OT: printer cartridge replacement reality

I recently tossed my 6P and bought a 1320. The 6P rollers and "paper-grabber" wear out and it starts feeding crooked, and skipping, producing text with "gaps".

My 6P had already been refurbished once, so I decided I was due for a new toy ;-)

Love the 1320... it prints on both sides.

...Jim Thompson

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|  James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
|  Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
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I love to cook with wine.      Sometimes I even put it in the food.

Depends on the model. Some of the newer models use "chipped" cartridges with unique IDs, and once the printers decides that they're empty, it'll refuse to use them again. However, the printer itself remembers the cartridge IDs and I seem to recall it only remembers something like the last two you've used, so it's easy to fool by keeping a set of three cartridges around and rotating their usage (a good idea anyway). Alternatively, you can find on the 'net which pins on the cartridge to cover up so as to foil reading the ID completely, and -- happily -- HP decided that it was better to just keep printing anyway in such cases rather than refusing to print at all.

I believe so. I have a DeskJet 6127 that just keeps on printing even though it's been whining at me that there's "0% black ink left!" for many months now (I've refilled it twice...).

In terms of user-unfriendlisness towards refilling, I think that Epson is the worst, HP is in the middle, and Canon is the friendliest. For

Must be nice to have so little work that you have time on your hands to waste on questionable-quality refill kits.

Me, I just log into OfficeMax.com, make a few clicks, and a new cartridge appears at my door the next day, no shipping charges.

If I used a refill kit it would save me about 5 minutes of income and take me 15 minutes to do the task. Hardly worth the effort.

...Jim Thompson

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|  James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
|  Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
|  Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC\'s and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
|  Phoenix, Arizona            Voice:(480)460-2350  |             |
|  E-mail Address at Website     Fax:(480)460-2142  |  Brass Rat  |
|       http://www.analog-innovations.com           |    1962     |
             
I love to cook with wine.      Sometimes I even put it in the food.

Reminds me, I'm down to less than 250 sheets of paper... click, click, delivery tomorrow ;-)

...Jim Thompson

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|  James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
|  Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
|  Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC\'s and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
|  Phoenix, Arizona            Voice:(480)460-2350  |             |
|  E-mail Address at Website     Fax:(480)460-2142  |  Brass Rat  |
|       http://www.analog-innovations.com           |    1962     |
             
I love to cook with wine.      Sometimes I even put it in the food.

Jim,

My experience with ink refills was back when I was a student making all of $1625/mo -- which is actually more than many people make, such as your average Wal*Mart or McDonalds employee!

These days I spend my spare time trying to build things like your gyrator circuit without success :-) (see my ABSE post).

---Joel

Background: There was a good NG article recently about Epson printers. Basically, their cartridges now "lock out" refilling and generic replacement. Worse, if one uses the printer a lot, the printer itself ceases to function: only so many cartridges and it is useless (unless one is willing to spend a lot of money to "fix" what is not broken - just reset a counter). And there is *nothing* by Epson anywhere to let un-suspecting buyers get even a hint of this crap. Questions: What is the story concerning HP printers in general? Can one re-fill as one sees fit? Can one use generics as one sees fit? Can one use hundreds of cartridges until the printer *really* wears out? Finally, what about cartridges for the HP PSC 1400 (HP 21 and HP 22)?

I use OfficeMax MaxBrite (24#/94 Brightness)

...Jim Thompson

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|  James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
|  Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
|  Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC\'s and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
|  Phoenix, Arizona            Voice:(480)460-2350  |             |
|  E-mail Address at Website     Fax:(480)460-2142  |  Brass Rat  |
|       http://www.analog-innovations.com           |    1962     |
             
I love to cook with wine.      Sometimes I even put it in the food.

Hello Robert,

That would be mean if it were so. Smells like some lawsuits coming down the pipe.

They have been good to me so far.

I could with my first Deskjet. The ink I refilled actually produced better quality prints than the original, made a real difference with fine-print schematics. I could do it 2-3 times until the head nozzles were literally scraping off.

Then I tried it with my copier toner because the cartridges became unavailable. Didn't work. I guess the loose toner is opposite charge polarity or something, I don't know. So it looks like a perfectly fine copier that has to be tossed just because I can't get gas. At least not at any reasonable price.

Generic printers? Make sure you can obtain cartridges, else it'll become worthless soon. Generic cartridges? I tried a "recycled green" cartridge in an HP. Cost only 20% less but I tried for environmental consciousness. Never again.

I don't think that anything except maybe heavy duty industrial printers offer that kind of mileage. The big ones usually have an exchangeable toner bucket, not a cartridge.

Regards, Joerg

...

If this is true, has it been reported to the Federal Trade Commission?

Do you have it from a reliable source or just a stranger in a newsgroup?

Yes, I pop over to Staples, which is about 50' out of my way several times a week. I'm on my second replacment cartridge for my HP1200 in something like 5 years, at just C$90 each. And the drum gets replaced each time, so the quality doesn't suffer.

Total pages printed: 6979 Pages jammed in printer: 6

Had a few more jams since I started using thinner dirt-cheap Sam's club 20lb paper. Made in Sweden. They must be using Russki logs or something. ;-) HP ultra-bright all-purpose 22lb paper is nicer.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

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In fact, given the way Epson promotes their printers to high-volume professional photographers -- and some of them even have ink tank systems with ink by the liter -- I am skeptical about the allegation. It sounds like exactly the kind of thing a salesman would say to steer people away from Epson toward his product.

Or it could be a half-truth. There may be counters that indicate when some internal parts are likely to be worn out.

Concerning the economics of refilling...

If you don't need precise color reproduction, you should be using a color laser printer anyway.

If you are doing reproducible photo-quality color, you shouldn't cut corners.

Quick update: I'm told that the new Canon printers from just the past couple of months (e.g., ip4200 -- the ones that say 'new' at

ARE now using chipped cartridges. :-( Better get the current models before they're gone if you're planning on refilling.

Your actions fit nicely within their business model. They're counting on your typical actions. But that don't make it right to FORCE me to buy their overpriced ink. If I wanted to RENT my printer, I would have rented my printer. IF I buy something, I expect it to work FOREVER!!!

Now, if the FTC just demanded that they put a label on the box that said, "this printer will stop working after 50K pages. And you MUST buy our overpriced ink," I'd be a happy camper.

If you want an interesting exercise in "truth in advertising", buy a cheap chicken pot pie. Cook it, open the lid and compare it to the picture on the box. ;-( mike

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There have been lawsuits by printer manufacturers under the DMCA, trying to prevent people from reverse-engineering the chips in those protected cartridges.

summarized at

Thanks; i guess i should have been more eXplicit. This query relates to color inkjets.

I have an old Cannon that has run for many years; the cartridges take all of the wear. It was made many years before Epson decided to put a "lock" on their printers and inkjet cartridges. Does HP put a "lock" on their inkjet cartridges and/or inkjet printers?

PERFECT!!! Many thanks for the valuable info!

Actually, i have found that the refill ink is better than the "official" stuff. And it takes only a minute more to refill than replace (takes time to open the box, cut open the foil, pry out the new cartridge).