Ink jet printer woes

My 10 year old Epsom printer decided a fairly new black cartridge was empty. I bought a new one checking to ensure that it was in date. Same thing happened. Indicated ink level went down before my eyes when I was not even printing much at all. I have seen little gadgets online to reset the cartridges so the printer thinks they are full again. Has anybody used these? This is infuriating as I know the expensive cartridge is full! Should I just buy a new printer? I don't use it often since I retired as club secretary, but I do need one occasionally.

If you don't use one much, just get a cheap one, but don't forget to salvage the stainless steel shafts out of the old one before getting rid of it. There is very little chance of ink cartridges which fit a ten year old machine fitting a new one unfortunately.

The cartridge resetting devices are only about $12. I was hoping someone might have used one. I often use the printer to print out CAD drawing to glue onto, e.g., copper for boiler plates. The prints are accurate to size, and obviously must be. I have read that ink jets don't like infrequent use and that seems to be true for mine. I am aware of the shafts, thanks.

At school I am responsible for 17 printers and there are 4 in use here.

Basically infrequent use kills inkjet printers and using them regularly causes the heads to dry out or wear out, waste ink tanks get full and there are occasional physical breakages, mainly paper trays. If you can't hit the happy medium in between you are going to be replacing printers.

If you only need colour prints occasionally then the only real choice is an inkjet, but if not a cheap mono laser is the best choice if you want it to last - I am resigned to regular inkjet replacements, but at not much more expensive than a couple for sets of cartridges I live with it.

Colour laser printers are expensive to buy and the refills, though better value per sheet - the unit cost of refills is high - and the photographic quality is still not there yet.

Old Mart - Sadly, depending on when you buy, you can sometimes shorten your ten year timescale by more than 9 years!

Simon, I had a similar problem many years ago with an Epson, so long ago I don't recall the details but i found a solution trawling the internet, I just entered the following " epson printer not recognising genuine cartridges" and many ideas come up so may be worth a try ? But you will need to look for your specific printer I think. Mine ran for many years after the fix so good luck with your efforts.

John

I have an Epson printer and always use compatible replacement cartridges. I have had error messages telling me that a cartridge has not been recognised. I'm not sure if this is the same or similar problem you're experiencing but the following procedure seems to work. Might be worth a try.

• Remove all of the cartridges from the printer and make sure all the packaging, clips and tape has been removed from the cartridges (where applicable)
• Then while the printer is on, pull the power cable out the back of the printer and leave the printer off for 15 minutes. Doing this will give your printer chance to clear the error message that has been previously displayed.
• Whilst the cartridges are removed from the printer, please give the micro-chip and the contact reader inside the printer (where the micro-chip makes contact with the printer) a good wipe with a lint free tissue or cloth to ensure that there is no dust or debris restricting the reading of the micro-chip.
• After the 15 minute time frame has elapsed, re-install the power cable and turn the printer back on (with no cartridges installed) and allow it a few minutes to ‘look’ for the cartridges. It will then display a message to advise that they are missing / not installed.
• At this point, please firmly reinsert the cartridges, starting with the colour cartridges first and the black cartridge last as this cartridge acts as a master reset cartridge, ensuring that they are fully clicked into place.

Thanks RMA, for your detailed advice. I will give it a try. Nothing to lose!

Wow. Good effort keeping a piece of 21st century tech going for that long. Surprised you can even still get cartridges for it.

But you would think that if the machine is misreading a truly full cartridge as empty, it would also misread one of those dodgy chips telling it the cartridge is full too. Only one way to find out though....

Epsons are particularly bad because their (expensive) heads clog easily.

One trick I have found useful for all infrequently-used colour printers is to prepare a text file containing a single line of text with each character in a different colour. Put it on the desktop and send it the printer every few days or a week. It uses very little ink (although the ubiquitous head-cleaning cycle may use some) and will at least cycle the jets.

My current main colour printer (I have a BW laser and a Large Format colour printer/Large Format scanner besides) s one of those with bulk ink tanks so the regular head-cycling is less of an issue.

i just tried RMA's method. It did not work. It is still demanding a new black ink cartridge.

The 73N cartridges are still available but no longer in Woolworths. I have to go to Officeworks.

I gave up with cheap ink jets and got a Samsung monochrome laser printer - it's more economical over time, way quicker to print and no hassle. Obviously if you need colour it's more expensive but I don't.

After many years of dodgy inkjets I also switched to mono laser and would never go back to an inkjet. I thought I would miss colour printing but apart from a few odd occasions it has not been a real disadvantage. My local library has a colour laser for public use so that is handy for the odd time I need colour. The toner cartridges are expensive but last for years with minimum use. When my last cartridge was empty I found I could buy a new printer at a sale for less than the price of a replacement cartridge.

Doug

I have found that Epson printer software tends to tell lies when you are not using epson ink cartridges. I bought a small electronic scale to weigh allegedly empty cartridges and often they still contained quite a lot of ink. I now have one of their "eco" models with the refillable ink tanks. I will have to see how long that lasts.

With really cheap inkjet printers, the new ink cartridges can cost as much, if not more than the price of the printer.

Will it print.

I have the same error message on a Canon printer, but I have the option of printing anyway . Can you just attempt a print anyway or does the printer stop you doing that?

Absolutely right. Inkjets are a 'use it or lose it' technology: a few prints every day would be good. Once a month will cause grief. Big cartridges do better than small, and late Inkjets seem more sensitive than older ones. (I put this down to older Inkjets being designed for small offices, whilst most newer models are purely domestic, substituting photo print-quality for robustness. Inkjet profits are in selling Ink, not the actual printers.)

I don't do nearly enough printing to keep an Inkjet in reasonable condition, and mine spent as much time cleaning its heads as printing. Head cleaning wastes a lot of ink and doesn't always work. Got fed up in the end and bought a mono-laser.

Not having colour is a big disadvantage, but apart from that cheap mono laser printers are excellent. Much faster, don't have ink to clog up, and price per page is low. Unfortunately colour lasers are pricey, not worth it unless a lot of colour printing is done.

Inkjets rarely feature in big Offices. It's cheaper to share a reliable colour laser amongst many users.

General rule: cheap printer = expensive ink, special paper, and short life; expensive printer = cheap ink and long life.

Inkjets are cheap to buy and cost-effective for low print runs, but crazy expensive for heavy use and unreliable for light intermittent print loads. Good value if demand happens to be in their comfort zone, otherwise liable to disappoint. Mono lasers are reliable and cheap to buy and operate. It's a black and white decision...

Dave

I gave up with a HP cartridge based printer as it was getting through very expensive cartridges at a rate of knots. Also had issues with the print head. So about 6 months ago I switched to an Epson "tank" based system. A bit more expensive up front, but so far so good.

I went to buy some HP 301 cartridges yesterday. The supermarket have security devices and procedures in place to stop you pinching them off the shelf. No surprise really when you look at the package cost. A combined B&W plus colour packet was £32!!!! I am getting old and grumpy now but that really is a silly price.

Phil H

Many years ago I bought a HP Deskjet 880C. With genuine HP cartridges it worked well until I moved onto Linux Mint 18 at which point the print started going peculiar. I think it was more of a Linux printer driver problem than anything else. Anyway, that printer got replaced by a HP Deskjet 6122 which was my daughter's cast off as it didn't work properly with Windows 7. Apart from a mechanical failure, reasonably easily repaired, it has given faultless service on Mint. It's true that the cartridges are expensive, but on the otherhand it isn't that often, perhaps one of each per year.

I also have a HP Photosmart 7122 (???) put away for when the 6122 eventually fails. The 7122 uses individual cartridges as against the 6122's Tri-Color cartridge, and when I was using it regularly under XP, it used to "eat" (perhaps "drink" might be better) the Yellow cartidge every time it was used. Not good, but at least it did work.

I should point out that I only buy genuine HP cartridges via the internet. Genuine HP because of some nasty experiences using after-market cartridges which just did not work. I also tried one of these refill kits. Not good.

Peter G. Shaw

I have an HP 1022 mono laserjet bought from my then employer as part of a 'staff put in bids for the stuff we are getting rid of' initiative. It's about 15 years old and (touch wood) still works well after many reams of paper.

I also have an Epson EcoTank colour inkjet which is good, the refillable ink lasts ages (over a year per fill) and over several years I've more than save the cost in not buying damned micro-cartridges.

Neil

I had an epson with this silly software, it is to try to prevent you refilling the cartridges. I bought a chip resetter, which worked fine, but I've since replaced the printer wit a canon laser. The toner refills cost a bit, but they last forever, and I don't need colour anyway. Unfortunately I've binned the resetter or you could have had it.

Refilling with a syringe isn't too bad a job