Printer Ink now over $20,000 per gallon.

[DaBees-Knees]

The cost of printer ink for some inkjet printers is now costing the consumer the equivalent of over $20,000 per gallon.

How has this increase come about? Obviously some of the increase is related to normal price rises over the course of time, but the most significant rise has been due to the printer manufacturers producing cartridges that contain less ink. Most of the major manufacturers have adopted this trend, but it is best exampled by the leading printer manufacturer, Hewlett Packard. A few years ago the smallest three colour inkjet cartridge contained 19ml of ink, giving just over 6ml of each colour cyan, magenta and yellow. The comparable cartridge today only contains a total of 5ml of ink, that's less than 2ml per colour. Canon is the only manufacturer not to follow this trend, the Bci3 cartridge of the late 90's contained 13ml of ink and its modern day equivalent, the Cli8 still contains 13ml. So for consistency in levels of printer ink, the prize goes to Canon.

Bear this information in mind when you next replace your inkjet printer.

Most of you will be aware of this, but there will be those that don't realise that there's more to buying a printer than the print quality.  I use compatible cartridges at a fraction of the cost of the originals, but be careful as some are a lot better than others.

[White Stripes]

i use dot matrix that use ribbons that cost about $5 a pop and fade out over a course of years rather than disappear in the middle of a print job a few months later....


...just be sure to cover your ears when clicking 'print'

--edit--

http://www.okidata.com/mkt/html/nf/products-impact-printers.php

granted they arent cheap but compare that to the price of inkjet ink... i think it evens out rather quickly...

[Bluey_412]

Dot Matrix ribbons can be 'rejuvenated' too. a typical single-colour ribbon is mebbe 12mm wide, but the actual printhead uses only the middle 3 or 4mm of the ribbon, leaving a LOT of ink on the upper and lower bands of the ribbon.

A trick i was taught was to open the ribbon cassette by prising off the top cover, being careful not to make the ribbon unravel and fall out, lay the open cassette on a suitable surface, and then spray with WD-40 or similar 'spray lube'.

Let the treated ribbon dry again for a few days, pop the cover back on and you are good to go.

The WD-40 dissolves the ink off the outer edges and causes it to flow onto the 'dry band' left by the print head and thereby replenish. All that remains is for the relevant solvent to dry out.

In Asian countries, a popular modification for inkjets is a 'CISS' system, where a series of hoses are attached to the tops of ink carts, and, as a ribbon, lead to and connect into larger bottles of ink, up to 1 litre in size, sitting beside the printer. I saw these in offices and even print-shops!the operation of the printer creates a suction inside the cartridge, and that is used to draw a continuous supply of ink from the bottles back into the ink carts, which are never replaced, only the bottles

The cover doors are propped open, with interlock switches disabled or jammed, and it is quite fascinating to see the ribbon of hoses rolling back and forth with the ink cartridges as the printer does its stuff. This mod alone renders the cost of inkjet printing so low that the 'cents per page' gets lower than the legendary economy of a laser printer. Even those horrid MFD's can be so modified...

[White Stripes]

problem with the tube and bottle thing is the printheads... they are made just as cheap as the printer itself ... if not cheaper... and will either burn out (heat based head) or clog up (peizo head ... epson is the only one that i know of that makes peizo heads tho) after a few 'miles' .... and some are based on a very specific negative pressure (hp in specific) so tend to leak rather liberally if that pressure isnt right.... and that ink is a !#$%# to clean up...

basically stick with cannon and epson for the 'ink tricks' .... hp and lexmark are messes...

as for the wd40 thing in dot matrix.... eh... that works but i like the 'null print' thing... stick a peice of paper through but dont snap the 'grabber wheels' down so the paper doesnt move and print pages full of null characters.... it moves the print head and tries to move the paper but nothing actually prints and it never thinks its out of paper... causes the ribbon to wind around a few times against the ink sponge in the ribbons cart doing the same thing as the wd40 trick without the smell .... if null print doesnt work a single drop of 100% isopropal alcohol on that sponge then another round of null print will spread things out... the alcohol will evaporate and not clog the print head with crud...

twisting the 'tenson/wind' wheel on the cart itself is just as effective at this but can wear ones fingers out pretty fast...

[Bluey_412]

1 problem with the Epson printers, altho they have replaceable heads, and the carts are just tanks, when the heads go phutt, it seems actually obtaining fresh heads is nigh on impossible.

At least with a HP, or a Canon, the heads are built into the carts, so even if the heads do clog/burn/whatever, a replacement set of carts can be easily obtained and hooked up to the hoses, and away ya go again

I would actually expect the whole printer to die tho, before the heads in such a rig give up the ghost

[White Stripes]

for those curious about what bluey is talking about;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuous_ink_system

just be sure to bring dish liquid to the table.....


...i still say cannon over HP tho (damn explosive hp cartriges).... dont forget the weight of those tubes may also stretch belts and may make the resulting print a little 'offset' if not done right....

also you can get replacement heads for epson on the web ... at least its somewhat easy in the us and japan... (seiko epson is japanese)  ... not exactly cheap tho... but a good epson printer isnt cheap to begin with...

[Mytheroo]

u can get ink delivered for 99p for 30ml, just take the tops off the cartridges and top up once a week/month. Unless the heads run out of ink they shouldn't dry up from both sides which is what blocks them

[White Stripes]

those types of inks dont usually flow right and clog anyway... and a heat driven head will burn out the clogged nozzles over time... tho printing hi res doesnt usually show clogged/nonfunctioning nozzles... its usually the builtin printer test that show them...

99p for 30ml is still a bit steep btw...

[DaBees-Knees]

I had a strange printing problem with my Epson printer. When I tried to print very large characters for a poster the ink just wouldn't flow correctly. After many attempts, and a few cartridge replacements, I eventually contacted the cartridge manufacturer (not Epson). They did some testing and they came up with the answer. Printing very large characters in text mode made the print heads overheat badly. Switching to photographic mode cured the problem as it uses a different method of printing.

[White Stripes]

..guess epson has gone from peizo to heat driven too... (its cheaper... and uses more ink...)

[White Stripes]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inkjet_printer

specifically; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inkjet_printer#Thermal.2Fthermal_DOD_inkjet
uses part of the ink to 'blow a bubble' (steam) ... a good idea... horridly abused...