Inkjet cartridge life

[NeoPTLD]

At the beginning of the school year, I bought a new Epson CX4600 and a ream of paper. The printer came with a full set of cartridges.

The manufacture quoted cartridge life at 5% coverage is around ~450 pages. I put about 200 sheets of paper through it doing the normal school stuff (reports, ocassional web print outs, etc) and the cartridges are almost empty.

Do they supply low capacity cartridges with the printer?

 

[akira34]

Sometimes... I got a good amount of use out of the ink that came with my Epson R200. I was printing about 90-95% images, not text, so I used more ink per print. I never really count the pages that I feed, since I know it's really difficult to hit the quoted page count since just about nothing I print is only 5% coverage. If it is, chances are it's not in color (or doesn't need to be) so I send it to my laser printer... I'm still on the original toner cart. and I've run about 700 pages through it. Of course, I think it's counting printing on both sides, since I have yet to need to refill the paper tray (holds a full ream of paper).

 

[Comp625]

The cartridges that come with the printer will never yield the same amount of ink as the subsequent sets that you purchase. Why? When you first set up a new printer, they go through a priming process where the printer initially cleans the printhead. Also, some printers only come with starter cartridges meaning they are <half full.

 

[Zepper]

Actually most printers recommend doing a clean or prime cycle upon installation of new carts to blow any air bubbles, etc. through quickly.
. About the only printers I know of that come with "starter" cartridges are low-end HPs. Every printer I've ever bought came with full carts or tanks. I recommend the new Canon Pixma line as Canon truly has the inkjet mojo at this point in time.
. And if you are going by Epson's ink meter in the driver, it is VERY conservative. Read the PC World articles on 3rd-party ink and Epson's ink policy in particular. There is easily 25% of the original quantity of ink left in Epson tanks when they are being reported as low or empty. When my Canon iP3000 started reporting low ink, I had at least 1/3 of the ink volume left. Now it occasionally reports one or the other tank as being empty - but I just keep going like the Energizer bunny. Three months and counting on the original equipment tanks!
. Every once in a while I'll pull the tanks and eyeball them as I don't want to burn out the print head. But that's dangerous with Epson tanks as they have a tendency to drip if you pull them when they are still fairly full. And the ink tanks for mine are very transparent so it's easy to tell how much ink is left.
. When it comes to ink usage, you have to take into consideration what you are printing. Making hard copies of some widely available internet fare (ahem) can use up large amounts of yellow and magenta. And running the cleaning cycle, which Epsons seem to require more than others, eats up prodigious amounts of ink.

.bh.

 

[Macro2]

RE:"The cartridges that come with the printer will never yield the same amount of ink as the subsequent sets that you purchase. Why? When you first set up a new printer, they go through a priming process where the printer initially cleans the printhead. Also, some printers only come with starter cartridges meaning they are <half full."

Canon gives you a full set.

Their BCI3 and 6 are also easy to see. They are clear. HP will tell you it's low when they are still 40% full. I don't trust Epson either.