Lower cost printer ink options?

[thecoalman]

Quick tips if the ink jets are on the cartridge, you can use isopropyl alcohol to clean them. I had printer that was not used for about year with fairly new cartridges. Almost completely blocked and the head cleaning option wasn't doing much, that wastes ink too. I first tried just massaging them with a q-tip soaked in alcohol which helped some, I ended up leaving the just the heads soak for about an hour or two in dessert dish with a 1/8 inch of alcohol in it. They worked perfectly after that.


Printer inks are about the biggest scam going......

[claymoore]

I have been buying my ink for my Epson printers from an eBay seller for years!
I don't think that the cartridges are refills or third party.
(If they are, they have always worked perfectly)


What would cost me $80.00 in the store cost me less than $10.00 from the seller!

It is very important to deal with a seller who has Monstrous Positive feedback ratings and will ship for free or for very little!

As I said, I have been doing it this way for years and I've never had a problem!

My last purchase (below) would have cost me an arm and leg at a retail store.
(That price you see included free shipping)

[ansky]

Originally Posted by thecoalman

Printer inks are about the biggest scam going......

Yup. That's why the printers themselves are so cheap. You're essentially purchasing a subscription. At one point I had looked into getting one of those mobile photo printers, but after doing the math I found it to be much cheaper just to print what I need at CVS.

If you do a lot of black and white printing and don't need color, a laserjet is the most economical option. Toner cartridges are typically in the $60-70 range and can print up to 10,000 pages (YMMV). I bought a HP laserjet about 15 years ago and to this day I have only had to replace the toner cartridge 1 time.

[thecoalman]

Originally Posted by ansky

If you do a lot of black and white printing and don't need color, a laserjet is the most economical option.

First printer I had for windows was Lexmark 1000 which was mid 90's model. You were able to get black waterproof ink for it, I'd print thousands of pages with one cartridge and they were nice too. I literally wore the mechanics of the printer out over many years. Nothing they make today even comes close as fas as cost goes, newer printers may print photos better but they are no comparison to that printer for printing text.

[Tek_Freek]

Our B/W laser is an HP 1200 series that I got from a client. It was jammed with labels and they did not want me to fix it. I took it home, cleaned it up, and we are still using it. That was in 2008. Getting it to work with W10 was tough, but I found drivers that do it. We can't print multiple pages (3 of the same page for example), but other than that it works great. We had to buy a cartridge two years ago.

Our color laser is a Brother. Not sure of the model, but it also is a workhorse.

[KittenSparkles]

Ok, so several YouTube videos later ... my ink from ebay doesn't seem to be working.

I've injected ink into the cartridge twice - once yesterday, then did a test page, and then after more ink a few hours ago..another test page, and they were both blank.

Thankfully I only spent $7 on this experiment.

I went back through my credit card account and found that I have been averaging about one print cartridge per year the past few years - $30/year isn't that bad really.