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I tell people to avoid inkjets altogether. Inkjets are great for photos and people who print a few pages a week, but are absolutely the worst for people who ra

I tell people to avoid inkjets altogether. Inkjets are great for photos and people who print a few pages a week, but are absolutely the worst for people who rarely print anything. Leave an inkjet alone for months and you can end up with permanently clogged print heads.

hef19898 3y ago
I still like to think that those inkjets using tanks you fill up yourself are better in that regard. More expensive to buy, but cheaper per page and, I hope, more tolerant to 3rd party ink (unless I miss clever way to verify the liquid itself comes from the OEM once the bottle was opened. Come think of it, I am sure there are some stupidly complex ways to do just that...). But you actually never know, do you?
- Gigachad 3y ago
  I looked in to those and you can still get dried print heads. You also have the issue that all of these home ink jets have a waste pad which is not user serviceable. Once you hit a hardcoded number of pages, the printer bricks itself as the pad is full. To resolve this you are meant to buy another printer. Or you can pull the whole thing to bits and try to replace the pad, then find some way to hack the firmware to reset the counter.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - zadintuvas1 3y ago
    You can find service software to reset the counter, but after doing it a several times it can actually overfill and ink can start leaking from the bottom of your printer. Some more creative people are re-routing waste ink tubing into a bottle to contain it.
- iso1631 3y ago
  The vast majority of the cost-per-page for me is the cost of the printer. I reckon it's about £1 a page, or £10 a year (new printer every 5 or so years, 10 pages a year)
- zadintuvas1 3y ago
  I've actually used printer like that (Epson). Everything was fine when I was printing frequently, but it still dried up after not using for months. No amount of "cleaning" or "deep cleaning" restored it to 100%. They verify ink bottles by requiring you to enter CD-key like number which is printed on a bottle. However, ink is cheap and you don't have to buy 3rd party one.

hef19898 3y ago

I still like to think that those inkjets using tanks you fill up yourself are better in that regard. More expensive to buy, but cheaper per page and, I hope, more tolerant to 3rd party ink (unless I miss clever way to verify the liquid itself comes from the OEM once the bottle was opened. Come think of it, I am sure there are some stupidly complex ways to do just that...). But you actually never know, do you?

Gigachad 3y ago
I looked in to those and you can still get dried print heads. You also have the issue that all of these home ink jets have a waste pad which is not user serviceable. Once you hit a hardcoded number of pages, the printer bricks itself as the pad is full. To resolve this you are meant to buy another printer. Or you can pull the whole thing to bits and try to replace the pad, then find some way to hack the firmware to reset the counter.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- zadintuvas1 3y ago
  You can find service software to reset the counter, but after doing it a several times it can actually overfill and ink can start leaking from the bottom of your printer. Some more creative people are re-routing waste ink tubing into a bottle to contain it.
iso1631 3y ago
The vast majority of the cost-per-page for me is the cost of the printer. I reckon it's about £1 a page, or £10 a year (new printer every 5 or so years, 10 pages a year)
zadintuvas1 3y ago
I've actually used printer like that (Epson). Everything was fine when I was printing frequently, but it still dried up after not using for months. No amount of "cleaning" or "deep cleaning" restored it to 100%. They verify ink bottles by requiring you to enter CD-key like number which is printed on a bottle. However, ink is cheap and you don't have to buy 3rd party one.