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Good AIO But Low Printing Cost !

R

Revolution

Senior member
Please help me !
I need a good AIO for basic home use for my daily life.
I don't have any experience in printer or AIO.
My average print will like 50 B&W pages,10 color pages and may be 2 photos in a month.
My budget is not much.
I'm considering Canon Pixma MP145.
Is this a good choice ?
Or else u cam suggest me a good one.
BTW,and my main query.
Which is better option cheap original cartridge or refilling ?
Thank you.....
 
I'm a big fan of HP printers. They always works, high print quality, print on CD's and low printer cost. As you're aware the ink cost can be a bit much. Give away the razor and charge big for the blades.

I got a HP 5280 AIO for $70 last year, excellent in all respects. I print more color than you but no B&W, laser for that. There are printer deals all the time, just go to your favorite deal site.
 
I'm a big fan of Brother printers, because they don't chip their ink, and third-party ink is cheap and available. I don't know how they are for printing photos, however.
 
VirtualLarry said:
I'm a big fan of Brother printers, because they don't chip their ink, and third-party ink is cheap and available. I don't know how they are for printing photos, however.
Click to expand...

100% this. I have an older Brother DCP-110C that I was paid $10 AR to take ($29 + tax - $40 rebate). I've had it for 4+ years and still love it. Ink is as low as $1 per tank (4 tanks) if I catch it on sale. Have an upgraded model with automatic sheet feeder and more that I paid $3 AR / coupon on Black Friday a few years ago also. Still in the box waiting for this one to die, lol.

It has served me well. Not the fastest printer in the world but works fine. Scanning is OK. Copying is fantastic, IMO.
 
Our OP, asks, "Which is better option cheap original cartridge or refilling ? "

And the answer is always refilling by a wide margin.

But a few variables complicate that easy answer.

1. A depleted cartridge is not infinitely refillable, crud builds up in the sponge, and after six or seven fillings, the ink does not flow as well. There are ways to backflush but its not all that easy.

2. It depends what kind of cartridge you have and there are two broad types. Most HP's and Lexmarks have a cheap foil print head on he cartridge, while Epsons, Canon's, and brothers tend to have cartridges that are simply ink tanks with a more expensive and durable print head external to the cartridge. Cheap foil on the cartridge printheads seldom last more than one refilling, but if you clog one, you only lose that cartridge. Totally clog up an external printhead, and it can cost $60.00 to replace.

3. I have never had any luck refilling HP's or Lexmarks, but I have had a 100% success rate on Canon's and its very easy.

4. Never buy generic ink advertised to work in all printer brands, ink has to be the right viscosity to work in tour given printer.

And no, I would not buy a Canon Pixma MP 145, because they use very small cartridge, to small to be worth refilling, and too expensive for the amount of ink they hold. Spend the extra bucks and get a Canon with larger individual inktanks, and if possible get something on the used market that takes BCI-3&6 non chipped, or the now cracked chips that take the PGI-5&8 cartridges. Get a $30. chip resetter for the PGI-5&8 cartridges, and you can now refill those hassle free. There are still a few of them in new store inventory.

As for the brother printers, they seem to be readily refillable but not at quite the Canon success rate. And last I heard, brothers are not excellent at photo printing, but fine for text.
 
May be I can find few older non chip model of Canon AIO cos new technology comes late in my country.
But don't know which model supports which cartridge.
And the AIO should not be too expensive.....
 
Revolution said:
May be I can find few older non chip model of Canon AIO cos new technology comes late in my country.
But don't know which model supports which cartridge.
And the AIO should not be too expensive.....
Click to expand...
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No, they hide that information, but google is always your friend.

Just google the printer model, go to the manufacturers website, and find out what cartridges a given printer takes.

I admit it, I tend to be Canon printer biased, and its no accident that most heavy photoprinting users tend to use Canons for printing economy.

But if you restrict yourself to Canon as a brand, the rules are real simple.

A. In general, printer numbers below 500 tend to use small cartridges capacity and tri-color cartridges. Avoid them like the plague.

B. Somewhat acceptable Canon printers tend to use large capacity individual cartridges, in one of three cartridge families. If you can find a Canon on the used market that takes the non chipped BCI-3&6 cartridges, buy, buy, and buy. Even if you have to replace the printhead. More likely you may find a used or new Canon that takes the now cracked chip
PCI-5&8 cartridges. Then buy a $30 chip resetter and you can refill dirt cheap.

C. The new canons that take the PGI-220&221 cartridges will still be fairly economical using OEM cartridges, figure 3 cents consumable costs for B/W and 8 cents for mixed color on plain paper. A color laser in the prosumer class will usually come in with about a 1.5 cents for B/W and eight cents for mixed color on plain paper.

D. Buy a cheap inkjet and your consumable costs skyrocket to far far higher per page consumable costs. Often in the 30 cents per page range. As you go broke feeding those no armed bandits long after the joy of initial low price fades.
 
@Lemon law
Thanks.....

That is very good information.
Though I have work hard to find those old models at local shop.
But I will try.
I need to know more about Printer,Cartridge,Refilling etc.
Would you like to share any guide or tutorial link about refilling and AIO so I can refill myself ?
Cos I'm still a noob.....
 
Revolution said:
@Lemon law
Thanks.....

That is very good information.
Though I have work hard to find those old models at local shop.
But I will try.
I need to know more about Printer,Cartridge,Refilling etc.
Would you like to share any guide or tutorial link about refilling and AIO so I can refill myself ?
Cos I'm still a noob.....
Click to expand...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Back when I was younger and far more stupid, I bought a Lexmark printer based on a bad review. The fact that Lexmark was then based in my wife's home town was a selection criteria, just not a wise selection criteria. Finally that no armed bandit Lexmark printer crapped out and I did some real research.

After wasting much time reading a pile of rah rah informationless printer reviews, I finally stumbled on nifty stuff forums, a dedicated photoprinting website.

http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/

Another good website is steve digicams forums, just google the name.

And it gave me the straight skinny on how to either refill or use dirt cheap third party pre-filled Canon cartridges in the BCI-3&6 cartridge family. Or any other printer for that matter. At that time I could buy a Canon pixma ip4000 on the new market and I did. First I used third party cartridges, from recommended forum vendors, and later decided to refill my own for even greater savings, again using only forum recommended inks. Face the facts boys and girls, photoprinting really sucks ink, and those that do a lot of photoprinting are motivated to find the most economical way to do it.

But I might be remiss if I did not describe how easy Canon refilling is. (a) Take depleted Canon cartridge. Drill through or burn through the original fill hole above the ink tank and not sponge side of the cartridge. Get a number of #6 or #8 stainless steel pan head screws, thread on a tight fitting O-ring, and screw into the hole you made. Then remove screw and have it ready. (b) Take original bottom lever you removed from cartridge to seal the bottom ink discharge hole located below the sponge side of the cartridge. Rubber band it back back in place. (c) To refill, you only need a hypodermic needle, Use hypodermic needle to suck up the proper refill color ink, inject it into the tank side through the hole you made to near the top, wait a minute or so for the ink to wick into the sponge as the tank side level drops, then refill the tank to near but not the top of the tank. Screw in stainless steel screw and make air tight seal. And now you have a ready to use refilled cartridge. All you need to do is remove the bottom lever and insert into printer.

To clean the syringe, just repeatedly suck up some water, empty, do three or so times, and you can shift to another color.

Chips now complicate the process, but the nifty stuff forums explains how to get around it. Sadly refilling Lexmark and HP cartridges get far more complex.
 
Last edited:
21stHermit said:
I'm a big fan of HP printers. They always works, high print quality, print on CD's and low printer cost. As you're aware the ink cost can be a bit much. Give away the razor and charge big for the blades.

I got a HP 5280 AIO for $70 last year, excellent in all respects. I print more color than you but no B&W, laser for that. There are printer deals all the time, just go to your favorite deal site.
Click to expand...


I used to be a big fan of HP until they started region coding cartridges and chip dating cartridges. I moved to Europe with an almost new HP C8180 that I cannot get black ink for. I have bought Office Depote and Swiftink cartridges and they do not work. I have lots of color ink and no Black and of course it will not let me print out the color inks without a working black.
I am close to taking an ax to this thing.
 
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