Today’s Computer Problem
So the printer, from which I ask almost nothing, decides to have a conniption while I’m trying to print out pictures of my Mother’s first great granddaughter.
At this point I think I’m just going to buy a new one, because it just too much trouble hunting down ink cartridges for it locally. I’m going to buy something with the cheapest ink cartridges because I don’t do enough printing to keep the ink flowing in the “economy-sized” cartridges, so I end up only getting about half the ink out before they clog and become unusable.
The computer gods have really been on my case this week.
16 comments
If you can figure out which printer has the cheapest cartridges, let us all know! I used to do self-refills, but the HP cartridges make it hard for you. I also stopped printing in color. Snapfish’s photo prints are cheaper than you can print out.
HI Guys! I can help! 😉 We just went through the printer woes ourselves! We had a HP and it was nothing but trouble and expense since we got it! We got a great deal on an Epson RX610 all-in-one (photo printer/scanner/card reader/etc). It’s not the printer so much (which was a great deal RRP was $299 and we paid $158 including a 27mth warranty. Epson have a 3 month free extension if you register now). The best bit is an Aussie company that makes CISS (Continuous Ink Supply Systems) that makes the ink dirt cheap! And better quality than the original Epson (and definitely better than HP!) They work with many Canon/Epson/HP/ etc printers.
You can check the CISS out here:
RIHAC
They export too. 😉 Even with the cost of shipping, it’s way cheaper than the manufacturers inks! They have had over 1,500 positive reviews. 🙂
Hope this helps. 🙂
Cheers!
one word — dedicated photo printer
I don’t need a photo printer for 6 photos/year. This was an emergency thing as she just arrived and my Mother doesn’t like waiting.
I’ll let you know what I find out Moi.
Kryten, sorry, but I accidentally nuked your last comment while deleting a sudden deluge of spam. I used the general edit mode instead of the moderation mode which isolates them.
I noticed you were wondering about resistence to imported products. I think we all know that almost everything you buy in the US these days is imported. I buy locally to avoid having to depend on the shipping companies which frankly all suck in the local area.
One of my concerns is paper feeding. I liked the straighter Epson path and the separate colors, but that exposes the paper to the cats who have the bad habits of removing paper from exposed sources or coughing up hairballs on them. I realize I have some odd requirements for a printer.
I’ll see what’s available locally.
Found a cached copy of the comment Kryten:
I don’t need a photo printer for 6 photos/year.
that’s what my parents said….
I’m aiming towards a paperless office. Usually my niece posts things at a Kodak site and I can order prints. This was a special shipment.
The problem with Epson inkjet printers is that the print head is not part of the cartridge, so when the print heads clog, they *clog* and while you can generally manage to unclog them once or twice, eventually they clog totally and you can do nothing but throw the printer away and buy another one. I now stick with HP inkjet printers. At least when the print heads clog you can pull the ink cartridge out and replace it with a new one and that fixes it. My Deskjet 5440 has been bullet-proof, and when I had HP inkjets on my production line back when I was doing manufacturing stuff they were bullet-proof too, even when there was a two-month production stop because the #@$%@ hardware engineers hadn’t done their job and had to redesign the hardware :-(. The cartridges cost a little more than the Epson cartridges, but the Epsons were just too dadburned frustrating….
No worries Bryan. It wasn’t anything important. 🙂
That’s true about the Epsons. I’ve had 4 over a decade. However, I have found some cheaper replacement cartridges, and the reasons we went with the Epson this time was a) great price!! We plan to do a lot of photo’s, and this printer will print border-less (edge to edge) and handy quite heavy stock (up to 220gsm, whereas anything over 120gsm on the HP’s I’ve had cause feed problems), b) it will print directly onto printable CD/DVD’s, we can print directly from one of our camera’s or memory cards without turning a PC on, it will even print a catalog, c) the availability of the RIHAC CISS inking system! It completely replaces the Epson cartridges and has a double 2micron filter system (instead of the Epson single filter) and the ink used is a higher quality than the standard Epson inks at about 10% of the cost. 🙂 The same would be true for Canon, Brother etc that they have CISS systems for. Also, will 100ml of each color ink, we don’t have to replace cartridges after every 20 photo prints as we would for the Epson cartridges! 😉 And it also has a decent color A4/Letter sized scanner/copier. I think it may have bluetooth, or it may be an option… it was mentioned in the manual. *shrug* LOL If it does, it would mean we should be able to print pic’s from our phones too. 😉 Could be dangerous! LOL
LOL @ paperless office! 😀 I first heard that phrase about 20 years ago… It’ll never happen! LOL
Computer problems seem to occur in clusters at my house too. It’s as if the components communicate with each other and plot ways to annoy you.
I have a Canon i860 which uses separate color cartridges and prints on both photo and regular paper. It’s about 3 yo now and I’ve never had a day of trouble with it and I only print a few sheets a week. I get ink for it online at half retail. Either I have been very lucky, or it’s a great printer.
This printer is an HP Officejet K80 all in one and I hate the paper feed and the lack of a flat bed scanner. It is also a cat “magnet” and I pull a pound of cat hair out of during routine maintenance. It is definitely not designed for a home/office environment and takes up a lot of space.
This particular system is all HP because I had a “source” in the company, so I got the whole thing below wholesale as part of a “deal”.
Hopefully I will come up with a solution today to get a “disappointed great grandmother” off my back and can get back to doing what I get paid for.
You could always put the printer in one of those old line-printer enclosures to cat proof it. 😉 And it will be silent too! LOL 😉 Yuu might even pick one up 2nd hand or auction… or, you could make one. 😀
You mean like the sound cabinet for the Diablo 630 daisywheel that I left in California when I moved back to Florida because I had bought a LaserJet II and didn’t need it? That sort of cabinet with its counter-balanced Lexan cover that would totally protect the printer and I’ve been thinking of for half the day?
It may be time to buy some plywood and plastic.
It’s spooky how old IT guys think alike.
That’s the one! LOL And yeah… I had one many years ago, except it was for a Printronix band printer. Fast as hell (in the day… 100 & something LPM) and noisy as a freight train! The cabinet had the high-density gray formed foam over high-density MDF with a sheet of rubber and aluminum between them. I think it cost more than the printer. 😉 I left it in Sydney because it weighed a ton and would cost as much to ship as it cost to buy! And I’d just gotten an Apple Laserwriter. 😉 LOL
The sound box wasn’t that elaborate – laminated chipboard with acoustical foam inside, but that cover was a thing of beauty with the only antistatic coating that I have ever seen that really worked, but the chipboard made it heavy as it was designed for a wide carriage printer. It had its own ventilation fan and you connected the printer to the outlets in the back of the box. It was expensive, big, and heavy, so I left it with a client who was too cheap to save the hearing of his employees and didn’t have to listen to the sucker print off hundreds of statements at the end of every month.