Article on Inkjet Ink - How much remains?

[Zepper]

PC World has a good article on ink remaining in cartridges when you are forced to replace:
http://www.pcworld.com/article...icle.html?tk=nl_wbxnws

Nothing that most ATers didn't already know, just some more confirmation.

.bh.

 

[RalfHutter]

This PCWorld story actually made the local TV news here last night. They focused on the class-action lawsuit against Canon for it's MP610 ink carts.

 

[nerp]

A monochrome laser with generic toner carts and a decent little photo printer is the best option. I'd never use an injket for day to day printing ever again. For $30, I can use my laser for a year and print thousands of pages. Inkjets still suck at text after all these years and need special paper just to not look bad. I like to use recycled paper, thin paper, and hate heavy bright white paper for standard prints. Laser FTW.

 

[corkyg]

Very good info, Zep. Like Nerp, most of my printing is with a monochrome laser. I have had a Canon bubblejet, but my current ink spitter is HP.

The article was pretty clear about HP carts - you use 'em until they start showing a lack of ink, and with the print head as part of the cartridge, running out of ink does not create a problem with the hardware. Also, HP provides software (HP Solutions) that contains the "HP Toolbox" which shows approximate levels of ink in each cartridge. This is useful as a "situation warning."

Ink

As you can see in the clip, my color ink is getting low, so I have a new one ready. When the current one starts showing fades and gaps, I'll change. I don't see much waster that way.

Overall, printing is not something I do very often - just when I want to share something with someone else, or a receipt of an email purchase to go in a file, etc.

 

[Zepper]

My text printing is pretty good but I only buy inkjets that use pigmented black ink for text. I recently printed out a sample ballot in a compressed size and had to use a magnifying glass to read the compressed print but it could be read. HP K5400.

I use the lowest cost paper I can find but generally not lower weight than 18 or 20# for every day printing - text or text with spot color looks fine on it. Of course I'll use better paper for printing photos and important letters. I keep quite a variety of papers but mostly use 18 or 20# multi-purpose. I also reuse the back sides of pages for unimportant printing. But I don't do uneconomic things like buying recycled paper if it costs more than the equivalent all new paper.

.bh.

 

[akugami]

If you're not after photo quality, a cheap alternative is to get an inkjet printer and a Continuous Ink System (CIS). Do a little research and you can get a printer + CIS for under $200. You want the most basic printer you can get for this purpose since it is my experience that the "all in one" printers are not ideal due to the way most of them are designed.

My job currently has one and we've run through about 2 bottles of 110ml black ink not counting what came with the CIS. If you consider how much it costs for OEM ink, that is a huge huge savings. Our usage of the printer is 90% reports that consist of text along with some borders and a few solid colors. Nothing fancy but we probably print half a ream of reports in a week.

 

[Mem]

Originally posted by: akugami
If you're not after photo quality, a cheap alternative is to get an inkjet printer and a Continuous Ink System (CIS). Do a little research and you can get a printer + CIS for under $200. You want the most basic printer you can get for this purpose since it is my experience that the "all in one" printers are not ideal due to the way most of them are designed.

My job currently has one and we've run through about 2 bottles of 110ml black ink not counting what came with the CIS. If you consider how much it costs for OEM ink, that is a huge huge savings. Our usage of the printer is 90% reports that consist of text along with some borders and a few solid colors. Nothing fancy but we probably print half a ream of reports in a week.

I just buy my third party ink (X print) in bottles and use the syringe method to refill the carts,saved me loads of cash and I must be on 30th refill with the same cartridges,printer is well passed warranty on my Canon ip4500,to be honest I only ever used Canon ink on the printer when I first setup my Canon printer,the cartridges are still going strong even now with 3rd party ink I'm using.