Compatible Inks

[Stringent]

How many of you use compatible inks in your laser/inkjets?

I only ask because I recently done a toner order for work, and the cost of original inks (we mainly use HP) has shot up a heck of a lot. One particular one by nearly £100 (Colour laser cartridge). Or is it just me thats noticed toner cost has gone through the roof recently?

I have a nagging feeling behind compatibles. Think is my supplier and I have an excellent personal relationship so I trust him on the only compatible type he sells as its a lot cheaper. Well we'll see I guess.

[0iD]

I must admit, we stick to HP & Cannon inks for our printers.

[this_is_gav]

I'm less reluctant with laser toner. The only ill-effects I've seen here are cartridges that aren't detected as compatible by the printer (but which work anyway). Any loss of quality makes little difference to us - it's not like you buy a laser printer for the print quality, after all. That said, for our shiny new Minolta 5670 I've bought nothing but original (we got it just after the prices shot up of course), but then again it has many years ahead of it, so I'm not about to trash that life with some crumby compatibles. Fine for our old Oki C7200 and Minolta 2300 though.

Inkjets on the other hand, never again. All our old HPs suffered in the end. Couldn't even bring myself to look at prices for a photo printer - poor ink, poor print life and the usual printer nasties too. I'll stick with my genuine inks thanks.

[99Flake]

We used to use genuine HP until about 6 months ago when the price rocketed. We now use compatables for our lasers without any ill effect and they are half the price.

The only complaint that we have had is on one colour laser where a lady says the colours are less 'vivid'. Not very important since it is only used for things like spreadsheets and never for photos. Although if you need photos I would stick with genuine.

Out of interest what was the toner that has gone up by £100?

[MadduckUK]

of course nothing but Epsons here so we can get the cheapest of the cheap for compatibles, save more than the cost of the printer itself per month and we get over 12 months out of each one before they start to die. and its usually the paper feed that goes before any image quality...

[Stringent]

Out of interest what was the toner that has gone up by £100?

HP 5500 Magenta. Was £160 something, now £260!

[mycarsavw]

I bought one of our printers, an HPLJ 8000DN, on ebay about 4 years ago. I paid just over £100 at the time.

Original toners cost in the region of £150 > £175. Refills/refurbs/compatibles all come in about 1/4 of that making it a no-brainer.

The printer had 150k copies when I bought it, it's now just passed 500k and the only expense has been toner every 60 > 80k copies and one service kit (~£150).

Nothing on the market at the moment comes close.

[kalniel]

Well, I never use incompatible inks..

[TheAnimus]

i used a cheapo CIS (Continuous Ink System) for an Epson printer i bought during my last year at uni, printer cost £55 and could print CDs, i flogged the original ink set on fleebay for £20, then bought a CIS prefilled for £45.

So total cost £80. By the end of my time at uni it was 2/3rds full, i gave it away to a charity. I had printed well over 4,000 pages, plenty of colour too. I even printed slides that lecturers had published as PDF with colour backgrounds on (thanks!).

At that price who cares if the printer heads die, its such good value for money, much better value than a low price colour laser.

this is the sort of thing:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/CISS-CONTINUOU...QQcmdZViewItem

[Saracen]

I don't do enough volume of laser printing to be worth mucking about with compatibles, so it's HP originals for me.

With photo printing, I prefer not to risk damage to expensive printers, and as I prefer Epsons, I stick with original inks. And it's not just about damage. If I buy original inks, I know what I'm getting. If I buy compatibles, I don't know if the ink chemistry is quite the same, whether colour balance is the same (and I'd bet it isn't, though by how much will vary from one compatible to another), or even if I'm going to get consistent results from one cartridge to another. I don't have any confidence in colour longevity either.

So, for various reasons, I use original inks and toner.

[Fatboy40]

I use compatible ink cartridges at home, the colours are slighty off but to be honest that's to be expected, and as I use Snap Fish etc for photos it's not a problem.

However, at work I will never buy compatible or re-manufactured laser printer toner cartridges, the potential down time of a critical laser printer just cannot justify them. There are all sorts of factors that make me steer well clear of them...

# Size of the toner particles, are they the same as the originals ?.
# Most laser toners particles also lubricate the fuser, I can't guarantee that the compatibles will do this as well as the originals.
# The quality of the refurbished cartridge and drums can be so hit and miss, one can work spot on where as the next can deposit toner everywhere or have a crap print quality.

[Barakka]

Remember if you use compatibles and have the printer under maintenance with the manufacturer (3 year on-site etc) to put an original cartridge in before you phone them out should the printer go faulty. All warranties are technically void (including extended ones) if you don't use originals, so it's worth keeping a new original one in stock for if you need to call support out.

[zulander]

We use compats and they are normally OK depends where they have come from and how many times they have been cut open and refilled. Images are usually fine we have had trouble with HP5500's jamming when printing photos but we traced that to a problem with the magenta cartridges - i see no reason not to use compats if you have a decent supplier

[athlon_xp_2800]

I have been using a Continuus Ink Supply System since last year when I did a lot of printing but now that has died down, my printer stopped working! It's a 5 year old Epson R200 which has served me well.
I have only ever used the first set of original inks, after that always compatibles until the CISS.
I am currently looking for another printer (Epson R300 maybe) that can take a CISS too.

[Tumble]

The main problem with the compatibles is that they tend to run a lot dirtier than genuine stuff. This is due to the fact that the electrical properties of the toner they use to refill the carts is NEVER consistent, which has the effect of stressing the high voltage imaging components as the process control attempts to compensate for the changes in potential within the toner cartridge. It's a bit like running a car on cheap nasty petrol - the ECU wil eventually learn, but it'll be less efficient and dirtier

You could go for a Konica Minolta printer - running costs are about half an HP