Printer shortages?

jonnygee2

So if it's a subscription, at £1.99 per month for up to 50 pages, I assume you'd pay this every month, even if it takes 6 months to use 50 pages??

Yes, you do, you play a flat rate.

I struggled to find replacements at £6 a set, but looking at it, it seems that these do exist specifically for Epson printers, even the new Espon printers, whereas I can't easily find the same for the new Canon and HP printers. At that price, the amount for the subscription and the amount for the cartridges works out about the same. So take your pick but stick to Epson and/or check the price of the cheapest replacements you can get before committing. 

Sea_Shell

All food for thought.  Thank you.

Sea_Shell

Just reading up on the HP ink subscription...all seems very big brother!!   Although we could probably get away with the intro offer of 15 pages a month free and then one off charge of £1 for each subsequent 10 pages.

I'm not sure I want my printing monitored quite that closely.

Oh for the days of simpler systems ... 

Mistral001

I bought an ink cartridge at Tesco's earlier in the week and found that their ink cartridge shelves were almost empty.  Luckily I got the last one of the type I wanted.

Mistral001

Sea_Shell said:

Just reading up on the HP ink subscription...all seems very big brother!!   Although we could probably get away with the intro offer of 15 pages a month free and then one off charge of £1 for each subsequent 10 pages.

I'm not sure I want my printing monitored quite that closely.

Oh for the days of simpler systems ... 

Actually something which is very old school is refilling them yourself.  It  can be done very easily for many cartridges.  I only bought my cartridge in Tesco's this week  (see above post) because a cartridge that I had refilled many times had stopped working.  It costs only a few pounds for a small bottle of ink and you can usually get about 20 refills out of a botlle.  I do a lot of printing as you can imagine.

Sea_Shell

Just watched a very straight forward video which showed the use of a £10 cleaning kit, which appeared to do the trick and gets good reviews.    Maybe worth a punt.  

https://youtu.be/IszUNL7znds

Mistral001

Sea_Shell said:

Just watched a very straight forward video which showed the use of a £10 cleaning kit, which appeared to do the trick and gets good reviews.    Maybe worth a punt. 

You have to be careful with Epson cartridges as the cartridge does not contain a printer head and bad ink could damage the printer's built in head.  With Deskjet cartridges the printer head is built into the cartridge and if the refill ink becomes contaminated or is of poor quality all it does is damages the cartridge.

Sea_Shell

Our printer has the little nozzles that push up into the cartridge when you insert it.   The cartridge just gets a hole punched in it, so i think all the gubbins is within the printer, not the cartridge.  

I've order another set of inks, so as to not to contaminate the nozzles after cleaning with one that's been in and out.  (i've had them wrapped in cling film whilst they've been out of the printer.

I'm also not going to bother with XL inks if i get this problem sorted.   It will mean more frequent changes, but it should stop any issues of old(er) ink hanging around in either spare (new) cartridges or in the installed ones.

I'll update how i get on when the kit comes.   It could still be an unmitigated disaster, but I'm going to try!!

Frozen_up_north

For anyone in the market for a low cost monochrome laser printer, Argos currently have in stock the Brother HL-1112 at £59.99.

20ppm and no ink to dry out or clog. Compatible toner cartridges are around £7 each, yielding approximately 1000 A4 pages @ 5% coverage. Amazon and eBay list many toner cartridges, they are complete toner and drum assemblies.

Sea_Shell

I think I've saved my printer from the scrap heap.  The cleaning kit came yesterday and we've spent this morning pushing fluid through the heads and....WE HAVE PRINT!!!

Top tip...use cut up pantie liners under the print head to soak up the ink/fluid.  Works so much better than kitchen paper!!  (Stole that tip off YouTube)

So far I've only done photocopies, so once I fire up the laptop I'll do a proper nozzle check too.