How You are Being Cheated on Your Ink Jet Cartridges

re: How You are Being Cheated on Your Ink Jet Cartridges

Interested in Health — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 23:14:33 GMT

After much trial and error, I found there is a way to keep my HP printer capable of printing and squeezing out every last bit of ink. This is what works on this particular printer, it may work on yours.

Go easy on the black ink by choosing the a lighter level and a faster speed, do that on every print that is a fast draft option,

that's #1. The second important ink conservation technique is to stay in a basically blue ink mode, that means once the page is ready to print (and save as, a copy) highlight (select) all the text and change the text to blue. Then make active all other page elements ( lines, shapes, etc. by clicking one on, select all, go to color palette and pick blue. Now the whole page is in blue and will save the black cartridge, which when running low will cause all the colors to not print without a new black cartridge. Take this blue print to a copy shop, for 10 cents you have saved alot of ink. #3 What to do on a layout you want to print in all colors, go ahead, just have very little black on the page, dark blue is an attractive replacement color for black, and you will save even more of your cartridge.

Allocating minimal use of the black cartridge allows me to use my printer everyday (as a graphic artist) for many months.

re: How You are Being Cheated on Your Ink Jet Cartridges

Amicus Curiae1 — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 05:35:20 GMT

canon are good to refill a 20kit has kept me going 2 years! the warning that ink is low shows but still allows it to print. at work we have an epson r290 claria, and i have had 3!! so far 2 were duds and the 3rd is ratsh*t too. if black runs out nothing will print, ditto colour, swapping to greyscale will not work if a colour is out.

as to being "out" i ripped a supposedly emty catridge open i have close to 2ml of ink!

they are a pig of a design to refill, but i am going to have a go when the current one expires, can't hurt and i may yet beat the mongrel thing.

issues with the dvd print function not working would fill more space than post allows! works one time, restart and it doesnt for eg.

i heartily DO NOT recommend epson! at 200+ a waste of money.

at 49 my canon wins a trophy:-)

i bought original cartridges and one said not recognisable, so i sent it to epson, heres the funny thing:-)

the printer refused to aknowledge their very own one too! the not funny is i sent it by surface mail for $2, they returned ...by courier! cost over 20$..

explains why? they rip us off on purchase prices...stupid stupid people.

as for gentle shaking..i slam the damn thing down hard and replace, goes from empty to half full in a blink!

if i was close to their offices i would take it in and let them know in person just how crappy their items are, in no uncertain terms. the phone is no substitute.

i always end a call with - i will tell everyone i know NOT to buy your product.

re: How You are Being Cheated on Your Ink Jet Cartridges

somdbob — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 05:55:42 GMT

something snatched my comment before I was thru with it. I'll just finish by saying that , on cartridge replacement, the most annoying thing on the Lexmark 6150 is this: within a week of installing a new black cartridge, the blinkin' screen was warning "Black ink is low!" ???

You can bet I'll be trying the 'gentle shake and jiggle' routine before I buy another cartridge.

re: How You are Being Cheated on Your Ink Jet Cartridges

Yung Red612 — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 04:03:56 GMT

I just dont buy a printer . I go to the pubic library if i need to print(which is rare)

re: How You are Being Cheated on Your Ink Jet Cartridges

Judge Dredd — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 07:07:52 GMT

Hi, I got very frustrated with this rip-off/scam and when when I bought my new printer, an Epson Rx595, on Ebay for $68 I also went and bought a continuous ink supply system (CISS) from a company in australia called RIHAC (www.rihac.com). The unit came with SIX 100ml colors (600ml in total of ink) plus the chip which has a button on it to 'reset' the printer when the printer (after counting the number of pages printed) thinks it is running out of ink.

I have probably saved over $1,800.00 using this system, even though it cost more than twice what the printer did. The print quality is the same as the original ink too.

RIHAC have great customer service, as when the unit was sent to me in came with the incorrect chipset (the Epson printers in Australia have different model numbers even though they may look the same, hence different electronics). They sent me two chipsets for the cost of shipping ($10.00) instead of charging me for them + the shipping. One of them worked and I sent back the other one plus the original chip set from my printer. They are awesome to deal with. The actual unit cost me about $170 with the ink.

I hope this helps everyone here.

re: How You are Being Cheated on Your Ink Jet Cartridges

tomalex — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 01:53:55 GMT

Typically, I will buy a printer based on the price of consumables. Of the major brands, Canon and Epson are some of the least expensive to refill. HP and Lexmark sell you a new print head built into every ink cartridge, so even aftermarket carts are expensive. I get carts on Ebay from $2 to $6 a piece. I used to refill my old Canon carts. Now I have an Epson and at these prices, it doesn't pay to refill anymore. Epson is the only printer I know of that has an aftermarket driver created for it. The driver gives you more control of your printer (with more features)and will make your printer go till it's empty, if you like. Epson uses an electropiezo head, not a thermal head so there is less chance of overheating the head. The Epson driver is called SSC Service Utility and can be found here: www.softpedia.com/.../SSC-Service-Utility.shtml. Anyone serious about saving BIG money on ink should look into this.

Traditionally, prices with electronics will go down from market pressure, hopefully after a manufacturer has recouped his costs and made a reasonable profit. The printer companies have found a way to nullify this natural market effect. Subsidize the printers with exorbitant ink prices. In Dr. Mercola's example it was $1250 per liter. This is a crooked business model. Outsmart the crooks!!!

re: How You are Being Cheated on Your Ink Jet Cartridges

sroddy — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 22:06:21 GMT

When our copier reads, "Out of toner," we pull it out, sway it gently front to back and side to side, then slide it back into the copier. It lasts for quite a while, and we keep repeating this process until "out of toner" shows after only 3 or 4 copies have been made.

re: How You are Being Cheated on Your Ink Jet Cartridges

healing water online — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 21:56:55 GMT

I also use refill to my canon printer it is called ip4200, and i have saved a lot of $ on that, it is said that there will be no guarantee if we use refill, so what Ican buy 10 new printers for what i have saved.

I use my printer to print images on my healingwater cd's I haev newer had problems except ink on my fingers but i can live with that.

re: How You are Being Cheated on Your Ink Jet Cartridges

HilaryB — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 21:48:42 GMT

Another little known fact:

Some printers will stop printing after a certain number of prints. Some machines have a print counter and simply will not print after it hits that number even with a full cartridge.

Supposedly this is because there is a little pad inside that is used for print head cleaning that could overfill. There's not an easy way for the layman to replace this pad nor simply reset the printer (last I checked a year or so ago there are technically complex ways to make it work again but I finally gave up and took it to the recycling center since the shipping and repair cost would have been as much as a new and better one.) Epsons do display an "End of Service Life" message and I think other printers may only say "Printer Error" though I'm not sure.

I think the majority of home users never run into this because the page count is pretty high before this happens but it is something to be aware of. Price for quality I would still buy an Epson.

I also have a Brother printer that has to have black electrical tape applied to the cartridges to trick it into using the whole cartridge (or even at all - one time it didn't want to use a new cartridge until I did this.)

I tend to buy printers that have each ink color as a separate cartridge so that I'm not constantly having to deal with running out of only one color in a mutlicolor cartridge.

I've tried several home refill kits and they've been nothing but a mess.

re: How You are Being Cheated on Your Ink Jet Cartridges

jodavwel — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 20:09:24 GMT

Hello Mercola group! I have an Epson printer. I recently disassembled a black ink cartridge (TO601) that I removed from the printer to install a new cartridge. What I found inside the removed cartridge was enough black ink to perhaps fill

a ball point reservoir or more, except, of course, the viscosity of the ink is not suitable for ball point pens nor perhaps the surface tension properties. But the ink is of high quality and could be used, if saved, as a really good drawing ink.

Dave Welsh, Bowie, MD

re: How You are Being Cheated on Your Ink Jet Cartridges

stephani_3 — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 17:22:32 GMT

When I bought our Lexmark Printer I had every intention of using Cartridge World to refill our cartridges. We had used them before on a previous printer. Lexmark printers won't print with a refilled cartridge. Somehow the printer knows that it has been refilled with a "different ink" or the "chip" is altered and won't print. Talk about waste. I am dying for a new printer that is cheaper to use. This is straight from the guy at Cartridge World.

re: How You are Being Cheated on Your Ink Jet Cartridges

Gnoses — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 16:55:46 GMT

My Canon Multipass MP370 keeps printing until the ink is sporadic. I wonder what would happen if I processed the near empty cartridges through the microwave for a few seconds. Anyone tried that yet? The refilling sounds messy to me but I will do it if I have to. With all the e-books I need to print.....

re: How You are Being Cheated on Your Ink Jet Cartridges

emoritz — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 16:30:47 GMT

I've discovered that when the printer is not turning out a clear image with even the best quality setting, I can take the ink cartridge out, shake it up a bit, put it back in, and get a print quality as good as when the cartridge is new. I've done it twice with the cartridge I have in my printer now, and will try it a third time when necessary.

re: How You are Being Cheated on Your Ink Jet Cartridges

mbruns-shopping — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 16:18:27 GMT

On HP printers, you can click the "Print Black cartridge only" for type of printing in the software under the color tab. This bypasses the color aspect and lets you print with black cartidges even when the color cartridge is empty (leave empty color cartridge in the printer). I use my HP for B&W only and a laser printer when I need color.

re: How You are Being Cheated on Your Ink Jet Cartridges

rtfdc1 — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 15:10:06 GMT

I have the same issue with my OKI color laser. The printer indicates an empty toner cartridge way before it actually is empty. I lost a bit of cash before I realized what kind of scam was happening. I now wait for the quality to degrade before I replace a cartridge.