Colour Inkjet Printers

Former Member

I've been using a colour Epson 740 printer for several years but now it's playing up all sorts, I think it's almost had it.

but the one thing that really doesn't want to see me get ride of it is the fact the ink for it is dirt cheap - like from £1 per cartidge.

Buy a new printer isn't a problem what is - are the cost of new ink.. all the latest printers have chips in them to make it hard to refill or get compatiables and by the looks of it instead of paying £2 for completely new ink it's going to be more like £24 for some of the newer models - much more pricey!!

I remember on holiday seeing people that had modded HP printers to use these huge bottle of ink instead of the normal dinky cartidges ... what are you lot all doing about your printers? Any cut price solutions out there?

Former Member

We're spending lots of cash on genuine cartridges, but seeing as it's a photo printer and the genuine ink has better lastability than the alternatives I suppose it's ok. Refills come in at around 12 quid a go per cartridge.

Former Member

I want something like this



You'd think someone in China would make an inkjet printer that took loads of cheap ink at once - that would be a consumer people would love to buy even if the printer cost a bit more to begin with

Former Member

OK I've had a look and I could buy something like an Epson D88 for about £60 and then a continous ink system like below for about £20

I looked up my Epson 740 and it's about 6 years old now - so think it's lasted about as long as should be expected for an inkjet??

I remember paying about £150 for it back then so £60 aint too bad for an even better 4 colour printer, I just can't figure out why there is so many different ypes of Epsons!!

Former Member

That's quite funky. We have the Epson R800.

Former Member

I reckon a lot of the problem with epson occured when it's time to install new ink cartidges, I mean they print happily enough until you run out of ink and then probably the drawing in of air etc ruins the heads, the new one have chips to record how much ink there is and supposed to leave maybe 5% ink inside the cartidge so you never get a situation where air is sucked in like perhaps my pinter, although quite wasteful too.

PC World is the cheapest place of all to get the printers I'm looking at - certainly when you take into account I can just drive there a few miles down the road compared to Postage and Packing for the online retailers.

Former Member

OMG check out this mess

http://www.eddiem.com/photo/CIS/cis.htm

Former Member

Owch, that's very messy! That continuous ink system looks brill though!

I have a Canon pixma which cost 40 quid from ebuyer and the cartriges are 20 quid for colour/black and white. It prints photo though. And i have a belkin print server so i can print without connecting it, the peak of lazyness.

1000th post

Former Member

I'm sure these systems can be bought cheaper - most places want £40 for them. Although some on ebay for around £25.

But I recon once setup a printer would actually be less prone to playing up as ink wouldn't dry because everything is see thru so you can alway make sure the printer is topped up with ink and you need only top up the colours which are being used up. I recon once you got the continous refilling system working it should bring down the cost of the ink to maybe £2 per refill, plus you're not wasting ink priming the heads as you do when you install a new cartidge. Some sites say doing this wastes 10% of the ink inside the cartidge.

Former Member

It would certainly be appealing for printing lots of rubbish, I would probably go down the route of having one printer for general stuff, and another high-res printer with original cartriges for photos.

Former Member

I think I've settled on getting the Epson D 88 4 colour inkjet

I don't think I really need the added expense of a 6 colour printer .. do I?


I'm really surprise no one in the far east has simply made a basic no nonesense inkjet printer that take loads of ink

Everything about modern printers revolves around making the most money on the ink sales

There are two possible ways to save ink costs , one is the system as shown or there are new cartidges designed to be removed and filled with a syringe really easily

Printer coming in at £57 - my last inkjet printer was £150 and before that £500 - so they're getting cheaper .. LOL