Good operating economy inkjet recommendation

[bmforre]

Given that I don't need scanning functions in printer but I do want easy access to inks in separate cartridges and good operating economy, what recommendations have you on the present market? Also warnings?

[noggins]

Try to stretch to one of them Ink-tank type machines.

[jaap]

I very rarely print, and bought my printer/scanner combo on the quality of the scanner.

The printer part is an inkjet printer, but the problem is that every time I need to print something I have to put it through its print head cleaning cycle several times before anything legible comes out, because the print heads have clogged up with dry ink. Basically almost every time I want to use it I have to buy new ink cartridges. So now I just do my occasional printing at work.

I'm sure that if you print something every week or so, it would work fine. But if like me you only need to print something a handful times a year (e.g. travel documents), then an inkjet it is not up to the job.

[Gfamily]

... the problem is that every time I need to print something I have to put it through its print head cleaning cycle several times before anything legible comes out, because the print heads have clogged up with dry ink.

I have a HP inkjet printer that seems to be ok for long periods without use.
I also have a laser printer which is meant to be our day to day one.

To be honest, it often seems to me that the cheapest option is to buy a new one whenever the ink runs out.

[nekomatic]

Which? are good for this sort of information and you can usually get a free trial subscription as long as you remember to cancel before the free trial runs out.

Unless you plan to spend either very little money or a lot of money I don’t think there are many inkjet printers without scanners to choose from these days. We have a Canon one and use third-party cartridges (usually from here) and costs don’t seem too bad especially if you wait for one of their regular emails with a 20% off code before stocking up. But I don’t know whether you have similar in Norway.

[Boustrophedon]

Don't buy an inkjet, buy a colour laser instead.

[bmforre]

Don't buy an inkjet, buy a colour laser instead.

I have a decent colour laser.

Sometimes I want to print on heavy paper - quite heavy. A number of photo inkjets do this well.

[bmforre]

Which? are good for this sort of information and you can usually get a free trial subscription as long as you remember to cancel before the free trial runs out.

Unless you plan to spend either very little money or a lot of money I don’t think there are many inkjet printers without scanners to choose from these days. We have a Canon one and use third-party cartridges (usually from here) and costs don’t seem too bad especially if you wait for one of their regular emails with a 20% off code before stocking up. But I don’t know whether you have similar in Norway.

Here is a presentation from a supplier of compatible cartridges quoting a review in Which, from 2015 admittedly. Seems fair, they admit some advantages of original cartridges.

Norway is in the single market but not the customs union, has a lot to do with agriculture. Buying from other countries is easy enough and custom rates are low but handling charges can be considerable making small orders expensive. Fortunately there are plenty of good shops in Norway.

[Boustrophedon]

Don't buy an inkjet, buy a colour laser instead.

I have a decent colour laser.

Sometimes I want to print on heavy paper - quite heavy. A number of photo inkjets do this well.

Ah! I see. Been there, done that etc. I was trying to print old B&W victorian steam engine illustrations onto watercolour paper so I could hand colour them. Obviously inkjet ink wouldn't stand up to the painting process, but the laser printer wouldn't seal the toner deep in the rough texture of the paper, it will, however, print onto really thick card as long as it is smooth. I tried heating the prints in the oven to melt the toner onto the paper with limited success.

[sTeamTraen]

I like Canon because they don't make the cartridges die after X time like HP and they don't make you replace the heads with an item that you can't find at your local supplier and has to be ordered from customer service, like Epson. That said, those problems were 10 years ago and they're all robbing c.nts.

[Martin Y]

I very much recommend having a wife whose friend's sister's business wants to replace a perfectly good commercial grade, networked, Brother A3 printer/scanner, as it's got its A3 tray but lost its A4 tray. I further recommend by amazing luck finding a compatible A4 tray in the recycling skip at work. You can't do better for £50 in my experience.

Hope that helps.

[Pucksoppet]

I have had two multi-function printers with inkjet printing mechanisms:

A Canon, which worked fine until the scanner stopped initialising correctly when power was applied, so it refused to print. Never dried up or clogged, but ink was expensive, and if one of the coloured inks ran out, it would refuse to print monochrome with the remaining black ink.

An Epson, which was endlessly frustrating by not feeding the paper. It was plagued with drying out/clogging, so even though the ink was cheaper, you used more of it. It is sitting beside my desk, clogged/dried up now, and will be replaced with a laser multifunction printer: probably a Brother.

I suspect inkjets work fine if they print often enough, which is more than a page or two per day. It would be nice if the manufacturers produced printers with easily cleanable/maintainable print heads, but they have no incentive to do so.

[jaap]

An Epson, which was endlessly frustrating by not feeding the paper. It was plagued with drying out/clogging, so even though the ink was cheaper, you used more of it.

I forgot to say that my printer (with the drying out/clogging problem) is an Epson too. The print head is part of the cartridge so changing the ink immediately solves the problem, at least until the next time I need it. The scanner is great though.

[jstringer1980]

I do research in the field of inkjet printing and have hacked/resurrected a number of desktop inkjet printers in the past. All the points below are with caveats about warranties etc., but have worked for me in the past when printing 'exotic' inks (e.g. printed electronics).

If your printer does not print due to nozzle clogging, DO NOT use the cleaning cycle. The cleaning cycle applies a pressure to try and force liquid through the nozzles. If the nozzles are already unblocked this is fine, but if they are already blocked this will most likely just splodge ink all over the nozzle plate. While temporarily this might unblock the heads, it makes any subsequent build-up of dried ink significantly worse. This is the main reason why occasional use with cleaning cycles on inkjet printers does not work very well.

Instead, try to clean the nozzle plate directly. To do this, you need to get the printhead in a position where you can place a folded up piece of paper towel (preferably lint free, but it still works if not). This will vary with each type of printer, but the most reliable way is to turn the printer on, let it start the initialisation procedure and then kill the power when the head is about halfway along the rail. However you do it, make sure the printer is unplugged once the printhead is in position.

Once in position, fold the kitchen towel up so it is a bit larger than the nozzle plate and about the thickness of the gap between printhead and whatever is underneath (i.e. the printer frame). Spray some window cleaner onto the surface of the towel so that it is pretty soaked through and place/wedge it underneath the nozzle plate so that it makes contact with the nozzle plate. Leave it there for about 15-20 minutes, you will probably see the ink wicking through the paper.

Remove the paper, boot up the printer and do a test print, the printout should hopefully look a lot better. For really stubborn blockages, it might take 2-3 goes. If it has not got much better after (say) 4-5 goes at cleaning, it is probably beyond home cleaning.

[Martin Y]

Like.

[rockdoctor]

I have a nice HP colour laser which I run with after-market cartridges.
It's coming to the end of its life, even after replacing the drum.
I'd like to buy a similar HP replacement, but I heard a whisper that the cartridges are well locked down with chips to prevent after-market cheapo cartridges working.
Anyone know if the chinese have managed to defeat the current level of obstructionism by the thieving HP bastards?

[bmforre]

Anyone know if the chinese have managed to defeat the current level of obstructionism by the thieving HP bastards?

Fortunately the Chinese have more professionals in relevant categories than HP have. Also I believe they are well acquainted with Sun Tzu while the HP folks don't even know The Prince properly. No matter how many Customs spell Trump may try and twitter he'll not win against China.

Consider how well the Thinkpads are doing as products from China.

[Matatouille]

That is great advice, thanks.

I have a nice HP colour laser which I run with after-market cartridges.
It's coming to the end of its life, even after replacing the drum.
I'd like to buy a similar HP replacement, but I heard a whisper that the cartridges are well locked down with chips to prevent after-market cheapo cartridges working.
Anyone know if the chinese have managed to defeat the current level of obstructionism by the thieving HP bastards?

Due to working from home I have a HP inkjet (was the most reasonably priced for being able to print and scan in A3 as I need to do periodically for engineering markups).

The cartridges I've used in it so far are HP ones for black, and Cartridge People ones for colours when they needed replacing without issue.

Can it feed paper more than 2 sheets in a row? Can it f.ck. I have to open up the tray, extract the paper, put the paper back in exactly as it already was, and all of a sudden it feeds...for another 2 sheets.

For all my home printing needs, I have a lovely HP B&W laserjet that must be 15-20 years old now but still does a marvellous job.

[Allo V Psycho]

I've just bought an HP ENVY 71234, from Curry's, and am going to try the 'Instant Ink' thing, where it monitors the cartridges and posts you new ones when they are low (purportedly: we'll see). Instant Ink asserts it is cheaper than buying cartridges direct, but it will be at least 6 months before I can tell. The printer seems to work OK, but the paper tray is too small.

It came with two 301 cartridges installed and a £32 voucher for Instant Ink.

[nekomatic]

Thanks jstringer for the tips!

I’m sure if you’re prepared to pay proper money you can have an inkjet printer that’s properly maintainable. The cheap ones just aren’t made to be. Before the current Canon we had a previous Canon which worked for five or six years before developing an intermittent, then permanent, error code, and taking the print head out and washing it as per various YouTube videos didn’t help any. To their credit Canon would have accepted it for repair if I’d sent it off to them, but the price of a new print head would have been about the price of a new printer (and they could have declared it unfixable anyway, leaving me out the carriage and investigation charge) so, new printer. Which I expect to last five or six years

eta: My experience with all HP printers ever, short of the proper office workgroup laser ones, has been that they couldn’t feed paper for toffee. Brothers meanwhile seem unsophisticated, but reliable.