Selfsufficientish.com

How many of you use a printer?

My ink is running dry - well actually it's been running dry for the past 3 months... I have had the 'ink has run out' message show up several times now, but hey... I can continue the printjob by hitting the resume button on my printer but I MUST change the ink immediately afterwards to avoid damage to my printer... so how come it is still working....? Sure it's beginning to get low... but WHAT damage will I do to my printer if I continue printing until it does actually run dry?? It seems wrong that the warning occurs when there is still plenty of ink left in the cartridge... ok so I do use the draft printing mode (even for application forms and cv prints - but why not!?) and I rarely print colour unless it's absolutely necessary - would that make a difference to the time of the warning?

Printing in draft quality does reduce the amount of ink required but I can hardly see a difference in the actual print quality - certainly it is still more than readable. If you are printing colour documents and don't need the colours then choose the 'print greyscale' option to print everything in varying shades of grey rather than waste your more expensive coloured ink. Double sided printing obviously reduces the amount of paper used too - I'm always nagging the school because they send out 3 letters sometimes... all printed on A4 and one side... even letters that are only a few lines long... I have suggested that they email these to parents that have email access.

You can buy ink refill kits or have the cartridges refilled by a professional company - i've not tried this, but the previous owners of our house left a refill kit behind so I've got to try it... are there any pitfalls?? If you are not refilling you can give the empty cartridges to charity - check with your favourite charity to see whether they collect them - if not, why not suggest that they do?!

I guess the best way to save money on printing is to make sure that you only print stuff that is absolutely essential to print... keep the rest on your pc or save it to disk/cd for future reference.

By volume, printer ink is more expensive than the classiest champagnes (and probably just as disgusting to drink ... I'm not a champers fan!). I think your "only print when you need to" is the number one rule for saving money!

Manufacturers make most of their profit on replacement cartridges - the printers themselves are often sold at very low margins (or bundled in with new PCs). Unfortunately that doesn't create a strong incentive for them to create systems that are economical to run!

If you do a lot of printing, I think there are systems you can get that have separate bottles of ink. My parents, who do a lot of printing as part of their artwork, have done some investigation but not to the point of investing in a set up like that yet. Also, for high volume printing, a laser printer may work out cheaper (although I'm not clear if that sum includes the higher demand on electricity!).

Wulf

They use cannon printers at OH's work as they are very good quality and the cartridges are economical to buy.They do a lot of printing as it is a photo library .
Weve got lexmarks at home which are fine but the cartridges are very expensive.
If you only ever print in B & W then a lazer printer is good.
We've got one that they threw away at OH's work complete with 2 full cartridges (He liberated it from the bin).It is faulty so you have to feed each sheet by hand but who cares? My boy uses it to print out his homework and its great if you have those manuals that only come on the disc for software as the cartridge just lasts and lasts.

right a few things.

You didn't say what type of printer it is - and it does make a difference.

There are two camps of printer cartridge, on has the printer head (where the ink comes out) combined with the cartridge. These are more expensive to buy, but you get a new printer head with cartridge (hp use this method, lexmark too - anything where the ink is more expensive then you think it should be)

The other have a printer head on the printer, so when you change the printer cartridge the print head remains the same. I know Epsons work like this. It's cheaper to make refil cartridges if you don't have to replace the printer head - it's the head that does all the work.

It's also the printer head that gets clogged up. If you don't change your ink cartridges eventually, or our printer remains stagnent for a long time then the ink settles up at the bottom and clogs up the printer head. you can clean it but it's not always sucessful.

Refil kits just refil on top of anything thats built up, so it might be full of ink but the quality might not be great. you may still get streaking of miss alignmnet, and nothing you can do about it. The ink they use is sually of a thinner soloution so it better enters the sponge inside the ink cartridge.

A better souloution is to find an inkn refil place (Cartridge world and the like) They should clean a cartridge out first, normally with steam, and then refill it with quality ink. they do work out cheaper in the long run but there's still only a finite amount oof times a cartridge can be refilled. They've always been good for me.

In answer to Shirlz's post - the colour and black prinitng are totally seperate, so they a warning on one should affect the other. you will have to refil / replace the cartridge when it's totally empty - you'll know this hwne it stops printing entierly, but there's a chance it may become clogged before then.

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-Whew - thats a long point - sorry, but it's nice to know I learnt something in uni.

I refill my cartridges, but we use work-of-the-devil-epsons so we had to buy a chip reprogrammer too (about £6) otherwise the printer management software doesn't recognise that the cartridge has been filled, I dont know if any other makes need one of these.

Kind thoughts
Deb

glenniedragon wrote:I refill my cartridges, but we use work-of-the-devil-epsons so we had to buy a chip reprogrammer too (about £6) otherwise the printer management software doesn't recognise that the cartridge has been filled, I dont know if any other makes need one of these.

Kind thoughts
Deb

I only print when I really need it, which is usually official letters, everything else gets emailed or saved on disc.
When the ink finally runs out I send the cartridge to Recycle It for the Dogs Trust.

http://www.dogstrust.org.uk/howtohelp/c ... s/reclaim/
I buy new (recycled) cartridges from www.inkcycle.co.uk

I take mine to Cartridge World to be refilled, they have spares already filled, so you just swap it over. This means you don't have to worry about how many times you can refill it.

My sister tried a DIY kit, and made a terrible mess, you actually have to inject the ink with a needle into the cartridge. Not that much cheaper than having it done professionally either.