To print or not to print, this is the selection....

[magic mike]

So, day before yesterday my printer which has served me well for the last three years decided to throw a fit and started producing poor quality prints. I thought OK, no problem, I'll just run the print head cleaning program, do a head alignment and rock on. WRONG! As of now I have spent the last two days trying to manually clean the head to no avail. I needed a syringe and some model airplane fuel line tubing to make up a way to purge the ink and inject hot water into the head to flush it out. That took a day just to locate those two items! After three attempts at cleaning with no luck I gave that up. Strike one. Then I remembered I had a sonic cleaning machine my wife gave me years ago for some reason so I dug it out and put the head in there and fired it up. Wife said dinner's ready so I let it run and went in to eat. Half way through dinner I thought I smelled what I perceived to be hot plastic. Just a very mild whiff you see. I got up and went out to the shop and there I found a dead sonic cleaner. NO smoke but quite warm and lifeless so into the trash it went. Strike two. At this point I tried to flush the head again and was rewarded with success on three of the four colors. The black was not the least bit interested in working. At this point I started looking to see if I could find a replacement printhead and was somewhat successful provided I wanted to pay four times more for a replacement head than I paid for the printer. Strike three. OK, I get it, just go buy a new printer. Went to three different locations and was met with empty shelves or just a small selection of high end stuff that I have no use for. I eventually returned to the first store I went to and purchased the ONLY reasonably priced printer they had left. I was lucky as it turned out the lady right behind me was after it also. So now I have a nice new printer that has a scanner in it that I don't need as I already have one that works fine. I also have three complete sets of ink cartridges that I just got last week for my now dead printer. I have a business to run so I didn't have any choice. I have to have a printer every day. If by chance any of you folks just happens to have a print head that uses HP 950 or 950XL cartridges please shoot me a PM and we can talk. It is my sincere hope that the day the CEO of every printer manufacturer is to receive his last paycheck that the printer (made in Thailand) printing it runs out of its absurdly priced ink! There, I feel better now.

 

[markT]

The effects of "Made in China" are real.. I went to Academy on Sunday.. all but four childrens bikes were sold out.. And this store has a huge bike area.. Same for grill accessories. Seems like every store I go into I find empty shelves...
I bought some Bayer Brand Maxforce FC Select roach bait last week. Made in China... That's BS... I think Bayer is German.. But we cant even make our own dang roach poison?
I'm using HP 65 cartridges.. Made in Malaysia... I've been to the HP plant in Ireland back years ago...

 

[Riesel]

I Feel Your Pain

 

[INShooter]

It seems as if there are more and more products that are just easier and cheaper to replace than to fix. Our world is changing so much.

 

[joshb]

Just buy a new printer. They’re cheap. Last a few years and die. Buy another.
Philosophically, I’m limping along, keeping my head down, avoiding as much stress as I can and hoping I die before the world as we know it ends. I’m tired.

 

[pirate ammo]

Just buy a new printer. They’re cheap. Last a few years and die. Buy another.
Philosophically, I’m limping along, keeping my head down, avoiding as much stress as I can and hoping I die before the world as we know it ends. I’m tired.

I came into this world kicking ,screaming,and butt necked and mean to go out the same way.

 

[jdh47]

Ink jet printers are a disaster waiting to happen. In time the ink dries in the print head and can't be cleaned. It happened to me my last time. I just bought a Brother Lazer printer as I rarely print in color anyway. Toner lasts a lot longer.

 

[magic mike]

Ink jet printers are a disaster waiting to happen. In time the ink dries in the print head and can't be cleaned. It happened to me my last time. I just bought a Brother Lazer printer as I rarely print in color anyway. Toner lasts a lot longer.

I had a laser printer. Toner cartridges were $60 apiece! It used four of them. Dust from the cartridges and paper would gather on the focusing mirrors and destroy the print quality. The entire printer had to be disassembled to get at the mirrors in order to clean. About a four hour job. I paid a bunch of money for that thing and it didn't make it one year. Never again.

 

[jdh47]

My Brother printer was inexpensive and although the toner was sort of high it wasn't much higher than the little ink cartridges I had to constantly buy for the ink jet printer. The toner will outlast the ink cartridges for the ink jet by a long shot. This is my first lazer printer and so far it has been good. We'll see. I've had a lot of ink jet printers and that was my take on them. Mileage varies I suppose.

 

[skeeljc]

Printers are disposable. My latest HP printer, copier and scanner cost me around $100.

 

[Cemetery21]

I don't think we get two years out of them. Wife prints some stuff for school but tries to keep it reasonable.
I always keep a spare - used it a couple of weeks ago and immediately replaced it.
But yes, all the ink for the dead one can't be used in the replacement. Gotcha again.

 

[group therapy]

I came into this world kicking ,screaming,and butt necked and mean to go out the same way.

 

[group therapy]

So, day before yesterday my printer which has served me well for the last three years decided to throw a fit and started producing poor quality prints. I thought OK, no problem, I'll just run the print head cleaning program, do a head alignment and rock on. WRONG! As of now I have spent the last two days trying to manually clean the head to no avail. I needed a syringe and some model airplane fuel line tubing to make up a way to purge the ink and inject hot water into the head to flush it out. That took a day just to locate those two items! After three attempts at cleaning with no luck I gave that up. Strike one. Then I remembered I had a sonic cleaning machine my wife gave me years ago for some reason so I dug it out and put the head in there and fired it up. Wife said dinner's ready so I let it run and went in to eat. Half way through dinner I thought I smelled what I perceived to be hot plastic. Just a very mild whiff you see. I got up and went out to the shop and there I found a dead sonic cleaner. NO smoke but quite warm and lifeless so into the trash it went. Strike two. At this point I tried to flush the head again and was rewarded with success on three of the four colors. The black was not the least bit interested in working. At this point I started looking to see if I could find a replacement printhead and was somewhat successful provided I wanted to pay four times more for a replacement head than I paid for the printer. Strike three. OK, I get it, just go buy a new printer. Went to three different locations and was met with empty shelves or just a small selection of high end stuff that I have no use for. I eventually returned to the first store I went to and purchased the ONLY reasonably priced printer they had left. I was lucky as it turned out the lady right behind me was after it also. So now I have a nice new printer that has a scanner in it that I don't need as I already have one that works fine. I also have three complete sets of ink cartridges that I just got last week for my now dead printer. I have a business to run so I didn't have any choice. I have to have a printer every day. If by chance any of you folks just happens to have a print head that uses HP 950 or 950XL cartridges please shoot me a PM and we can talk. It is my sincere hope that the day the CEO of every printer manufacturer is to receive his last paycheck that the printer (made in Thailand) printing it runs out of its absurdly priced ink! There, I feel better now.

an issue we ran into was having to make a bunch of copies(my wife is a teacher) and wound up finding an epson eco tank. the refills come in BIG bottles and you can print to your hearts desire(10's of thousands of copies and print) the bottles are like 10$ each and measure in ounces, not milliliters. worth a look and you can get the printer for 200ish dollars. it come with a FULL load of ink too. just my .02 and good luck sir

 

[JimT]

This pretty much sums it up.



Color inkjets are for suckers.

 

[INTJ]

We buy HP laser printers for my wife's business. $400 range. They last and work great until HP gets tired of supporting them, then we need to buy new printers. And we can only use HP brand toner.

 

[mike a]

This pretty much sums it up.

View attachment 1195164

Color inkjets are for suckers.

Wonder how that works for Varget. Just to inject shooting into this thread.

 

[Nick Caprinolo]

So, day before yesterday my printer which has served me well for the last three years decided to throw a fit and started producing poor quality prints. I thought OK, no problem, I'll just run the print head cleaning program, do a head alignment and rock on. WRONG! As of now I have spent the last two days trying to manually clean the head to no avail. I needed a syringe and some model airplane fuel line tubing to make up a way to purge the ink and inject hot water into the head to flush it out. That took a day just to locate those two items! After three attempts at cleaning with no luck I gave that up. Strike one. Then I remembered I had a sonic cleaning machine my wife gave me years ago for some reason so I dug it out and put the head in there and fired it up. Wife said dinner's ready so I let it run and went in to eat. Half way through dinner I thought I smelled what I perceived to be hot plastic. Just a very mild whiff you see. I got up and went out to the shop and there I found a dead sonic cleaner. NO smoke but quite warm and lifeless so into the trash it went. Strike two. At this point I tried to flush the head again and was rewarded with success on three of the four colors. The black was not the least bit interested in working. At this point I started looking to see if I could find a replacement printhead and was somewhat successful provided I wanted to pay four times more for a replacement head than I paid for the printer. Strike three. OK, I get it, just go buy a new printer. Went to three different locations and was met with empty shelves or just a small selection of high end stuff that I have no use for. I eventually returned to the first store I went to and purchased the ONLY reasonably priced printer they had left. I was lucky as it turned out the lady right behind me was after it also. So now I have a nice new printer that has a scanner in it that I don't need as I already have one that works fine. I also have three complete sets of ink cartridges that I just got last week for my now dead printer. I have a business to run so I didn't have any choice. I have to have a printer every day. If by chance any of you folks just happens to have a print head that uses HP 950 or 950XL cartridges please shoot me a PM and we can talk. It is my sincere hope that the day the CEO of every printer manufacturer is to receive his last paycheck that the printer (made in Thailand) printing it runs out of its absurdly priced ink! There, I feel better now.

This worked for me. Easy to remove and install. Wear rubber gloves or you will get your hands filled with ink. Installed one last year and it is still running great

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0868PL8V7/?tag=accuratescom-20

 

[BillPa]

IIRC it was two years ago after our printer went south Maw and I bought an Epson ET-2650 Eco Tank printer-scanner-copier-wifi . No cartridges, fill the tanks and go, no cartridges to recycle. One thing I learned, do the print head cleaning routine about every three-four months.
After the ~two years and who knows many pages the black tank is about 50%, the other three about 80. Supposedly a full tank is good for 4,000 pages.
Bill

 

[Daddymac]

It is sad, when we will pay as much for a complete set of printer cartridges as the whole printer cost, because we are too lazy to set up the new printer. I hope to get away from individual desk printers, we are buying color copiers and putting them on the network.