Question Which printer has cheapest ink

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marilynn

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Jan 27, 2013
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Which printer has the best all round price for ink and printing? Can you refill any cartridges? I heard Epsom had refillable cartridges?
 
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johnnyq1233

johnnyq1233

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I have a Brother 4in1 wireless MFC-255-CW with 4 cartridges that can easily be refilled with a syringe and the correct color ink bottles..
There are tons of videos on how to do the refill.
Best yet there is no chip to reset...
As with most printers they all come with the first cartridges. So if you get the propper inks and tools you shouldn't need to buy anymore.
Make sure you view any refill videos for a particular printer as they are all different.
Hope this helps. JQ
 
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Goodeggray

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Some Lexmarks use $5 ink cartridges. The business plan on printers is give away the printers and make money on ink and toner. Refilling is becoming less of an option. New printers have mating chips on the cartridges so it knows if you refill. Costo and Frys and third party refillers reprograms the chip to make them work.
 
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Goodeggray

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The biggest tech advantage of laser printers is that toner is only used up during printing. On ink jet the heat from the print head will evaporate ink from the cartridges even when not printing. So turn off the printer when not in use. .
 
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popeyejohnson

popeyejohnson

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Jul 5, 2012
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i have a epson sx 130, epson carts are just RAPE
compatibles @ 10a for a full set
BUT
i got auto reseting chipped refillable carts from ebay for 20 odd with 4 carts and 4 100ml bottles of ink, good thing too cuz the non refillables hold 7cl and stop you from printing with at least half still in there claiming that theyre empty- RAPE- so just topping them up saves loads for me anyway
 
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tutnut

tutnut

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Oct 3, 2012
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I mean cheap ink is usually crap because the dye is not very good.
 
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Doug Lassiter

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That's BS. The print heads on ink jet printers are cold when they aren't printing. I've been refilling cartridges for years, and the amount of ink I put in depends not on how long the printer has been powered up, but how many pages I've printed.
 
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Doug Lassiter

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Let's be clear. Refilling inkjet cartridges is easy to do, and hugely economical. It used to be said, long ago, that this was bad for the printer, and the printer companies that make most of their money on overpriced cartridges want you to think that. Ain't so. That's a total scam. Hard to believe that we're still being dimwitted about printer cartridge refilling.

I've been refilling ink cartridges for a decade, and maybe a hundred reams of paper. Takes minutes to refill. I do it every three or four of weeks. Now, I should say that I ONLY refill black text ink. I don't use color.

If you want to do this, you MUST buy a printer that uses unchipped cartridges. The chipped cartridges count how many pages you printed, and refuse to print any more after that. I've been using a Canon MP280 for a few years, and I've bought maybe one black ink cartridge for it. Have refilled that cartridge at least 25 times, and it's still going strong.

I've been using a bulk dye ink they call Durafirm. Really not sure who makes it, but you can get it at a number of online retail outlets. On the order of $20 for 250ml, which is good for 40-50 fills. The necessary equipment is ink and a plastic syringe with a wide-bore needle. Real simple. You do have to bore a small hole in the cartridge once, but that's easy to do. Just put a piece of tape over the hole, and then pull the tape for every refill. There are instructions online for all kinds of cartridges.

I use el-cheapo printer paper (~$4/ream) that I get at my local food store. Works fine.





 
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Doug Lassiter

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Let me elaborate a bit. You say inkjet printers keep the active surface warm. Funny, but when I remove a cartridge, and carefully put my finger on the active surface of the print head, it isn't warm. Nope. Not a bit. So much for that idea. Keep your printers turned on.

Now, sure, the inside of the printer is going to be slightly warmer than the outside, just because of various power dissipating components, but it makes little difference. Think about it this way. If you're worried about pigment inks drying up because of heat, they'll leave behind solid pigment, and will totally gum up the print head. But that doesn't happen. Why? Because they don't dry out. The active surface of the print head is so close to the paper support underneath it that there really isn't much air circulation.
 
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helz IT

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Nov 23, 2012
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Its actually laser printers that rely on high temps to bond the toner to the paper. The fuser is the part that generates the heat. However, its true that inkjet ink is notorious for drying out, although in my experience that only happens when the printer is unused for a long period of time.

I second getting a laser printer if you need to print a lot of text. Faster, cheaper, and better quality.
 
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Doug Lassiter

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If you want to give us a quote, that would be nice. But as an engineer, I can tell you that turning an inkjet printer off when you're not using it doesn't really do much, except cycle power supplies that have a certain number of lifetime cycles. Switching such supplies on and off just lowers lifetime.

That's true that for large quantities of text, a laser printer can be more efficient. Printing with them is certainly faster. Because the laser printers rely on high temperature for bonding ink to the paper, the drums usually stay heated. There might be reasons (e.g. energy conservation), to turn those off printers off when they're not being used.
 
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Michellejohnsons

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Nov 15, 2013
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Yeah you are right, the ink for kodak printer is quite affordable but i am really not confirm with the prizes.



 
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