Question about printer ink - Original Trilogy

Author: Jackpumpkinhead
Time: 5-May-2017 11:17 PM (Edited)
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So about 6 months ago I purchased an Epson xp640 with the capability to print on discs and I couldn’t be happier. The discs come out really nice. I have printed about 6 discs with no issues. However I am coming to the end of the starter ink that came with the printer and I’m going to have to go out and buy some ink. I have read online that most printer companies are really just ink companies and that is why printers are so cheap now a days. I have been looking into purchasing refilled ink cartradges or remanufactured cartradges, but some of the research I have done has said that doing this could actually damage your printer beyond repair. Though other sites I have been on have claimed that using refills or remanufactured inks are completely safe and it is a ploy of the printer makers to scare people from buying third party inks. So my question is if any of you have bought third party inks and what the results were. Did it cause problems for your printer? Do you recommend buying third party inks? Do they hold up to OEM? Who do you use if you do buy third party? I just don’t want to mess up my printer. But I also don’t want to spend almost half the cost of the printer just for ink.

“You can’t polish a turd. But you can shape it to look like candy.”

Author: wombat_94
Time: 8-May-2017 9:06 AM
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I had not had an inkjet printer for a number of years before buying a Canon MX922 in order to work on a Despecialized Trilogy set for myself and to create as gifts for a few friends.

When I purchased the MX922, I also researched on Amazon for 3rd party ink. I ended up buying a large multi-pack of ink from the best reviewed manufacturer I could find along with my MX922.

I have been replacing the individual color tanks with the 3rd party ones as the original Canon inks have run out.

I can see no difference in the print quality and so far there have been no issues with the printer operation.

Many years ago, 3rd party inks were of much different quality and could clog the printheads of inkjet printers if you got low quality inks. This was especially when the change was made from larger droplet sizes to picoliter sized drops. The 3rd party manufacturers were not up to speed right away on quality control and their inks were sometimes too viscous and COULD really clog your printheads - especially if the printer was left to sit for long periods of time between prints.

In fact, the latter problem was true for a long time even with ink from the manufacturer. In home use duty cycles where a printer could typically sit for days - or even weeks - between prints, the printheads would dry out and clog. That is why the manufacturers had the ink-head-cleaning cycles available in the printer and their utilities. Most modern inkjets now automatically do ink-head-cleaning periodically when the printer is left unused. This serves the dual purposes of preventing support calls AND using more ink and selling more refills to customer.

In my opinion, what this function also does is make it less risky to use 3rd party inks since there is less chance that the ink will dry and clog.

In any case, with the cost of the printer itself under $100, I think that it is worth the risk to use much less expensive 3rd party ink if the quality of the output is acceptable. When I bought my $75 Canon printer, I added $19 of third party ink (4 complete XL sized sets of 5 cartridges)… that amount of in from Canon directly would cost an additional $400.

If I get even one additional set of cartridges out of the printer’s printhead, I come out ahead of the game on the cost front.