HP Ink Jet Printer Ink expires and useless?

[MossRoad]

Had a feeling not all printers have similar restrictions...

The ink pack was well over $100 and had 19 months to expiration... maybe a 100 pages so over a buck a page!

I used to buy aftermarket cartridges online for our Epson at home. Great deals out there. Just don’t be tempted to ’stock up’ too much, as it’ll go bad sitting on the shelf after a few years.

At the newspaper, we hired a company to maintain all of the laser printers. They would supply the toner stock, perform the PMs, and supply usage and cost figures to accounting each month. We also had them service the large plotters that were ink-jet with large capacity ink wells. We did our best to eliminate as many inkjet and laser personal printers throughout the company, and severely restrict color printer permissions. That didn’t go over real well, but saved us a ton of money in ink and paper.

I also found that by switching from the default font to a more efficient font saved us about 30% on toner costs, so we implemented that company-wide, and I got a coffee mug for my efforts.

 

[Hughman]

I gave up on ink jet printers all together decades ago and went with Brother laser printers. Toner cartridges last a lot longer than ink cartridges. It does kind of restrict you to B&W printing, but if you can live with that, they are a lot cheaper and more reliable to operate.

Hack tip... When the "replace toner" light comes on, put a piece of masking tape over the site hole on the side of the cartridge and you can get a lot more use out of the toner before it quits working.

 

[Spike56]

Ive had printers over 40 years but only in the last few have nearly full cartridges "Expired" requiring replacement.

These printers are for specific functions which have regular use but low page counts.

Is this a new thing across the board or only with HP printers and HP ink?

Also a few issues with HP LaserJet printers where a cartridge is moved from one machine location to another machine in another location... mostly in a pinch which results in a Not Genuine cartridge or stop printing until dialog box satisfied...

My two cents. If possible DUMP the printer where you have to buy a replacement cartridges. One of the best products I ever purchased is my EcoTank (Epson) printer. Had for 3 years now. Has NOT clogged or dried out and GONE are the days trying to find / order specific cartridge's ! You refill the tank/s with bottled ink - AND it is simple to do.
I used to have the same issues as you stated. No idea on $$ these days, but .... for me, it was a good decision (I make so few good ones, it is easy to remember).

 

[Tinhack]

It does kind of restrict you to B&W printing, but if you can live with that, they are a lot cheaper and more reliable to operate.

Not so, if you go with a color printer. My laser Brother has four cartridges. One black and three color. And it prints pictures better than my ink printer.

 

[Hughman]

Not saying color laser printers don't exist, just that I have no experience with them. I will add that of the two laser printers I have, the brother 5040 is probably 30+ years old and the smaller 2040 is probably 20+ years old. Both have been trouble free, though the 5040 is finally ready for a new drum.

 

[Ken45101]

Inkjets get very expensive if you only print a few pages a month. I gave up and went to a laserjet. I have had no problems using aftermarket cartridges with the current Canon MF210, which I've had for 8-10 years.

If I ever need a color print, I will send it to Walmart or some other picture printer. It is about the same cost per page as home printing color and they do a better job than I could do if I had a color laserjet.

Ken

 

[MossRoad]

I gave up on ink jet printers all together decades ago and went with Brother laser printers. Toner cartridges last a lot longer than ink cartridges. It does kind of restrict you to B&W printing, but if you can live with that, they are a lot cheaper and more reliable to operate.

Hack tip... When the "replace toner" light comes on, put a piece of masking tape over the site hole on the side of the cartridge and you can get a lot more use out of the toner before it quits working.

We used to just shake the toner cartridge and put it back in. Did that several times per cartridge. Worked great. Just be careful or you’ll end up looking like a chimney sweep!

 

[JasperFrank]

Brother makes the best printer. I've been tempted to get rid of all the HPs we have, but I get the genuine New Old Stock Carts for $3.50 from the local Goodwill store. I only buy the #57 Color, #58 Color Photo and the #56 Black Carts. And we only use the older HP printers that take these three and have never had a problem swapping the Carts amongst the printers. So far I've been able to use even very out-use-date Carts, some as old as 12 years.

HP is the worst offender when it comes to OEM detection and limiting the use of their Carts. 2016 is when they enacted their most restrictive policies, but HP was always working, way back in 2006, to figure out ways to limit the re-use of their Carts.

 

[ljjhouser]

I gave up Ink printers MANY years ago. Cost too much compared to toner. Then we operated on two HP4100. Good printer but wore them out. Then we bought two Brother MFC 3770. This first round, I brought Brother toner$$$. For the last two years, we have only used "off brand" toner - cost about $105 for all 4 extended size cartridges. The two Brothers have been excellent. I should have gotten rid of the HP4100 s sooner. ALL ink cartridges (in my opinion) are way overpriced.
The Brother MFC3770 is color and has excellent print quality.

 

[jyoutz]

I have a HP printer and I subscribe to HP instant ink online. For only $3.99 per month, HP monitors my ink level and ships me ink automatically when mine runs low. I did encounter the problem you had recently when I didn’t use the printer for a long time and the ink jets on the cartridges dried up and became clogged. I had to contact HP to get a shipment before those cartridges were empty, but this has only happened once in the past few years. The subscription is worth the price and saves the hassle of buying ink in stores.