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Epson printer forcefully wasting ink confirmed!

warvanov said:
Now, what I would like to see is someone take a color printer, weigh the color ink cartridges with a precise scientific scale, and then print a bunch of black and white documents.
Click to expand...

Inkjet printers do use colour ink when printing black and white, to improve greyscales and blacks. Look towards the end of this article: http://www.hp.com/pageyield/en-019/...pid=re_r11087_pagyield_us_en_article_redirect

I don't think the use of colour ink for head priming & cleaning is any secret, either.

I think inkjets have had their day as general-purpose printers.
Lasers are quite affordable, faster, don't need special paper for decent quality and are less prone to clog up with infrequent use. Photo output from colour lasers doesn't compare with 6-colour 'photo' inkjet on coated paper, but is probably better than a regular 4-colour inkjet with regular paper, and fine for occasional snapshots.

I'd only consider an inkjet if I were doing a lot of high-quality photo printing and neither laser prints nor high-street prints would cut it. B&W text performance of such a printer wouldn't be an issue.
 
I had an Epson printer 5 years ago. Not only did it use up ink in a week, it died in 13 months. I took it to an authorised Epson service center, and the technician actually told me the processor was programmed to die just after a year. I replaced it with a cheap Samsung laser. Problem solved.
 
makinao said:
I had an Epson printer 5 years ago. Not only did it use up ink in a week, it died in 13 months. I took it to an authorised Epson service center, and the technician actually told me the processor was programmed to die just after a year. I replaced it with a cheap Samsung laser. Problem solved.
Click to expand...

sorry to hear your story, but I believe it should be some sort of "internal part is out of service, blah blah blah...." , you probably just need to reset the waste ink counter and replace a waste ink pad... or could be the damaged board... I have seen it back 2005.

For your information, I am going to use another Epson R3000 refillable system from amazon

http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Refi...FU0S/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1392365248&sr=8-1

looks very promising and only 169 dollars for the refillable carts and 900ml pigment inks... good deal.
 
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I normally stick with lasers, but I got an Epson inkjet-scanner combo as part of a package with a MacBook some years ago.

The goddamn thing not only would refuse to print in black and white if it felt one of the yellow/cyan/magenta ink cartridges was low, it wouldn't even SCAN until you replaced the ink cartridge. Poor unmitigated and shameless greed on Epson's part.

I didn't even sell or give the thing away — I threw the thing out, and not before I smashed it up. I absolutely refused to let Epson make one more cent off that thing.
 
I will never buy an epson printer again.

The thing was literally drinking ink. After only a few pages the black would run low and even if you want to just print black and white the printer MUST have the color cartridges installed. It wont even allow you to scan a photo unless the ink is full.

After spending HUNDREDS on ink in just a few months, it died. Its almost as if it forgot how to print.

POS.
 
Frankly, I don't think that Epson is the culprit here.

About the only reason why you'd want to buy an inkjet printer is to print photos. However, most people print documents most of the time, if they even print at all.

And that's exactly the problem: If you don't print a lot, your inkjet will have a bad time and needs to clean its heads every time you want it to crank out a page. Epson printers do that, and so does my HP from the first batch of AirPrinters.

As far as the HP goes: Whenever you want to print something, it's a general rule that one of the cartridges is always empty. It does have a great scanner though, and that's about the only use it gets these days: Scanning.

Long story short, if I had to buy another printer today, given that the inexpensive Brother monochrome laser gave me a great time, text and graphics look crisper on it and it still runs on its 40% full starter cartridge after 6 months or so, I'd go for the Brother MFC-9130CW multifunction color laser AirPrinter (or this one with duplex printing, if that feature is worth $70 to you).
819W91h49xL._SL1500_.jpg


No, they aren't that great at printing photos. If you need photos, get them printed at Target, Sears, online at mpix - or better yet, support your local photo shop if those still happen to exist.

Yes, they are on the bulkier side. Yet, it's better have one larger printer than two a little less bulky ones side by side.

There's also a monochrome MFC-8710DW for $80 less where neither photo nor color printing is a necessity, or the toner price for black/white pages is a concern - the color laser is on par with the lower-end monochrome lasers, though.
71NCBhSdzkL._SL1500_.jpg


For most people, the toners on either one should last for ages. They don't dry out nor are there heads to be cleaned.
 
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For those who are interested in printing from iOS but don't have the feature, I downloaded an app called HandyPrint onto the Mac connected to my laser printer. It allows the Mac to pass through any print jobs from your iOS device. Works very nicely!
 
apple_iBoy said:
For those who are interested in printing from iOS but don't have the feature, I downloaded an app called HandyPrint onto the Mac connected to my laser printer. It allows the Mac to pass through any print jobs from your iOS device. Works very nicely!
Click to expand...

Thanks! I did try it, and it's pretty handy :)
 
I had a canon inkjet and went online to shop for replacement cartridges (I was buying in bulk). I was about to hit "Checkout" when I noticed I was about to pay $75 for all the ink.

I found an $80 laser printer on Amazon by a good manufacturer that included a toner good for 200 pages (you can replace the toner for $45 for 2600 pages).

Granted, I don't do color. If you can make do without it, laser is stupidly cheap nowadays. It also never dries out and there's no head cleaning. I will never go back to inkjet (unless I need color, I guess).

Edit: I guess that printer is up to $110 now. Still worth it, IMO. It might take 2 years to pay for itself though.
 
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I've had a few Epson printers and all I found were wasteful with ink, and problematic with clogged heads too.

I then got a Brother printer. The inks cartridges are big, they hold plenty of ink and last ages, they are cheap, I don't have clogged printheads like I did with the Epson.

I would never go back to an Epson printer now. My next printer will be a Brother, based on the good experience I've had with my current Brother printer.
 
I think that will be a problem with you Epson Printer. How long you are using it? Epson printer have no such complaints till now as per my knowledge. Just do one thing power of and wait for few minutes, there might be some issue in it and that's why it is not performing perfectly.
 
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antman2x2 said:
I will never buy an epson printer again.

The thing was literally drinking ink. After only a few pages the black would run low and even if you want to just print black and white the printer MUST have the color cartridges installed. It wont even allow you to scan a photo unless the ink is full.

After spending HUNDREDS on ink in just a few months, it died. Its almost as if it forgot how to print.

POS.
Click to expand...

After years of using Epson inkjet printers, I would love to share some of my experience which I believe very valuable to others.

1. You really want to take care of the waste ink pad and main board counter. There is a very good article talking about how to reset it and how to prevent it from running wet.
http://www.inkrepublic.com/KnowledgeBase/ResetCounter.asp

For this little baby - http://www.inkrepublic.com/WasteInkKit.asp
only 7 dollars and it can prolong your printer much looonger!!!

2. If ink cost is your concern and you do not want to use cheap ink other than Epson's. There are some other good 3rd party dye or pigment out there. Google
http://www.inkrepublic.com/index.asp
and inkjetmall

Both have excellent pigment inks over years. Some of InkRepublic's colors that I have been using are even better than Epson's inks. such as the model of 3880 and R3000 inks. And it can bring down your ink cost to 1/5 on each print or more.

3. You want to print frequently if not, at least set up an automator to print some text line out every week so the ink would not dry out and block the print head. Worst comes to worst, if you run into the clogged print heat and can not print color correctly, the cleaning cycle from epson's software would not help, the next step is to get a cleaner like this:
http://www.inkrepublic.com/iRemove.asp

4. Dont use expired cartridges... :) Keep the ball rolling and be nice to your Epson printer!
 
Fatboy71 said:
I've had a few Epson printers and all I found were wasteful with ink, and problematic with clogged heads too.

I then got a Brother printer. The inks cartridges are big, they hold plenty of ink and last ages, they are cheap, I don't have clogged printheads like I did with the Epson.

I would never go back to an Epson printer now. My next printer will be a Brother, based on the good experience I've had with my current Brother printer.
Click to expand...

Just wondering if Brother has good resolution and pigment inks like Epson does? As far as I know, professional users still need Epson's pro printers.. for the regular usage, I found Epson's Artisan 50 is very solid too. I use it for almost 6 years with great sucess - 3rd party inks. Been printing 30,000 post cards from inkrepublic's artisan 50 CIS.
 
carestudio said:
Just wondering if Brother has good resolution and pigment inks like Epson does? As far as I know, professional users still need Epson's pro printers.. for the regular usage, I found Epson's Artisan 50 is very solid too. I use it for almost 6 years with great sucess - 3rd party inks. Been printing 30,000 post cards from inkrepublic's artisan 50 CIS.
Click to expand...

Apologise for the delay.

Not sure on the pigment inks. I use 3rd party inks from an online shop that guarantee their inks to perform as good or better than the original manufacturers inks.
 
I'm the OP and ended up selling the Epson inkjet then buying a Brother DCP-7065DN multi-function laser instead. No more ink-cleaning and I do just fine without color printing abilities. For photography printing I can get it professionaly done at a professional photography printing service. All in all those few photos I print will cost less than having it done at home anyway.

The Brother laser printer is great. It seems to scan equally well as the Epson multi-function inkjet and printing is fast and cheap (haven't had to change the toner after around 450 pages which I don't think would have been the case with the inkjet). The printer's fan (which comes on when printing) is a bit loud and irritating, but after about 10 minutes idling it goes off and is completely silent again (standby mode).
No regrets getting rid of the inkjet and buying a black/white laser printer instead :)
 
I really love to do family printing myself. inkjet printer would be the best choice. color laser one doesnt look vivid at all.
 
carestudio said:
After years of using Epson inkjet printers, I would love to share some of my experience which I believe very valuable to others.

1. You really want to take care of the waste ink pad and main board counter. There is a very good article talking about how to reset it and how to prevent it from running wet.
http://www.inkrepublic.com/KnowledgeBase/ResetCounter.asp

For this little baby - http://www.inkrepublic.com/WasteInkKit.asp
only 7 dollars and it can prolong your printer much looonger!!!

2. If ink cost is your concern and you do not want to use cheap ink other than Epson's. There are some other good 3rd party dye or pigment out there. Google
http://www.inkrepublic.com/index.asp
and inkjetmall

Both have excellent pigment inks over years. Some of InkRepublic's colors that I have been using are even better than Epson's inks. such as the model of 3880 and R3000 inks. And it can bring down your ink cost to 1/5 on each print or more.

3. You want to print frequently if not, at least set up an automator to print some text line out every week so the ink would not dry out and block the print head. Worst comes to worst, if you run into the clogged print heat and can not print color correctly, the cleaning cycle from epson's software would not help, the next step is to get a cleaner like this:
http://www.inkrepublic.com/iRemove.asp

4. Dont use expired cartridges... :) Keep the ball rolling and be nice to your Epson printer!
Click to expand...

good tip on the waste ink kit. looks like all the epson users should have one of that kit.
 
I had a cheap Epson all in one printer and was always having to clean and realign the heads. Wasted loads of ink.
I exchanged it for a Cannon MG630 and it's been problem free when I (infrequently) use it. So much easier.
One tip though. Always leave your printer powered up. Turning it off will more likely cause issues.
 
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