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The inks have a chip in them that the printer recognises as genuine ink, if it is not genuine the printer will not work, some ink suppliers use a chip that fools the printer into thinking they are genuine, BUT are not recommended as the ink can clog the jets and ruin the printer
I did have an epson but I left it on all night, and your not allowed to do that with the new ones the jets get blocked and have to be replaced which is more expensive than the printer hth
ps I recommend Canon printers, I have 2, one for A3+ photos and the other is a generic multifunction both can take cheap cartridges and you dont have to switch off every time you have finished with it, full set of Canon carts is around £60-80 depending where you buy
not canon carts for 6 cartridges is around £22 -30 depending where you buy
Edited by bolt on 15/06/2018 at 19:38
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HP had to issue a driver update to allow the use of refilled cartridges for their printers. Maybe your printer has an update available.
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The inks have a chip in them that the printer recognises as genuine ink, if it is not genuine the printer will not work, some ink suppliers use a chip that fools the printer into thinking they are genuine, BUT are not recommended as the ink can clog the jets and ruin the printer
I did have an epson but I left it on all night, and your not allowed to do that with the new ones the jets get blocked and have to be replaced which is more expensive than the printer hth
ps I recommend Canon printers, I have 2, one for A3+ photos and the other is a generic multifunction both can take cheap cartridges and you dont have to switch off every time you have finished with it, full set of Canon carts is around £60-80 depending where you buy
not canon carts for 6 cartridges is around £22 -30 depending where you buy
I must admit that Canon seem to be very good. My multifunction unit is one, and the problem I had is only down to me not using it for a few months. Aside from that, its a great unit.
I do find the price of ink cartridges a rip off though - often, manufacturers artificially drop the price of the printers, give you a third-full cartridge as part of the unit and then charge exorbitant prices for replacements, more than making up for the 'subsidy' on the printer.
This is especially true when buying smaller printers with combined colour cartridges, as they waste so much ink because you have to replace it when one of the three is depleted.
I think it should be law that generic (but perfectly fine) cartridges should be allowed as long as they meet reasonable criteria, like generic car parts that meet certain standards. Otherwise, the printer manufacturer has a monopoly on consumables and can do as they like, which isn't exactly cricket in a supposedly free market economy.
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The inks have a chip in them that the printer recognises as genuine ink, if it is not genuine the printer will not work, some ink suppliers use a chip that fools the printer into thinking they are genuine, BUT are not recommended as the ink can clog the jets and ruin the printer
I did have an epson but I left it on all night, and your not allowed to do that with the new ones the jets get blocked and have to be replaced which is more expensive than the printer hth
ps I recommend Canon printers, I have 2, one for A3+ photos and the other is a generic multifunction both can take cheap cartridges and you dont have to switch off every time you have finished with it, full set of Canon carts is around £60-80 depending where you buy
not canon carts for 6 cartridges is around £22 -30 depending where you buy
I must admit that Canon seem to be very good. My multifunction unit is one, and the problem I had is only down to me not using it for a few months. Aside from that, its a great unit.
I do find the price of ink cartridges a rip off though - often, manufacturers artificially drop the price of the printers, give you a third-full cartridge as part of the unit and then charge exorbitant prices for replacements, more than making up for the 'subsidy' on the printer.
This is especially true when buying smaller printers with combined colour cartridges, as they waste so much ink because you have to replace it when one of the three is depleted.
I think it should be law that generic (but perfectly fine) cartridges should be allowed as long as they meet reasonable criteria, like generic car parts that meet certain standards. Otherwise, the printer manufacturer has a monopoly on consumables and can do as they like, which isn't exactly cricket in a supposedly free market economy.
I was told years ago that Epson wanted people to use their own inks, so they put there own chip in the connection from the cartridge to the jet assy which tells it the cartridge is genuine, if not, the printer malfunctions and either cannot be used or some parts of the jet were unusable
This was told to me by an Epson engineer after I bought compatibles from a company that makes their own inks (I still use them as they are really good inks) but for the Canon, the engineer said they have software installed that asks if you want to use the compatible inks but will not ask if they are refills/why he didn`t know, but even compatibles from some shops would not work and in some cases/printers the printer failed altogether
there was a warning from Epson that if you leave the printer on too long with the clara inks I think, correct if wrong. the jets will block up and a new one would need to be bought, but the price was as much as a new printer, so dont leave it switched on if your not using it
One of the problems I found with Epson, was those that tried to assist with problems on the net, the answers were only helpfull in certain cenarios, in other words where inks are concerned it depended where you got the inks as to the cure or not
Never had a problem with Canon, you get a pop up asking if you wish to use the wrong inks, just click OK, job done no more pop ups, sorry for the long post but please delete if not relevent
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Re Thowing away printers when the ink runs out....
Its a mad business model but clearly it works for the manufacturers. I guess we should know a £100 printer really costs £200 and the difference would be made up in ink costs.
Its a crying shame to see so many working printers consigned to the land fill just becuase of ink costs. Should be illegal!
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Re Thowing away printers when the ink runs out....
Its a mad business model but clearly it works for the manufacturers. I guess we should know a £100 printer really costs £200 and the difference would be made up in ink costs.
Its a crying shame to see so many working printers consigned to the land fill just becuase of ink costs. Should be illegal!
The problem is that most 'incentives revolve around taxes that just get passed on to customers. The same goes with car components, computers and electronics in general - its often far cheaper to replace whole components instead of one sub-component, or they only come as a kit where you need just one little bit.
Today is a throw-away society with in-built obsolescence, as most components could easily be made more robustly (as technology advances) to last twice, three or even five times as long, at a price. Cars being the obvious example.
It would mean we use less resources (including energy), but would put many people and firms out of business because far less products would be sold, offset to some degree by more working in repair firms and garages.
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Today is a throw-away society with in-built obsolescence, as most components could easily be made more robustly (as technology advances) to last twice, three or even five times as long, at a price. Cars being the obvious example.
There are still products made to last: there are a few companies in the USA who offer a lifetime repair or replace guarantee on their products.
These tend to be makers of handguns, which of course only police, military and criminals are allowed to possess in the UK (unless one lives in Ulster or the Isle of Man)
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Duplicate post
Edited by galileo on 18/06/2018 at 23:34
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Another vote for Canon. Never had a problem with it, but had an Epsom and it was rubbish.
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Hello Chaps,
Sorry for the tardy response. I have just returned from a 6 week sojurn around our fair country. The Peak district, The Lake district, Various parts of Scotland, North Yorkshire and finally Cambridge. I can only express my amazement at the continued excellent weather. We did take coats, sweaters etc for a British summer, but boy oh boy this was unexpected. Costa del UK.
Anyway, back to the thread. I have tried various 'fixes' from the internet to get this Epson 'carp' to work, but to no avail. So rather than spend £30 for a set of Epson inks I intend to put that money towards a new printer. I will look at Canon and HP ink jets. Don't think I will get the use out of a laser printer. A friend in the village has offered me a choice of printers for free. Dell, Epson and some others. All laying dormant in his office cupboard because of the ink problem. Why is it that it is cheaper to fill an ink cartridge with Platinum or Gold than to fill it with ink? Crazy and stupid. Won't miss the Epson at all. Had to download a set of drivers for it and the scan facility is crude and inefficient. It is going begging if anyone wants it for free. Collect from mid Kent.
Thanks for all the advice, as usual it was well received.
Cheers Concrete
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I'm surprised about all these problems with Epson printers. We have an Epson XP 610 inkjet printer/scanner/copier that runs quite happily on generic cartridges at £25 for five sets of five cartridges from Amazon. The printhead doesn't dry out or need constant cleaning. When you replace a set of cartridges it asks you if you want to carry on with non-genuine cartridges - answer ok and it's fine. Thr key is never to update the printer software, that's when they put the fix on you.
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Thr key is never to update the printer software, that's when they put the fix on you.
Epson have used the software for years that detects a non genuine ink, and its not a good idea to never update as the driver usually contains fixes for problems your not aware of..
the key is getting the inks from the right place as the drivers detect the inks and tell the printer how many pages its capable of printing and volume of ink, so whatever amount of ink is in the cartridge the printer will not use anymore than specified by the cartridge
but telling an Epson to work with a compatible is hit and miss.
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Thanks to focused and bolt.
I have had lots of software updates for the Epson in the past. My model is about 18 months old and is an XP 322. I would suspect that the likes of Epson and others have deliberately put in a software 'fix' to bar the use of generic cartridges and refills. It is in their interests to do so and drive you to their own ferociously expensive inks. Years ago it was rarely a problem to swap to generics but as software has become more sophistocated and automatic downloads commonplace they seem to be able to do as they wish. I really do find it a hugely offensive that they can do this to what is effectively your own equipment. How would you feel if Ford suddenly were able to make your car undriveable if not serviced at a main dealer?? Anyway the Epson 'carp' is now gone and never to be replaced with another Epson.
Cheers Concrete
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You probably wont get much joy from the cheap end of any big printer maker; they all use the same trick.
Go up to a £200+ SOHO inkjet printer though, and it all changes; I am REALLY happy with the Epson WP-4535 I bought a couple of years back; the ink carts are HUGE (colour = 30ml, black even more); the "starter" carts lasted for over a year of printing (1500+ pages of A4), and so far no trouble using cheap 3rd party carts.
The only thing it doesnt do as well as my older HP printer is photos - it doent have a photo ink option.
Avoid the sub-£500 colour laser printers though, the toner prices are a complete rip off, upto £100 per colour for a 500 page capacity!!!
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I've had a HP LaserJet 6L (black only) for 20+ years, never let me down ever and toners can be had for as little as £6 each, (they were about £50 at one time). Still kept as a back-up and I sometimes take it away on jobs if I might have to print-out some documents. It's so old it uses an LPT1 (parallel) cable!
As the kids grew-up and needed to produce homework, it forced me to get a colour printer. I opted for an Epson multi-function unit. What a complete pile of carp. It was always needing cartridges (it had six). The photo print option was great quality, (when it didn't tell you it needed new ink), but this was required so seldom that it really wasn't worth the hassle. I don't know why I put up with it so long, (maybe because I personally used the old HP laser 99% of the time)?
Finally it reported that the waste ink system was full (I wonder why)! A quick Google fixed this for about a month and I was delighted to throw it into the local recycling skip.
Replaced it with an HP colour laser, £200 (list price was about £350). The toners aren't cheap (~£70 for 2,800 pages), but it ALWAYS works great and the quality is first class, (but it won't do photos).
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