Printer shortages?

Sea_Shell

Due to the numbers of people currently working from home, has anyone else noticed that nearly every printer we look at is showing as "out of stock" everywhere?

Have they been panic bought and gone the same way as loo rolls? !

We're trying to (unsuccessfully) unclog our printer heads on our Epson XP215, and have been looking at replacements if we have to condemn it?    They appear to be like hens teeth at the moment.    Last resort is trying to dismantle the print head, but that risks breaking it in the process!!

Also, i assume it's easy to opt-out of any "automatic ink" ordering subscription, and just purchase on an ad-hoc basis?

molerat

Was in Tesco yesterday and they have quite a large printer section. There were only 2 on the shelf of one £150+ model in the whole department.  Very few printer inks as well.  I have also found memory cards are in short supply.

jonnygee2

It's a ixture of increased demand, and the fact that most of the factories that produce this kind of stuff were shut for a while. Quite a bit of stuff that is primarily made in Chinese factories is now suffering from this delayed shortage.
Hopefully will return to normal soon.

Sea_Shell

So it is a thing then.   I can understand why.

Not having a printer for a while is an inconvenience, but not the end of the world.

Back to the "how to..." You tube vids!!

bob_a_builder

I haven't had an inkjet for many years, but when I did it was a Epson where the print heads were built into the printer  ( which eventually terminally clogged), and ink carts were just a container of ink and sponge  The HP inkjets of the day had the print heads built into the ink cart , so were very easy to clean/clear and were replaced when you changed ink cart

I don't know if that still the case, but if I was buying an inkjet now, I would check that and go with the one where the heads are easily accessed 

Sea_Shell

It would appear that the print heads can be removed and cleaned.  A fiddily job, but doable.

Any recommendations for a replacement.  

Only light use, colour, multi function (copier, scanner), WiFi 

MinuteNoodles

If you're only using it occassionally I'd stay away from inkjets completely because they're notorious for problems due to the ink drying in the nozzles when they go unused. Get a laser printer instead, you'll probably find there's quite a few of those available as people seem to prefer inkjets.

Neil_Jones

MinuteNoodles said:

If you're only using it occassionally I'd stay away from inkjets completely because they're notorious for problems due to the ink drying in the nozzles when they go unused. Get a laser printer instead, you'll probably find there's quite a few of those available as people seem to prefer inkjets.

Might be something to do with the fact you can pick inkjets up anywhere and for considerable peanuts, so they are cheap to run, but of course in terms of raw printing, even a dirt cheap laser will wipe the floor with any inkjet terms of number of pages printed.

You have to do something incredibly wrong for an inkjet to print more pages than a laser...

Chocmonster7

Trying to buy a new laptop and Epson Ecotank but all the ones I like and are my price range are out of stock. Very frustrating when I need it to keep my business going. Just hope my current ones can stumble on for a while longer!

molerat

Have you checked Aldi for the printer ?  They had an EcoTank L-3151 on Sunday at £169.99.

getmore4less

For very low use upto 15 pages per month  HP are a good option  on the instant ink free supply option.
https://instantink.hpconnected.com/uk/en/l/

For low use but regular printing brother can work,  cheap compatibles available and they are robust printers I have found.
Left plugged in they monitor themselves and run a clean cycle if not used, but that does use up ink so you really need to be printing stuff