Beware Printer cartridge's with time limit

thinkpinkworld

My sister told me that HP put a chip in their printer cartridges that are designed make the cartridges run out after a set time rather than when they run out of ink.
Is this true?

Poppycat

I dont no tbh I only ever use Epson or there compatibles, but ink cartridges do half a shelf life usually quite a long period say 2 years.

thinkpinkworld

Hi Poppycat,

I'm off to buy a very cheap Cannon Printer £30 from Argos. Got put off HP by my sister. I think I may email HP and ask them for fun see what reply I get. My sister recommended Cannon.

TP

celyn90

Hi OP, I don't know if it is true, but if the one at work complains about the ink level, I take out the cartridge, shake it and bung it back in the slot - I get a good extra few weeks out of it that way and no warning messages for a while!

ormus

you can buy printer chip resetters, off the net for a few quid.

ollyk

I think that sounds like rubbish to me.... where has this idea come from?
Must say I use an old HP before chips became the norm... Prints black and white fine and if I want colour pictures printing your own is a complete rip off anyway!

lyneaux

ormus wrote: »

you can buy printer chip resetters, off the net for a few quid.

I bought a resetter a good while ago and found my Epson cartridges could give me 30%-40% further printing after resetting. But this year the resetter has failed to reset the chip in the cartridges. I suspect Epson have changed the code in their chips to prevent resetting. Can anyone throw light on this?
Epson cartridges are so expensive anyway that if I can no longer reset them I'll dispose of the printer on Freecycle and buy a different brand. (I tried compatibles once - no thank you. I don't want to use refills either.)

beermonsteruk

Epson printers with chip problems, try SSC utility, search through google, we use it in the shop to reset the printer and the cartridges. Dont think epson like you to know that this program exists. Worth a try.

superscaper

Never had any problems with HP printers and prefer them. Whenever I get warnings of low ink I just ignore it until I see a visible difference on printing. There is no time limit put into HP chips. I actually used to work with someone that did research into printing electronics and he used ordinary HP inkjet printers (he found they were the best to experiment with), he never found any time limitations. And I'm sure HP would have mentioned it to him.

superscaper

celyn90 wrote: »

Hi OP, I don't know if it is true, but if the one at work complains about the ink level, I take out the cartridge, shake it and bung it back in the slot - I get a good extra few weeks out of it that way and no warning messages for a while!

Are you talking about ink or toner. If it's a laser printer then they use a toner cartridge which is actually a powder and is quite normal to shake it if it's got a low ink warning. I'd be very surprised if shaking an inkjet cartridge which is a liquid would make the slightest bit of difference. I think most inkjet cartridges have a counter that decreases with printing and don't have any physical way of actually measuring the ink level.

stevemcol

I very rarely print anything but have always had problems with ink jet printers apparently 'drying up'. I try and use my printer at least once a week now and that seems to have solved the problem.