for a cheaper alternative supply. The cheapo cartridges which are "guaranteed" compatible are utterly useless and the company sent Jet Tec units as replacements ......... these are equally useless, they simply do not work.
Looking at the HP UK site today I find I can purchase a brand new all in one printer scanner for only £39.00 complete! That is less than the cost of the original HP cartidges for my printer, so now we are in a place where you buy a machine, the ink runs out, machine goes in bin and you buy another new one as it is half the price of the cartridges! :'( :no:
( Oops, I stuck this in the wrong section :-[ )
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It's much the same in many fields - the hardware is sold for a song or even given away free, but the consumables are expensive. There's much more money to be made on consumables than hardware.
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It' been like that for years. On the flip side, it is much easier to dispose of four cartridges than it is four printers. They won't take the printers at recycle shop. Take more than one to a recycle centre and they think you are business and want to charge. Heads they win, tails you lose. So the saying goes.
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It' been like that for years. On the flip side, it is much easier to dispose of four cartridges than it is four printers. They won't take the printers at recycle shop. Take more than one to a recycle centre and they think you are business and want to charge. Heads they win, tails you lose. So the saying goes.
Our recycling centre is run by a contractor and they "love" techy stuff as they make a fortune from it, the site is just around the corner,walking distance, so I can move printers without any effort.
The disparity in prices between machine and consumables is now apparently getting much bigger , it is crazy that an all in one unit is cheaper than 2 cartridges.
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My printer is an Epson Stylus D68, which uses 4 cartridges; I have always bought compatibles ....with good results, and my last order from my supplier here consisted of 7 black and 9 colour (3 of each) cartridges, including postage ....€19,50 .... so I'm still ;D
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Bill Gates and Alan Sugar openly admit that they basically gave their hardware away for free, and once 'everybody' had bought in to their products, the consumables then made them their multi-millions.
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I have a Canon Pixma printer and I always use refilled/compatibles in it. I have had the occasional problem but that's more than outweighed by the saving. A full set of five Genuine carts is £40 to £45 and I can buy the equivalent on Ebay for less than £10. Just my 2 pennorth.
Tony
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Have you ever done a side by side evaluation of a largish colour photo? Just curious about what you found.
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renluop
If that question is meant for me I have to say "No, I haven't" but it would be difficult to be sure that all the ink from one set of carts was fully expunged from the heads before you tried the other set. I do use the printer for colour photos taken with my Olympus camera but I'm not super critical of the results. I did have one set of carts which gave me a pronounced orange cast but after changing the three colour carts all was well, and you can do that at less than £2 a cart. A useful forum about all things printer is http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/ which I have used several times. The information about continuous ink systems for printers I found particularly interesting.
Tony
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Thanks Tony :)
Primarily i was for you, but others' experiences would also be interesting.
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I did use a CISS system with an Epson P50 for some time. It was certainly capable of reasonably accurate colour reproduction, but the problem I had with it was that is wasn't consistent. I'm sure that this was down to the quality of construction of the CISS hardware, and not the inks. Eventually I got tired of repeatedly adjusting the colour levels, and opted for a problem-free, if more expensive, life with manufacturer's ink cartridges.
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I'll never ever buy another Epson printer. I had one with 4 cartridges. One of the colour ones ran out, and the stupid thing refused to print monochrome (a letter) until I replaced the colour cartridge.
Then I wasted lots of ink "cleaning" the heads. The local Epson repair shop told me that you need to use the printer daily else the heads clag up. I used the printer about weekly.
So I bought an HP LaserJet 1010. Excellent. After several years am still on the first toner cartridge, but which now needs replacement.
Dilemma - do I junk the printer, or buy new toner? A new HP laser printer is more expensive than the toner, but not by all that much. I expect the new toner to last another 5+ years.
But - HP decided not to bother supporting it in Win7. Fortunately I have a fairly good workaround by forcing Win7 to load an older (Vista) driver.
(MS's Win7 upgrade checker says that it's supported by HP. But HP say it isn't!).
All the associated hassle prejudices me against HP. Will check which others support older printers with Win7, hoping they will do the same with Win8, Win9... and also have good Linux support.
Cheers,
Peter
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I also had an HP laserjet printer, and I have a Linux OS. When I checked up for replacement toner cartridges I also needed a transfer belt. ??? OOoooWeee! I needed a mortgage for that little lot. So I bought me a Samsung laser 312. Never looked back since. Had row lots of toner in some 5 years. There is support for it in Linux, but Linux printing is not that good in colour. However Samsung have released a driver for it and it prints quite good. I can't say for Windows as I don't use it. As with all printers I could have got another new one when the toner started to run out. but it was easier ordering online and having it delivered. Next time it will be another printer, if the trend continues, because with a new printer I would get a new drum, fixing unit and all the other consumables. I will never go back to inkjet. :no:
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I'm a fan of Samsung laser printers too, although I haven't tried the colour ones. My old ML1510 went on for years with no trouble, and I refilled the toner cartridge several times. When the toner cartridge drum wore out eventually I replaced the machine, although I could have just got a new cartridge.
I like laser printers generally, for their convenience and reliability, but I can't do without a good inkjet for the best photo printing.
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I like laser printers generally, for their convenience and reliability, but I can't do without a good inkjet for the best photo printing.
Crikey I would have thought that laser printers would produce better quality than inkjets !
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Crikey I would have thought that laser printers would produce better quality than inkjets !
Not for photos as far as I know. And I doubt that any of the lower cost laser printers can handle heavyweight photo paper. But if anyone knows better, I'm happy to be proved wrong.
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I'll never ever buy another Epson printer. I had one with 4 cartridges. One of the colour ones ran out, and the stupid thing refused to print monochrome (a letter) until I replaced the colour cartridge. ...
Same with my Pixma, and what's the odds that there is still ink in the cartridge?!
I did use a CISS system with an Epson P50 for some time. It was certainly capable of reasonably accurate colour reproduction, but the problem I had with it was that is wasn't consistent. I'm sure that this was down to the quality of construction of the CISS hardware, and not the inks. Eventually I got tired of repeatedly adjusting the colour levels, and opted for a problem-free, if more expensive, life with manufacturer's ink cartridges.
CISS? Colour consistency would worry me too, even though I do not do many colour prints nowadays.
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Looking at the HP UK site today I find I can purchase a brand new all in one printer scanner for only £39.00 complete! That is less than the cost of the original HP cartridges for my printer,
Obviously you did not read the small print that will say that the cartridges are "starter cartridges" (which usually only contain about 30% ink) so, it looks like a bargain and you feel less inclined to throw it away when the ink cartridges soon run out and as explained in other posts you then have to purchase cartridges which is where they make the real money.
One of my Epson R300 printers (I have 2 of them) had not been used in over a year and still worked perfectly when it was reinstalled, so saying they need to be used on a daily basis is just not true.
As for the CISS unit, that was probably the best purchase I ever made.
Re coloured laser printers, I have literally last week acquired a Samsung CLX-2160N (IP network printer) and with cartridges only £5.99 each from SVP.com
But as mentioned earlier, the print quality is not as good as my inkjet printer, although part of that problem is down to the quality of paper that is used.
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One of my Epson R300 printers (I have 2 of them) had not been used in over a year and still worked perfectly when it was reinstalled, so saying they need to be used on a daily basis is just not true.
I'm only quoting the Epson repair shop and their "lots of customers have that problem" plus my own experience. And if you Google around you'll find others with a similar sorry tale. The Epson R300 must be the model that breaks the rule! Or maybe they've wised up and changed the design. After all, it was 5+ years ago that I junked my Epson. Anyway, once bitten, twice shy.
But I will say that when it worked the Epson's prints were excellent.
Cheers,
Peter
Added - PS Have also thought about a colour laser. But I can't find your cartridges only £5.99 each from SVP.com
SVP.com (http://SVP.com) est en France, et il faut parler français pour comprendre cette site.
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Peter, I think this is the site you are looking for ...... http://www.svp.co.uk/
:lol: at your link ... well, I found it funny ;D
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Thanks scottiesmom, although that is one of the sites I also use, I posted the wrong site to begin with, the site I meant to mention is " http://new.ukdvdr.co.uk/search.php?search=CLX-2160&brand= " where I recently purchased the coloured toner cartridges from, (£6.14 each not as originally stated as £5.99)
I can't remember now but I think each cartridge is supposed to print about 1,000 pages.
The printer itself is about 2 to 3 years old and as said earlier it's not too bad but as said in one of the many write-ups it does tend to curl the paper quite a bit, so actually making double sided printing a bit difficult at times, but it did not cost me anything so who am I to complain.
(what I have done on one occasion is to print the one side of each copy then leave it/them under a flat weight for about 30 minutes then print the reverse sides) not the best way of printing but it does work.
But as I also said, the quality of paper makes a big difference and I am only using cheap photocopy paper at the moment.
(Better/thicker paper has produced better results with far less curling of the paper)
Still on the subject of ink, when I originally setup my CISS (Continuous Ink Supply System) I also diverted the waste overflow tube into a clear glass jar which not only is it amazing to see how much ink gets wasted each time the printer is turned on and even more-so when a head clean task is run either automatically or manually, this "WASTE INK" although a mixture of all 6 colours it then gets recycled into the black ink bottle without any noticeable difference, although I do occasionally use a new supply of black ink from time-to-time to stop it from getting to diluted with the other colours.
This is the unit that I first setup and it's still going strong without any problems, although I had a quick look for replacement inks the other day and they seem to be a bit illusive at the moment.
How to: Install a Continuous Ink Supply System (CISS) for the Epson R300 (http://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php?topic=4902.msg113781#msg113781)
edit:
Link changed.