Cheap Ink Ate My Printer

I've got a Canon S330. Black ink is $6.99 and color $18.99. Fairly cheap because the print head is in the printer, not the cartridges.

I bought a few Basix brand cartridges while my son was working at Best Buy last summer; retail $5.99 and $17.99, employee price (5% over cost) was $1.08 and $1.94!

The first time I put in a black, the print nozzles plugged up, maybe the two brands don't mix well. I think I ended up taking out the print head and putting it under running hot water. All was well for a few months, then yesterday the black started skipping again.

I put in a "real" Canon cartridge and got nothing. I washed the head again and it worked, but this morning neither black nor color would print at all.

So much for cheap ink.

The printer cost $100 and a new print head is about $50. Add new ink cartridges to that and I'm within 25 bucks of a new printer.

I promise I'll only use genuine Canon ink in the new printer I bought this afternoon. (Canon Pixma iP3000)

I have wondered if the print heads in Canon printers tend to get fouled with age. A few years ago I got a Canon BJC-2100. Nice small footprint machine. Worked great, but after about two years and very little use the print head clogged up. I never used anything but Canon ink. A new head cost more than a new printer, so now I've got an
HP.

Geoff

My Canon I950 has treated me well for over a year. Before that I had to trash two Epsons because of clogged/leaky ink heads.

Yeah, I've heard some pretty bad stories with non oem inks in printers although some brands might be better then others?

Slightly OT, but I had an Epson 1160 for almost 4 years. I sucessfully ran a generic black cartridge through it once but the color ones don't work. Thought I'd ruined it. It recovered. I've also tried filling new empty cartridges with so called "high quality" aftermarket ink. Didn't work! The only glossy photopaper that works with it is Epson. Kodak, etc, forget it! They got me by the...... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/rant.gif

Larry

I've run older Epson printers (440, 660, and 900s) for years on generic ink cartridges. Works fine as long as you use it once in a while. A long (like 6 months or a year) layover can cause the heads to clog. I unclog them by removing the cartridges (can't be reinserted - have to throw them away afterwards), squirting a lot of isopropyl (i.e. rubbing) alcohol over the intake tubes, letting it sit overnight, and then running a clearning cycle with a new ink cartridge in place. It's worked so far...

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tvodrd said:
The only glossy photopaper that works with it is Epson. Kodak, etc, forget it!
Larry

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I've found most printers give the best photos on their own brand paper. However, I've had very good results on both the Canon and an HP printer with Konica glossy photo paper. It's a bit cheaper, too.

Also Epson double sided matte paper gives excellent results on everything I've tried it with.

I suspect a little time and mess with isopropyl alcohol on the old printer will get it working again, but I liked the 2 paper feeds and built in duplexing of the new printer so went for it.

My cheap Epson ($50), uses $17 black cartridges and $20 color. I tried a $4 black cartridge and that messed things up. Darned if I didn't loose all the red in colored pictures. I thought I had killed my printer. I replaced it with an Epson cartridge and things were still screwed up until I ran the nozzle cleaning software. Now it's fine.

That cheap printer came with a lot of software for diagnostics, head cleaning, and an ink supply monitor. How the heck does my computer know how much ink is in the cartridges anyway?

Don't get me wrong, I love my 1160! It's just to get a decent photo, I have to be using Ep$on consumables. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif I hung around some boards on photo printing and some folks got continuous ink systems up and running while others were having fits with refilling. None of it worked for me. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif I scored 3 cases of heavy semigloss, mat paper from the trash at work a couple years ago (asvertising brochure) which only had the Co. name on one side. I must have gone through two sets of (Epson) cartridges, experimenting with settings, trying to get that very high quality paper to work. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/rant.gif I don't print much color anymore and try to remember to use it once a month to eliminate clogging risks. I have a Brother laser printer for junk stuff and it is on its original toner cartridge after 2 years. It sits there, asleep, and when I clk "print" it wakes-up, prints, and goes back to sleep. Love that thing too!

Larry

If you guys do a lot of black and white printing (sorry, this doesn't apply to color users), try an inexpensive laser. I was lucky enough to bag a HP LaserJet cheap many years ago and it has carried on for literally a decade. Each cartridge gives me 7000+ pages at 5% coverage, and since it never dries up or clogs, I can let it sit as long as I want to. Output still looks as good as the day it came.. it now handles all my shipping labels and hard copies.

Nowadays you can get inexpensive lasers for $150, or thereabouts. Perfect for high volume black and white work, but sadly, not applicable for color.

Have an Epson 600 that has seen about 2 sets of Epson original cartridges, including the ones it came with, for the last few years its been fed compatibles at about £5 a pair, it just keeps on going.

Could be something to do with piezo heads on Epsons and thermal on HP and Canon printers.

Old enough to remember when the only way you could sell a dot matrix printer was to have Epson Compatible written on the box.Back in the days of Star LC 20s.

Handy utilty for Epson owners:

http://www.ssclg.com/epsone.shtml

Adam

I can't say enough good about the older cheap Epsons. My experience is much like LED-FX's. I've got a 740 that I've had for about 5 years that has used generic import cartridges for most of its life and it's still going strong.

I did a bit of research before using them and found a high volume internet dealer who had a good history with them, so I guess I've been fortunate.

I've had good luck with all of the glossy photo papers, but that might be because I use only the heavy (10mil) ones. I buy bulk packs (100+ sheets) and I've used Kodak, Epson and Staples brands.

Kevin is right about the economy of laser printers - they are by far the cheapest to operate. That was even true when they were $600-$1000. I use one for my flyers and invoices, but I've got a bad drum. I can probably buy a new printer now for the same or less as the drum.

Bottom line - I've done well with cheap inks, but I did my homework and was comfortable with what I got because of an established history with a reputable dealer.

A couple of weeks ago here in Japan, Canon lost a lawsuit trying to prevent a third party company from selling used Canon cartridges filled with 'unapproved' dubious ink. Canon's claim was that it infringed patent laws.
Considering that much of the profit for the printer maufacturer is generated from the ink sales, it's easy to understand why they are so concerned..

I'd stick to genuine cartridges after reading the above posts, but the prices are tempting if you need to do a lot of printing..

I just spent S$109 on 6 Epson ink cartridges for my Photo R210 printer /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon15.gif although there were compatible ones going for about S$5 less for each. I hope that Inke come out with refillable cartridges for my printer soon though... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif

I like HP printers because they are generally reliable, but their ink cartridge prices are a total ripoff. $35 for a little plastic box with some ink in in? Come on! I think I read somewhere that the newer models now force you to buy a new cartridge after a certain amount of time has elapsed, even if the old cartridge still has ink in it. There was some justification about the old ink causing clogging but it seems fishy to me.

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Zigzago said:
I like HP printers because they are generally reliable, but their ink cartridge prices are a total ripoff. $35 for a little plastic box with some ink in in? Come on! I think I read somewhere that the newer models now force you to buy a new cartridge after a certain amount of time has elapsed, even if the old cartridge still has ink in it. There was some justification about the old ink causing clogging but it seems fishy to me.

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I think that's because HP cartridges have the printer head integrated in each cartridge unlike Epson's which are in the printer so clogging doesn't happen so often with HP as you are supposedly changing the printer head for that ink each time unlike with Epsons... but I may be wrong... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon3.gif

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eluminator said:
My cheap Epson ($50), uses $17 black cartridges and $20 color. I tried a $4 black cartridge and that messed things up. Darned if I didn't loose all the red in colored pictures. I thought I had killed my printer. I replaced it with an Epson cartridge and things were still screwed up until I ran the nozzle cleaning software. Now it's fine.

That cheap printer came with a lot of software for diagnostics, head cleaning, and an ink supply monitor. How the heck does my computer know how much ink is in the cartridges anyway?

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The newer ones have a chip on the cartridges that supposedly tells the printer how much ink is left inside.. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon3.gif It's also the reason why there are hardly any compatible ink cartrides for those type of cartridges...

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Zigzago said:
I like HP printers because they are generally reliable, but their ink cartridge prices are a total ripoff. $35 for a little plastic box with some ink in in? Come on! I think I read somewhere that the newer models now force you to buy a new cartridge after a certain amount of time has elapsed, even if the old cartridge still has ink in it. There was some justification about the old ink causing clogging but it seems fishy to me.

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If I didn't have my Costco membership I don't think I would have my HP printer. I think it's like 3 black cartridges for $45.00 + or - and $50 something for 2 color refills. That's the only way to economically buy those things. I lost a Canon printer to a "refill" kit so I've pretty much stayed away from them after that.

Eric