Ditto for my just-replaced Epson 777. :mad:
My HP 970cse (which doesn’t have expiring cartridges) running under Mac OS X (which lets me bypass the printer driver entirely if I care too) uses the color cartridge to improve the quality of pure black and white prints. When my color cartridge is empty, the black and white prints – especially text – are defintiely affected. I imagine this is something akin to on-paper anti-aliasing.
Ooh, and yes, this happens even if I select grayscale in the Print Center (there’s no pure B/W option). (I’ve not tried if from my XP box, since I don’t ever have a reason to print from there. Any Windows users confirm the color ink use on B/W prints?)
What suprises me is that the printer itself doesn’t detect the empty cartridge and just refuse to print. Well, it does flash the low/no ink light, but it allows printing anyway. I’m saying, then, that I think it’s purely a driver function to prevent printing. My DeskJet is connected via parallel to a JetDirect, and as far as I know, even if the cable permits duplex communication, the JetDirect only allows one-way parallel port communication, so I’m guessing that’s why the driver doesn’t know the ink is low. I’m glad there was no such thing as a USB port print server back in 2000 when I got them.
Canon. Cheaper cartridges. Not sure about quality, but my (year-old) $200 all-in-one will do flawless photo prints.
Some brands. Both of my Epson printers came with full cartridges.
They’ve only recently started doing this, too. I have an Epson 760 that’s about 4 years old, while my sister has a later model. My drivers don’t do this, while hers do. It’s so infuriating. I refuse to update my printer drivers just in case they’ve added this “functionality” for my particular model.
Is there a known workaround for this? Any third party drivers or something?
I’ve got a #57 cartridge here that says “6 month limited warranty from install before date” and next to that “install before SEP 2005.” My printer is an HP PhotoSmart 130, and is never connected to the computer; even though I have a USB cable and the appropriate software, I always print directly from the memory card. The cartridge inside has a date reading 2005/09/03. I’ve never had problems with it refusing to print, but I have had it tell me I’m out of ink when there’s enough left in the cartridge for about 20 more prints.
So, just to clarify, does Canon try to pull any of this bull with its printers, or does it steer clear of this mess altogehter?
If so, I know what my next printer will be.
It’s called a “starter cartridge”. Some brands tell you that they come with a starter cartridge, such as the Xerox XD series. They’re about half full. HP’s standard 51645A used to be available in the 45G version that came with some printers that has half the ml’s of ink in it.
Brother fax machines that use the black thermal transfer ribbon only come with enough ribbon to print about 20 pages. The replacement cartridges are good for 225 (i think) pages…this is the PC401 fax cartridge.
They want to make sure that even if you’re rarely going to use the machine, you’re gonna have to buy at least one set of replacement cartridges.
Not that I know of. Mine works fine with third party cartridges. (which I can buy both for a total of $20AU, or $14US). But I don’t know about any of this timebombing business.
If one of your cartridges is empty, it will print.
I worked for several years for a printer company, doing tech support for inkjet printers. Let me just throw out a couple possibilities:
Perhaps there is a chip in the cartridges that keeps track of the number of droplets of ink that the cartridge has issued, and cuts out after a certain number (this number would be well into the millions).
Perhaps this is to keep people from using cheap (and non-affiliated-with-the-inkjet-printer-manufacturer) refill kits to refill cartridges. Because…. Perhaps inkjet cartridges are to these companies what fries and soft drinks are to McDonalds. (AKA a “cash cow”)
Or perhaps it’s because they love their customers, and would like to spare them the pain and agony of printing flawed prints with a poorly refilled cartridge.
Perhaps if “The Truth” gang decided that they were more pissed off at printer manufacturers than with cigarette manufacturers, you would see a commercial with a brainstorming session where someone suggests giving IJ printers away for free with a 3-cartridge purchase. (Until someone more knowledgeable in antitrust law points out that giving stuff away just to gain market shares is illegal. [I’m no lawyer; this is just what I heard.])
Regarding “Disposable printers”, it’s been a few years since my former employer decided that the value of defective printers being shipped to them (considering the cost of repairs and the value of reselling a refurbished printer) was less than the shipping costs. Therefore, if a customer has a defective printer, they are shipped a new one (sans cartridges, which are worth more than the printer itself) and are told how to dispose of the old printer.
Would it be possible to treat printers like disposable cameras, but recycle them instead of throwing them away? At my office, we ship our empty printer cartridges back to the manufacturer who refills the cartridges and sells them at a reduced price as recycled toner cartridges. Would it work if consumers sent their printers back to the manufacturer who would refurbish, refill and send back to customer?
As someone who just bought a new inkjet and spent a fair amount of time looking at the matter, the general consensus I got was that Canon doesn’t bother dinking with its cartridges the way Epson or HP do – a number of folks told me tales about refilling their Canon cartridges (or using third-party substitutes) without any problems.
I had a problem where my heads got a bit clogged once, but that mightn’t have been the cartridges, just normal wear and tear. After I cleaned them manually they were fine.
I had a problem where my heads got a bit clogged once, but that mightn’t have been the cartridges, just normal wear and tear. After I cleaned them manually they were fine.
I have had an HP psc 1210v all-in-one printer since August 2003. I don’t use it every day but I doubt I’ve ever gone more than a couple of weeks without printing anything, and when I do use it, it’s usually color graphics, not plain text (90% of the time I’m printing maps from Mapquest). I am still using the ink cartridges that came in it, and it still prints perfectly.
I just realized I have a pretty good idea of how many pages I’ve printed with it, as I have been using the same package of paper since I bought it. The package was 500 sheets of 24lb. paper, and it is less than half full - so I’ve printed at least 300 pages with it.
HP 5150 user here, on both Win 98SE and Mac OS-X platforms. ( recent convert, same printer for both machines ).
The color cartridge light has been on for weeks. Sure does print purty full-color pages though. I’m familiar with the drying out issues, especially in the wintertime, on the contacts and flow head on the cartridge and ought to go clean it off softly with alcohol and a wipe.
This came with a starter cartridge, that was maybe half full. Ditto ( heh. pardon the pun. ) for the color cartridge.
Cartooniverse
After suffering through nearly dozen bubble jets which broke down after what I considered moderate use, and feed up to the gills with carts that cost an arm, a leg and a little finger–if they were in stock, at all–I bought a laser printer.
Don’t bubble jets cost about 50 cents per page to print?
Laser prints are about .5 cents per page.
A Minolta 2300w magicolor cost me $699 new. Carts aren’t cheap, ($75 for black, $67 for each of the three colors), but they last for 3-4 months of pretty heavy use. (I now have a small business, do a fair amount of graphic and publishing work).
IMHO, bubble jets are simply a rip off and a major nose bleed. Who needs 'em?!
Give up your bubble jet addiction, my brothers, and you won’t look back either!
Myself
People who don’t have $700 to drop on a color laser printer. 