printer ink

[J_J]

BigE,

My Hp 5160 does about the same as your Epson, and prints on CD/DVD, and has 6 colors. I wished they had a CIS system for my small photo printer, That 110 cartridge runs about $22. They almost give away some of those printers, but make it up on the ink replacement.

 

[tallyho8]

Although my Epson printer can print some very nice looking photos, they don't hold up nearly as well as photos from Kodak or other photo services. When hung on the wall by these photos, the ones I print out fade out long before the others.

Do they make a photo printer that makes photos that are as high a quality as those made by the professional photo services?

 

[J_J]

This is what Inkproducts.com says. Of course every manufacture says their stuff is the best.

Are you using the best photo paper you can find, and selected high print quality?



Our company emphasizes superior, cutting-edge ink chemistry to deliver inks that are perfectly match to the OEM inks. The outcome is a unique blending of ink formulas, as distinct and precise as your needs. Our products consistently deliver sharp and vibrant impressions. We retain samples of every manufactured batch of ink and carefully document its values for future reference. The end result is consistent ink quality, batch after batch, time after time.

 

[tallyho8]

I like your horse , "Happy Trails". On my last day of high school our home room all joined in singing Happy Trails. I seem to remember the first lines: Happy trails to you, untill we meet again. Happy tails to you, keep smiling untill then. Haven't though about that in many years. Funny how a little cartoon can shake out some cob webs and spark an old memory. If I remember right Roy sang the song and the title was Happy Trails To You. Does your happy refer to same song or is it something different?

By the way, I don't remember seeing Epsons in the Best Buys etc. But, I think the old printer I had for invoices might have been one. I think it used an ink ribbon; like a typewriter. Hey, what's a typewriter?

Cheers...Coffeeman

Yes, Roy Rogers on his trusty palomino, Trigger, was one of my heros as he represented all that was good in the old cowboy movies. Now I, on my trusty palomino, do all I can to keep his memory alive.

A typewriter is what I have stored in the corner of my attic, along with a record player and a stack of records, a dial telephone, my cassette player, a couple pair of my bell bottom jeans, a hula hoop, a wind-up wrist watch, some returnable Coke bottles, a Nixon for President poster, a set of encyclopedias, a bunch of old ice trays, a bumper jack, a skate key, a refillable ink pen, a Brownie camera, an AM radio and some bottle and beer can openers.

 

[thatguy]

I have an older HP Laserjet 4, big old laser printer. Toner cartridge runs about $80, and lasts several thousand pages. I bought the printer about 8 years ago on ebay for $50.

I have a 4mPlus that is pretty bullet proof and many, many years old.. For a basic printer you cant beat one.. Then again Im not sure what happens if it breaks

I have sworn that I wont buy another ink jet anything due to the high ink costs.. We had a fax machine with new ink cartridges that was used to make about 3 copies over 6 mths and then ran out of ink.. $50 every 6 mths for just a few copies is not acceptable..

Brian

 

[J_J]

Everyone should know by now that most new printing machines do not come with full cartridges. Only a token ink supply. Those people that sell new printers on Ebay with out ink cartridge, what's up with that.

 

[2manyrocks]

Just go buy a Brother MFC-7220 laser printer, fax, copier and scanner unit. They put them on sale for $100-$129 every so often. Generic toner is about $28 and should print about 2500 pages.

The CIS systems need to be used. If you let them sit up, you may have problems with the system and your printer that you can't fix. I don't think anybody actually fixes color printers because you can buy a new one with a warranty for less than the repairs, if repairs can be made.

You can get a cheap dedicated photo printer for your color photos and then do your bulk printing on the laser printer.

 

[coffeeman]

Just go buy a Brother MFC-7220 laser printer, fax, copier and scanner unit. They put them on sale for $100-$129 every so often. Generic toner is about $28 and should print about 2500 pages.

The CIS systems need to be used. If you let them sit up, you may have problems with the system and your printer that you can't fix. I don't think anybody actually fixes color printers because you can buy a new one with a warranty for less than the repairs, if repairs can be made.

You can get a cheap dedicated photo printer for your color photos and then do your bulk printing on the laser printer.

I had an MFC 490. Out of ink after a few prints and shut machine down. Didn't have insurance, but, Office Max gave me a credit slip and took it back. I was happy with that because I didn't hook up printer for about 4 months. I also have another Brother printer that is a lazer printer. This one prints real nice. Bought extra toner. Used it and got message; replace black cartridge and toner drum. The two together will cost more than the printer. I asked the "Best Buy"??? guy, why drum? Oh, that's normal. Sometime you have to replace drum with each toner. I have an old copy machine for maybe 15 toner changes and no drum replaced yet. It's a sad day when a college student tells me he waits till he gets to school to print his papers. He sites the cost of ink as his big reason to print at school.

We sit around in North America and discuss how crappy the overseas products are made. We say, "They don't know how to make anything right. A year or two or sometime a few months; products are junk." There are some exceptions; sadly cars and small trucks might be exception where North Americans have strong products to compete against. I wonder about the cheap crap, though.... Is it cheap stuff made by folks that can't make better? Or.. is it planned obsolescence??

Cheers...Coffeeman

 

[MossRoad]

Pretty simple, really... printer companies are not in the business of selling printers. They are in the business of selling consumables.

Every year we have a cost analysis on the cost of desktop printing done for us. The results are almost always the same... ink jet printing costs ten to fifteen times the cost of laser printing. That is, a black and white page costs us about two to three cents to print on the laser printers while it costs twenty to thirty cents to print on the ink jet printers. It is to the point that we are eliminating most desktop ink jet printers. We set the users to use community laser printers, or, in the case of managers that need confidential printing, we are getting them small laser printers. As for color printing, they don't need to do it on their desktops. Just no reason. We found most people that want a color printer are just printing out family pictures and non work related items.

At home we have an Epson printer that has individual ink wells. That is nice in that you do not have to replace an entire color cartridge if just one color is empty. Color cartridges are about $12 bucks a poke, however the black is over $30! I saved the last batch of cartridges and am going to try filling them myself with a refill kit.

 

[2manyrocks]

I bought a old Epson color printer at a yard sale a few years ago. Got to the point that I couldn't find cartridges for it, but I was able to refill the black cartridge for quite some time before it tanked. I think the newer Epson printers have some sort of built in detection system to hinder the use of refills. I don't think it's as simple as refilling the empty cartridge anymore because of what they've built in the newer printers. So you might want to do search on your particular model and see what you find about refilling it.

I'm on my 4th or 5th toner cartridge for the Brother laser printer, and haven't gotten the replace drum signal yet. The drum is not cheap. Might well be cheaper to buy another printer than to replace the drum.

Of course, you guys remember that the man who invented the copier thought he was going to save a lot of paper from being wasted because his copier would make carbon paper obsolete. Look at us now.