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Is there a printer that isn't a proprietary ink dispensing jail? I'm with current knowledge and tech it should be possible to print your own printer?

colechristensen 4y ago
Epson EcoTank, pretty hard to lock out other vendors when your supply is delivered as a liquid.
- julienfr112 4y ago
  you can have some sensors that test whatever physical property of the liquid (spectrum, electrical and thermal conductivity, viscosity,...) and turn off if it's not in the range of the genuine product.
  - jbotz 4y ago
    And that would be entirely acceptable, perhaps even desirable, since it would be only be verifying the quality of the Ink rather than locking out competition even when the competition has a product of sufficient (or even superior) quality.
  - colechristensen 4y ago
    Not impossible, but pretty hard. Not so hard to defeat such sensors by making a matching product (which should be the goal anyway for printer ink). It would then be an arms race with third party vendors and your own internal ink and sensors to make a more consistent product yourself with better and better sensors.
  - bzzzt 4y ago
    It's possible to design print heads that are warped over time by ink that's not exactly like the official ink. At least, that's what I suspect killed my last (literally) Canon inkjet. There are a lot of rumours online about that practice.
- baxuz 4y ago
  Problem is that the heads clog up quite often. I had to replace mine recently. Oh, and they spew so much ink in the cleaning cycle that the pad got soaked up in 2 years. The service would cost 1/3 the price of a new printer so I visited some shady sites to find a one-time service mode reset code. As soon as the ink starts spilling out I'm tossing it in the garbage and never buying another printer again.
  - post_break 4y ago
    How often do you print? I have read those things need to be run very often to keep them from clogging or breaking down.
    - baxuz 4y ago
      Rarely. Like a few pages once a month - if even then. And sometimes I need to print pages upon pages, which need to be in color. Was thinking of getting a color laser printer.

colechristensen 4y ago

Epson EcoTank, pretty hard to lock out other vendors when your supply is delivered as a liquid.

julienfr112 4y ago
you can have some sensors that test whatever physical property of the liquid (spectrum, electrical and thermal conductivity, viscosity,...) and turn off if it's not in the range of the genuine product.
- jbotz 4y ago
  And that would be entirely acceptable, perhaps even desirable, since it would be only be verifying the quality of the Ink rather than locking out competition even when the competition has a product of sufficient (or even superior) quality.
- colechristensen 4y ago
  Not impossible, but pretty hard. Not so hard to defeat such sensors by making a matching product (which should be the goal anyway for printer ink). It would then be an arms race with third party vendors and your own internal ink and sensors to make a more consistent product yourself with better and better sensors.
- bzzzt 4y ago
  It's possible to design print heads that are warped over time by ink that's not exactly like the official ink. At least, that's what I suspect killed my last (literally) Canon inkjet. There are a lot of rumours online about that practice.
baxuz 4y ago
Problem is that the heads clog up quite often. I had to replace mine recently. Oh, and they spew so much ink in the cleaning cycle that the pad got soaked up in 2 years. The service would cost 1/3 the price of a new printer so I visited some shady sites to find a one-time service mode reset code. As soon as the ink starts spilling out I'm tossing it in the garbage and never buying another printer again.
- post_break 4y ago
  How often do you print? I have read those things need to be run very often to keep them from clogging or breaking down.
  - baxuz 4y ago
    Rarely. Like a few pages once a month - if even then. And sometimes I need to print pages upon pages, which need to be in color. Was thinking of getting a color laser printer.