Brits blow millions on over-priced ink British consumers are wasting £440m a year on branded printer cartridges rather than cheaper white label replacements. dom perignon How to avoid that freshly ripped-off feeling... A survey from YouGov found half of all households always buy brand name cartridges, which are typically a third more expensive than equivalents …
Go one further a get a second hand laser. Buying a new one means there is less likely to be compatible toner carts available. The entry level HP laserjet doesn't for example or didn't last month when I needed a toner.
But as with inks, there are good and bad suppliers of compatible toners. One company, who I won't name, sold me toners which leaked all over the printer. Another's quality is excellent and not a speck has been leaked.
Never fails to amaze me that the old "Oooh don't go near the compatible" argument gets trotted out every time something like this gets published.
The fatal mistake virtually everyone makes (and HP, Canon, Epson, etc... are all quite happy to focus their marketing efforts on it too btw) is that most people looking at compatibles go for the cheapest, tackiest option possible and then wonder why they end up with burnt fingers (or is that ink stained?).
Saying all compatible inks are cr*p is like someone saying that alcohol is a wonderful way of spending a night and wondering why they end up at the gates chatting with St Peter because they drank a bottle of Isopropyl. There are a vast array of ink manufacturers with an even wider spectrum of quality, light-fastness and just general suitability for the task.
Compatible cartridges are very difficult to nail down because very few (if any) 3rd party manufacturers will tell you where they get the ink from, and even then there is a tendancy to change supplier from time to time. So what about the other options?
There's Continuous Ink Systems, refillable cartridges or, if you're using Canon inkjets how about refilling OEM cartridges using the Durchstich or "German" method... All of these work great if you do your homework and get a decent quality ink in bulk and invest a little time in learning how to refill.
Bottom line, it's all well and good trotting out the "I spent 5 minutes looking for the cheapest brand and it bit me" excuses but if you don't bother doing your research and find a decent ink, supplier or kit, you really have nobody else to blame but yourselves.
Oh and while we're on the subject, how about looking at the good old "Service Required" issue... Epson printers hit this infamous "error" in record time nowadays adding perfectly useable printers to the landfill when the provision of a reset utility (available to North American customers - we're too thick in Europe apparently!) will reset the counter and allow you to fit an external tank or deal with the waste pads yourself.
Why nobody has written a story about that shocking waste of resources yet, is a complete mystery...
... because of my Epson printer's habit of, even when I select "black only", still using the colour inks (which I rarely use) and I was finding that I was having to replace an entire set of Cyan, Magenta and Yellow cartridges without *ever* printing anything in colour!
I also use a chip resetter because I can get an extra 20-30 pages of printing from a cartridge that the printer says is "empty".
I've very rarely had any problems with the compatibles, if I do, a quick swap to the cleaning cartridge sorts it out and I count the savings...
We used to use HP ink in a colour LaserJet printer until the bosses decided to buy compatible ink. One quarter of the left hand side of the page is now constantly faded and the colours are washed out looking. I can see toner dust all over the inside of the printer. I'm not sure it was worth the 'savings'.
This story gets bubbled up to the surface every few Years doesn't it... My current family workhorse is a Brother MFC-620N, few Years old now, and other than one set of original replacement inks (from Argos in a special offer) I have used Tesco replacement cartridges (no problems), and both Tesco and ASDA ink refills (a little fiddly and needs care to avoid spillages but certainly work OK). In terms of quality, the originals are *very* slightly better than compatible/refilling - but not enough to warrant the increased cost.
I have needed to replace the waste sponges from a donor 420N but it's still going strong and used on a daily basis for colour and B/W.
I have a Canon 4600 which I use exclusively to print photoraphs and DVD labels, and so far have only needed to buy one set of inks - they *were* original because the unit was only 6 Months old at the time - and a recent check of prices in the high street shows little saving over compatibles... presumably this model isn't popular enough for the really cheapies!
High volume printing is done on a Panasonic B&W laser which I have managed to buy a small stock of original toner cartridges on Ebay a Year or two ago!
The only clogged print head I have had was with a Canon ip500 which had been standing unused for many Months - yes it had compatible cartidges in it, but it was the non-use that killed it.
In general, I would imagine the majoriy of problems people have is from using the cheapest compatibles they can find, which oddly enough are probably not remanufactured all that well!
Get yourself the Mr. Muscle Kitchen Cleaner bottle (the clear liquid not the yellow one) and squirt it onto the resting place/sponge and leave for 12 hours.
Then do a few test prints and repeat if necessary. Works.
It's just distilled water and 5% alcohol so you could even make it up yourself?
Maplin sells pure alcohol and most shops sell car battery top-up water (de-ionised or distilled) for pennies.
You can also use it as a screen cleaner too but test the plastic first OK?
We've had various makes of printers over the years, but some seem to cope better with cheap refills/liquid ink better than others. In the case of our 2 YO HP 3920 buying a 'budget' cartridge for a tenner from a local cartridge shop was a bad idea, with grey text (even in presentation mode) and the cartridge quickly drying and blocking after not being used for 48 hours. Shopping around a little provided genuine full-sized cartridges at about 20quid each, and represent much better value.
I sympathise with the colour laser printer owner above who finds new toner more expensive than a new machine. I have a Samsung printer here that will go to ebay shortly, before it runs out completely.
As a pro photographer i print plenty of photographs. If i was to use genuine epson inks then it would cost me a fortune and eat into my profits.
I use a continuous ink supply system (CISS) which I got from fotospeed.com along with the pigment ink. I also get my paper from them and they do a free ICC profile when you buy paper from them (any ink any printer). The results are PERFECT prints every time, a massive saving on genuine inks and papers (watch are not as good as they claim, try printing monochrome and you get a blue cast!!!)
You can get some cheaper ink systems from fleabay, around £20 or so, but be careful on what ink you use....
and as a end note, for all of you trying to uses various cleaners to clean blocked ink jets... most ink is not dissolvable in spirit based cleaners, you could leave it for a week in ethanol and you will still have a blocked head, but use a mild detergent and de-ionized water and it will be unblocked in no time....
Mines the one with the camera in the pocket...
(ps , do not work for or on behalf of photospeed, just find them a good company to deal with for my photographic needs)
Having triggered this debate with our survey, I felt it was only right to respond here to some of the interesting discussion threads and the problems people have encountered.
Firstly, it’s important to understand the distinction between refilling and remanufacturing. Refilling is simply topping up a cartridge with more ink, which anyone can do providing they have a Black & Decker drill, ink, patience and an understanding spouse/housemate! It is fiddly and messy and can have extremely poor results from ruined carpets to wrecked printers.
In contrast, remanufacturing is a large scale operation using innovative techniques and equipment to remove every last trace of ink from the original cartridge before refilling. Crucially the correct remanufacturing process helps prevent problems such as clogging and cross contamination of inks (affecting print quality) that many people have outlined above and also ensures the production of cartridges that are indistinguishable in quality from original branded versions.
One scare story that continually comes up is that a printer warranty is invalidated by the use of anything other than a branded cartridge. This is untrue and only serves to scare off people who genuinely want to save a few quid and also make an effort towards sustainability and our environment.
For those who have tried remanufactured products and had a less than satisfactory experience it is worth recognising that there are those who do it right and those who cut corners. We remanufacture well in excess of 100,000 cartridges a week for household name retailers, and stationary suppliers and last year invested over £250,000 purely on research and development.
I’d also say that when it comes to premium remanufactured brands here in the UK I don’t think you could do better than buying from WH Smith, Viking Direct or Office Depot.
If you want to see the sort of things we do, please take a look at our video, here: http://www.ebpgroup.com/media/
You can also find a full list of the cartridges we remanufacture, here: http://www.ebpgroup.com/product-range/product-list/
For the most part, branded ink - as in the ink that's designed for your printer, works massively better - I've been through this mill so many damn times and have come a cropper with shitty quality prints and blocked up printers, it's not funny.
This whole article is a red herring - but that depends how much you care about the quality of your prints AND the quality of the printer you use.
Sure, if you opted for a cheap as chips grotty little printer, it's not going to matter much what ink you use, BUT, if you want quality prints (we're talking photo's here folks), your going to opt for a quality printer.
You gets what you pay for.
Recent experience - a Pixma printer, the Canon ink creates flawless vibrant prints, the 'generics' nearly fucked up the printer and resulted in really crappy quality.
In my travels I notice that some societies, North American and SE Asian, look for more economic opportunities than others such as Europe or South America.
Some companies, like HP, claim they have some magical additive that improves performance BUT they DO have semiconductor or mechanical devices to make resetting impossible for not quite empty or refilled heads - these semiconductor replacements are on sale in North America and SE Asia.
Personally I like those Brother network printers - I have seen them working in mining operations underground, supplied as power station equipment, and gracing elegant offices. They take refills / after market toner without an argument.
I had a lovely HP photo printer with a CIS system, which suddenly came up with fatal printing mechanism errors and refused to print.
Searching the web it appeared that the firmware appeared to detect non HP carts and then fail later in mysterious ways, all demanding an HP service before printing was available again.
By poncing about unplugging cables inside the printer it was possible to fool the printer into starting again and on restart the seriously fatal printer mechanism failure miraculaously disappeared giving another 12 months of perfect printing.
However this last time I have not been able to fool it into resetting and HP will not come up with the code to allow access to the engineers menu which has the reset command there.
Enough is enough - No more HPs for me..
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My primary printer is a Rolan Raven PR-2417 Dot Matrix printer. Still on it's second ribbon. Works like a hot damn. My secondary (for when I need something nicer looking) is an HP Laserjet IIL. I think it's on it's eventeen billionth toner. (I stole it from work when we upgraded.) Can't seem to kill it.
I've got at least three other beat up old laserjets (mono and colour) in the basement just waiting for one of the others to run out of ink and/or die. (Or a friend to need a new printer...whatever.)
Still...that old dot matrix does everything I need it to do. On the really, REALLY rare occasion I print something. I think the last time was 2008...
all the "compatibles" seem to play up.
I'm running about 20,000 pages/month through each of our 5 workgroup printers. If a compatible toner dumps its guts then the savings are wiped out in cleanup costs.
Having said that..... I'm about to buy new printers and sure as shit am looking at WHICH printers work well and have lowest TCO. HP and Lexmark need not apply...
We currently have two printers at home, both hp inkjets, one being for general printing and the other being for photo pics. The general printer is an old Deskjet and is now obsolete, with the cartridges unavailable from hp. For the last two years it has survived very nicely on a diet of non-hp black ink cartridges (because black text is what we print the most of) and hp colour cartridges bought in bulk off e-bay (genuine, new and unopened, and about 60% less than what they cost when they were available direct from hp). Paper varies from standard 80gsm hp paper (when it's on offer) to the stuff from the local stationary shop. I clean the internals frequently and have had no clogged heads, and for the jobs required the black quality is just fine. Considering we originally got the printer about six-plus years ago for £50-odd I'm definately not complaining, and I will probably keep it until I can't even buy re-fills for it.
The second printer is my hp MFP and also used for printing digital photos. Nothing goes near it but genuine hp ink cartridges and hp paper as I spent hours getting the colour balance set just right. I can print photos of such good quality people assume they came from a commercial photo developer. For me, the extra cost of the hp original supplies is more than justified by the quality.
I was, for several years, happy to use branded cartridges for Epson but they have now outpriced me with their continual increases. I tried to use lookalikes but after they changed the format I was unable to use those and after many ignored requests for information I have been forced to change to another system altogether. My complaint regards the pricing of the inks available with an average of £54:00 minimum per gallon, a little excessive I believe. I have been unable to elucidate the reason for these excessive prices AND, I question the legality of their built in restrictions which prevent me from using other manufacturers inks by failing to permit my choice of inks. I am aware that their excuse is that it "may damage your printer" but this problem has never been explained to me and I question it's accuracy. It is typical of American business to make their issues predominant in regard to profits. I am also aware that they claim, rather lamely, that the Epson company is Japanese rather than American but "Who Owns It actually? and who is calling the tune to which we are all expected to dance? It is my contention that this company are exerting undue influence on a product which has been sold to ME and is therefore my property. I should have the freedom to use whichever inks I choose but this right is denied me by the dictators and there is no sanction applied, WHY? Surely it against the severe "anti trust" laws of the United States for this to happen, or it should be. The US government should/must become me involved on the side of equity. It is my strongly felt and firmly held belief that we are being treated as simpletons, as usual, and that we are being held
"by the balls" with the added fillip of Grab, Twist and Squeeze. Painful! Would Epson like to comment on my complaint?
Francis J. P. Offord.
.... are being made with *smaller* cartridge print capacity. This is what my (UK) retail contact said when I asked them if buying a newer inkjet would/could reduce ink costs. The message was very clear - across all manufacturers, and all types of printers, apparently, the capacity is being reduced. So, more replacements, eh?
With our erratic printing causing expensive inkjet cartridge clogging I bought a Samsung colour PS duplex LASER five years ago and am still using it now with the original toner cartridges. It is about the size of a Mini but that is about the only drawback. Duplex and built-in Postscript is wonderful of course. Cost less than £300 if I recall correctly. Use it with a cheap network print server and so anything can print on it.
The waste toner thing fills up and Samsung expect you to ditch it and buy another but emptying it and using a suitably bent Q-tip you can wipe clean the sensor channel and re-use it - 4th time now. The toner cartridges claim they are empty from time to time but taking them out and gently shaking them (over a newspaper) re-settles the toner and they are magically OK again.
I am sure I can buy replacement toner from somewhere or other. If not then the ridiculous price of the replacement Samsung toner cartridges would make me buy another printer.
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