IIRC the huge profits from the HP cartridge and and toner divisions are virtually carrying (financially) the entire billion dollar conglomerate that is HP. No one forces anyone to buy an HP printer or accessories, but it would be interesting to see the relative profits in ink and toner cartridges after expenses (inc R&D) are taken into account.
This, by itself, proves absolutely nothing.
Firstly, as the expiration dates on Mr2001’s cartridges (see post #8, above) suggest, the cartridges tend to have an official life of at least three years.
Secondly, you have not stated whether the specific cartridges that you are using are, in fact, past their expiration date.
Given this HP ‘Feature’ and Lexmarks’ ‘Quality’ - what is the best choice for a new printer?
Also, it appears that HP only does this with certain models. They don’t appear to put the timeout on models primarily intended for home use, rather than business. Clever - the business users are likely to buy printer cartridges in bulk, so they can sit around and expire. Home users who bought a cheap printer can probably more easily be persuaded to simply treat the whole printer as a boat anchor and buy a new one when they have trouble with it stemming from the fact that it’s been sitting in the garage for a year without being used.
The price of the printer itself versus the price of inkjet cartridges have been getting so close that I’ve been waiting for some manufacturer to start making “disposable printers” - make the thing all one unit, and when it runs out, just go buy a whole new printer. I can just hear the screaming from environmental groups.
Unrealated to the OP, but related to this. We had a Brother Color Fax Machine. I believe it had three color carts and one black cart. If ANY cart was empty the fax machine refused to print. After a few months I realized that I had replaced every cart in the machine several times and NEVER printed anything out in color. I called Brother and they told me that the carts go through a self cleaning cycle, and if you don’t use color they self cleaning cycle is even more rigourous becuase the ink dries at the head (or something like that). When I told them that I was VERY disappointed that I am constantly replaceing these carts for no reason and asked why the fax maching refused to print out a black only fax when it was out of cyan, they basically told me I was SOL. After several calls to Brother I reported them to the BBB and they gave us a free laser fax machine.
Epson. I have two C-series printers (one here, one at my parents’ house) and we use a bunch of 1280s for photo printing at school, and they’ve never given us any trouble (one of the C-series ones completely locked up, but it was a fluke and Epson replaced it under warranty; didn’t even make us send back the broken one).
I think this is the answer. I only know of a couple of cartridges that do this. They don’t look like the traditional HP inkjet cartridges. They’re square, about 3" x 3" from the side, about 1/2" thick and from the top they are kindof oval that comes to points at the end. I can’t remember the number.
I had a customer return one to me saying that her computer gave her a message that the cartridge was outdated. The expiration date on the bottom of the box had the previous month’s date on it. I sent it back to my supplier for a credit. That’s the only time I’ve had that happen, but it DOES happen.
Don’t buy a lifetime supply of these.
I found it…it’s the #10 inkjet cartridges…HP C4841A thru C4844A. Not sure if others have the expiration chip.
Yeah, that’s what the HP 2000 uses I mentioned above.
Not to hijack the thread but there was recent news that Lexmark is slowly losing the lawsuits brought against Static Control Components (maker of replacement chips for Lexmark laser cartridges).
Lexmark’s argument was that the chips contain software code that is protected under the DMCA and that even though the aftermarket chips didn’t contain the same code as the OEM Lexmark chips, the code did the same thing and was therefore a copyright violation.
When Lexmark filed the suits, Hewlett Packard released a letter from the CEO that HP would not attempt to stop the manufacture of aftermarket chips for their toner cartridges and supports the consumer’s choice to use their supplies or aftermarket supplies.
Rhino makes some less expensive toner and ink for HP. Another copy, though makes some stuff I had trouble with. The name escapes me.
Mrs. Plant bought a very low end Lexmark that costs less than the color ink cart for it. 
I have an HP cartridge here and there’s no expiry date on the outer box, it just says “Minimum 6 month warranty from install before date: Mar 2006.” The cartridge itself has a date on it which is October 10/06 but it doesn’t say “use by” or anything like that.
“Minimum 6 month warranty from install before date: Mar 2006” is a sentence I do not understand.
You will get a 6 month warranty provided the cartridge is installed prior to March 2006. Replacement may be considered for longer than 6 months on a case by case basis.
At least that’s how I read it.
My understanding of the case is a little different. There are two programs: the Toner Loading Program, located inside the toner cartridge, and the Printer Engine Program, located inside the printer.
The TLP is a very simple program that measures the amount of toner left inside the cartridge. SCC did in fact copy this program for their replacement chips (PDF link):
This was necessary because the printer calculates a checksum of the TLP code, and refuses to work with any cartridge that uses a different program. Lexmark argued that this is a copyright violation, but the latest opinion is that the TLP isn’t copyrightable because it’s effectively just a password; no other sequence of code can possibly perform the same function.
Lexmark also argued that the replacement chips circumvent an access control of the Printer Engine Program, because the PEP normally won’t operate unless a Lexmark chip is present. This argument also failed because (1) the PEP can still be “accessed” in other forms–reading the code out of the printer’s memory, etc.–by anyone who owns a Lexmark printer, so therefore purchasing the printer is what really controls access, and (2) the purpose of circumventing the access control, even if we suppose that’s really happening, is not to pirate the PEP code, but simply to make a cartridge that can interoperate with Lexmark’s printer.
I haven’t seen it mentioned here, but the likely motivation for HP to do this is not to make your cartridge fail after it’s used only x% of its ink. They’re wanting to squash the market for refilling cartridges.
Already happened. Lexmark All-In-One’s are selling for less than $100. Lexmark cartridges sell for about $100 combined. I know people that intend to just buy all new printers.
Do the cartridges that a printer comes with general contain the same amount of ink as the replacements you buy? I have a friend that is sure that the cartridges that come with the printer are only 50-75% full.
I bought a new HP printer about a month ago. One of the questions I asked the assistant was- does the printer come with a new cartridge?. Yes, he said it’s new but they’re only half full. When I asked why, he said HP make more on the cartridges than they do on the printers.
Re: HP and Lexmark suing third parties for making ink cartidges:
Isn’t that illegal? I thought that, in the interest of a free market economy, consumers are allowed to choose who they buy their media from for their products. By forcing the consumer to buy their ink cartridge, aren’t they making an illegal monopoly? It’s a clever workaround by trying to say that the third party “copied” the program on the chip. What’s next, a printer that will only print with paper that has a companies logo embedded as a watermark? It scans for the watermark then refuses to print if it’s not there. Since the watermark is the compnaies logo, a third party can’t legally put it into it’s paper, and HP and Lexmark can charge $100 a ream for it. And of course, they can just claim that,
“Due to the high quality of our printers and the precision engineering gone into them, normal paper not to made to exacting specifications can cause catastrophic failure.”
This is true. I own an Epson color stylus 440. The status monitor will clearly indicate that it refuses to print, despite having plenty of black ink and being set to black and white, because the color cartridge is empty.