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Which Printer should I Buy?

Choosing The Right Printer

Many consumers are shocked when they come to replace their printer cartridges and find that they are spending almost as much on two cartridges as they did on the printer.
The situation is very similar to the mobile phone market where the manufacturers will give you their system for free and make their profits later.
This makes choosing the right printer in the first place important as you could find yourself saddled with very high running costs.
Leaving aside the question of print quality (and they are all pretty good these days), the cost of consumables should be a major reason for choosing one printer over another. In their defence the like of HP and Canon don’t have much choice when it comes to their price levels on printers or cartridges. HP tried to maintain their price levels when Epson came to the marketplace with cheaper initial cost printers but HP found themselves rapidly losing market share and quickly dropping their prices to remain competitive.
It is the high volume users who have particularly suffered from this scenario. A small business printing only 1000 sheets a month could find themselves using four cartridges at a cost of £100 to £140 a month.
The situation is further complicated by the issue of priming. Epson printers have a separate print head which needs to remove the air by using a priming pump that draws air (and your valuable ink), through the print head. The Epson cartridges are then used up quicker than their ink volume suggests.
One thing is certain, whatever your printer, using branded cartridges on an inkjet printer gives a high cost per page. If you only use one cartridge every six months this may be the best option.

Compatible cartridges

One way to save money is by using compatibles. Your printer manual will have a very carefully worded warning not to use anything other than branded goods, but if you read it you will find that it will not explicitly say this will invalidate your warranty. In the US, anti bundling laws exist which prohibit this in the same way that Ford cannot tell you to use Ford petrol. Reputable compatible manufacturers will offer you a cast-iron guarantee that their product will not damage your printer, although you may find this difficult to prove. Given the low initial cost of printers you may think this is a risk worth taking. You will need to use your judgement but if you choose from a manufacturer that has been around for some time your chances are better and there are some well known brands of compatibles around. As an example a pair of cartridges for the Epson 870 will have a street price of about £35. Compatibles will cost less than half this.

Refill kits

Many cartridges don’t have true compatibles as they have a built in print head and to produce a compatible would be too expensive or would infringe a patent. HP and Lexmark printers almost exclusively fit into this category. The latest HP printers have expensive cartridges which are only half full unless you spend over £40 on the "high volume",C6578A cartridge. If you want to shock yourself sometime, prise the side off a C6578D or C6625A cartridge. You will find that a large cartridge has very little ink in it. This cartridge was developed and looks the same externally as the C1823D. In a clever marketing ploy, the C6578D was priced at the same level as the C1823D and it took consumers a while to catch on that it only had 19 ml of ink as opposed to the 38 ml in the C1823D. The ink cost is minimal so why is there a £14 difference in the price of the cartridges?
Given this situation, refilling becomes an attractive proposition. The amount of ink is small, and can be bought relatively cheaply and if you are prepared to tolerate making a little extra effort, massive savings can be made, particularly if you use a lot of one colour. IPS sell 3 60ml of ink for £10.58 equating to 10 C6578D cartridges which is £250 worth of cartridges! As with compatibles you need to be sure of the quality of the ink. HP and Canon have very different ink formulations and colour mixes and so a universal kit is not likely to produce first class results. HP magenta ink is almost pink whereas in a Canon it is closer to blood red. If the ink is matched to the manufacturers specification, the cartridge should print as well after filling as a new cartridge would.

A couple of things should be borne in mind:
1) The sponge is always made too big to allow for thermal expansion with room temperature, if you saturate the sponge it will be too full and will either leak or put too much pressure on the print head.
2) The sponge is very dense with tiny pores. It is engineered so that it slowly releases the ink to the print head and the pressure remains even as the ink level falls. This means that when filling the air can only come out very slowly as the ink goes in. Fill it too quickly and the sponge will become air locked.

Things to come

The new range of Epson printers come with a microchip that tells the printer the cartridge is empty by counting the pages printed. Even if the cartridge is refilled the chip will tell the printer that the cartridge has no ink in it. A simple solution is available from I.P.S. which will reset the chip and allow the cartridge to be used again.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Why can’t I achieve the quality on the Epson CD photos supplied with the printer?

A: Obviously these are taken by professionals and the lighting and camera are important but there are ways of getting the best from your digicam. Frequently users think that because they can’t see any difference on the screen that they can take pictures at the lower resolution. The printer however will show up a difference and so it is best to take pictures at the highest camera resolution without compressing.

Q: Is there a cleaning fluid for my print head.

A: We do not recommend the use of cleaning fluids. If the print head is integral as with HP & Lexmark, the best cleaning fluid is steam. Simply hold the print head over the steam from a kettle for about 30 seconds or until your fingers are scalded and blow into the top to flush through any deposits.

Q: What is a pigmented ink?

A: Most inks are dyes which means that the ink is dissolved in the solvent (usually water) in much the same way that salt dissolves in water. A pigment however is a suspension of particles in a liquid and if the ink is allowed it will eventually settle to the bottom. This is done to achieve waterproof characteristics. The ink is made partially soluble by the attachment of ammonia molecules to the particles, when the ink hits the paper the ammonia evaporates and it becomes waterproof.

Q: What is the difference between the different inks you stock?

A: Firstly the colour. HP’s magenta is almost bright pink whereas Canons is a blood red and obviously if this is not closely matched the print will suffer. Secondly the surface tension. The droplet size is determined by this and different resolutions need different droplet sizes. Thirdly pigmentation or dyestuff, see above. Fourthly Epson inks require a small amount of spirit (probably to lubricate the print head).

Q: Why does the photo cartridge have two extra colours?

A: Print quality is determined by resolution (dots per inch) and by the numbers of shades available. With the three colours normally available (Yellow Magenta & Cyan) it is difficult to get fine control over the shade, particularly on skin tones. HP uses a similar trick with its 23A/78D/25A by using muted yellow magenta and cyan.

Q: Can I remove the Epson Cartridge when it’s not empty?

A: The cartridge can be removed at any time by pressing the linefeed button or Cartridge Maintenance button for three seconds. It can usually be reinserted and reused but it may take a little while to prime, (try priming once a day rather than repeated priming). Note that the ink monitor on your computer will reset to full as it has no way of telling that there is ink in the cartridge.

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My Epson / Compatible Cartridge Does not work. What is wrong?

This is a very common question asked nowadays, particularly since the advent of the new Chipped Epson cartridges.

There are usually only three reasons that this question is asked:-

• The transport tab has not been removed. This is by far the most common reason and is very easy to resolve.
  • Remove the cartridge
  • Remove the transport tab
  • Return the cartridge to the printer but
  • Wait ATLEAST one hour before printing (preferably 24)
• The printer is reporting an error (with lights on the printer or a message on screen).
  The error / message should tell you what the fault is and usually how to correct it.
  If there is an error light on the printer but no message on the screen, you may need to reinstall the "Epson Status Monitor" to see the what the error message is (refer to your Epson manual / CD). Messages may include
  • "The installed ink cartridges differ from the origional EPSON ink cartridges for this printer... ...You printouts may be different from those printed using the origional EPSON cartridges. Do you want to continue using the currently installed ink cartridges?" or similar message
    Depending on the compatible cartridges, the printouts will usually not differ so simply reply "YES" to this message. Printing will continue as normal.
  • Communication Error
    This is usually down to the print cable not being plugged in but may also be down to hardware problems. This is never due to cartridge problems.
  • Print cartridge not recognised
    This can sometimes be resolved by removing the cartridge from the printer and carefully cleaning the chip on the cartridge. Simply lick a piece of tissue and gently rub it on the chip. Ensure the chip is dry and return the cartridge to the printer. If the error persists, it may be worth tring another cartridge. If more than three cartridge report this error then it may be a hardware fault occasionaly experienced with Epson printers.
• The cartridge has an air lock - The printhead is moving backwards and forwards accross the page but little or no ink os being delivered.
  • First check the transport tab - refer to "The transport tab has not been removed" above, otherwise
  • Remove the cartridge from the printer
  • Hold the cartridge in the orientation it sits in the printer
  • Give the cartridge a firm but sharp tap, down on a protected solid surface
  • Return the cartridge to the printer but
  • Wait ATLEAST one hour before printing (preferably 24)