Canon sued over AiO printers that won't scan when ink runs out

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A US customer filed the class action as his Pixma MG2522 refuses to scan when ink is low.

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Read more.

I hope more lawsuits like this happen, the printing sector is a wild west for whether printers do everything they should at the times they need to as they are advertised.

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Originally Posted by Tabbykatze

I hope more lawsuits like this happen, the printing sector is a wild west for whether printers do everything they should at the times they need to as they are advertised.

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I'd like to see lawsuits on the environmental damage of forcing people to keep buying new kit that is no better than what it replaces. Printers and scanners have not changed in capabilities for over 10 years, yet the price of ink and parts keeps creeping up so it gets to the point that you need to spend more on a single part than it costs to buy an entire new MFP.
Case in point - The print head on my Officejet 8600 series got bunged up irreversibly. Probably due to me using "cheapo" ink. Why? A full set of HP ink tanks costs over £100! They don't even make the print heads any more and a second hand one is £90-£130!
I paid £170 for the damn thing new.
This practice is unbelievably, deliberately wasteful and its only purpose is is to immorally boost profits. The entire business model needs to change from loss leader+rip off Ink to "appropriately priced printer and reasonably priced ink"

The solution is to regulate the industry into submission.

Disgusting. I did a bit of reading on printers a while ago, and Canon are currently on my short list as I think you can fill up the colours individually on some models, and not have to insert a disposable plastic cartridge.

Arguably, if you never intended to use the print function, you could fill this with any liquid (although cheap after-market ink probably makes sense).

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Originally Posted by Dashers

Disgusting. I did a bit of reading on printers a while ago, and Canon are currently on my short list as I think you can fill up the colours individually on some models, and not have to insert a disposable plastic cartridge.

Arguably, if you never intended to use the print function, you could fill this with any liquid (although cheap after-market ink probably makes sense).

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All the bigger manufacturers (at least) do some variation of that. My most recent AiO (Epson) has what is effectively a built-in CIS (continuous ink system). I don't buy cartridges at all. Instead, I buy bottles of ink and top up the tanks, which are connected to the heads via tubing.

CIS solutions have been around due to cost/ml of ink, for a couple of decades, at least, especially on 'photo' printers that drink ink, but until relatively recently, were 3rd-party devices and warranty-risking. Major manufacturers have effectively jumpe on the bandwagon.

As for the cost of inks being high, that's self-evidently true but .... again, for a couple of decades, you've been able to buy printers that are far cheaper to run in ink cost/ml but you'll pay a lot more for the printer. All you needed to do was look at the high pagecount business machines. Ink cartridges were much larger and cost per ml comparatively (and that word is important) cheap.

It boils down to a choice - expensive printer, cheaper ink, or cheaper machine, very expensive ink. The optimum choice depends on how much per month, or per year, you print.

The practice that does wuind me up, unless it's very clearly stated in marketing/advertising, is "starter" cartridges. That's borderline deceitful, if not very clearly explained.

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Originally Posted by badass

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Originally Posted by Tabbykatze

I hope more lawsuits like this happen, the printing sector is a wild west for whether printers do everything they should at the times they need to as they are advertised.

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I'd like to see lawsuits on the environmental damage of forcing people to keep buying new kit that is no better than what it replaces. Printers and scanners have not changed in capabilities for over 10 years, yet the price of ink and parts keeps creeping up so it gets to the point that you need to spend more on a single part than it costs to buy an entire new MFP.
Case in point - The print head on my Officejet 8600 series got bunged up irreversibly. Probably due to me using "cheapo" ink. Why? A full set of HP ink tanks costs over £100! They don't even make the print heads any more and a second hand one is £90-£130!
I paid £170 for the damn thing new.
This practice is unbelievably, deliberately wasteful and its only purpose is is to immorally boost profits. The entire business model needs to change from loss leader+rip off Ink to "appropriately priced printer and reasonably priced ink"

The solution is to regulate the industry into submission.

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Its crazy isn't it. I deliberately went for a cheap black and white laser this time as I got fed up always finding my printer gummed up after not using it for a few months. At least lasers seem to be more resistant to this sort of BS (but still not perfect).

I sometimes feel the same at the mobile phone industry but at least the phones are still improving year on year. With phones I'd like to purchase a few years OS support and new battery sometimes!

The printer cartridge is the biggest robbery of the 21st century, its a subscription in hardware form. The cartridge AIO printers are remarkably cheap to buy but behind the scenes these cartridges fail halfway, barely print 1000 pages and expensive to buy. The refillable ink tank printers is 'the best' tech to ever revolutionize the PC sector, costs $150 more but those things are bullet proof.

I hope it goes through, as others have said, this is disgusting practice, a total rip off and creates a huge amount of e waste.

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Originally Posted by badass

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Case in point - The print head on my Officejet 8600 series got bunged up irreversibly. Probably due to me using "cheapo" ink. Why? A full set of HP ink tanks costs over £100! ....

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Well, yeah, but those cheap ink manufacturers don't face anything like the development costs the printer manufacturers do, to develop and manufacture both inks and print heads. They can afford to charge much less.

There is a LOT more than most people suspect goes into printer design and development.

One of the things I found out ages ago was the degree of thermal stress some printers go through in printing. On 'thermal' inkjets (including almost every but Epson) the ink is heated to something like 330 degrees, each droplet. Imagine how many times per second that is. And the stress it puts not just on the ink, but the printer heads. For printers that were designed to have new cartridges when ink runs out, part of the reason was the wear on the nozzle heads from all that thermal stress. If the nozzles wear excessively, ink can dry faster, and clog faster. Mix that with ink not tested to withstand the stresses either, and .... :(

There are reasons why Epson machines had fixed heads, and the heads were built in to (most) HP and Canon cartridges, and Epson's 'cold' piezo-electric techynology was one of them.

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Originally Posted by Saracen999

Well, yeah, but those cheap ink manufacturers don't face anything like the development costs the printer manufacturers do, to develop and manufacture both inks and print heads. They can afford to charge much less.

There is a LOT more than most people suspect goes into printer design and development.

One of the things I found out ages ago was the degree of thermal stress some printers go through in printing. On 'thermal' inkjets (including almost every but Epson) the ink is heated to something like 330 degrees, each droplet. Imagine how many times per second that is. And the stress it puts not just on the ink, but the printer heads. For printers that were designed to have new cartridges when ink runs out, part of the reason was the wear on the nozzle heads from all that thermal stress. If the nozzles wear excessively, ink can dry faster, and clog faster. Mix that with ink not tested to withstand the stresses either, and .... :(

There are reasons why Epson machines had fixed heads, and the heads were built in to (most) HP and Canon cartridges, and Epson's 'cold' piezo-electric techynology was one of them.

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Tbh, a lot of that is sounding like over engineering so it can lead to failure, therefore replacement and more RoI. That's the cynical side of myself, obviously there could be an extremely valid reason (quality etc) that they are heating the ink up that excessively without an easy way to replace the print heads and therefore require a complete replacement of the unit...

But with the way engineered obsolescence, big techs need to have everything unrepair-able except by them and protecting their bottom lin..."Intellectual property", it's an easy hop and skip to going "why?"

There are perfectly good, high quality inkjets in my attic that were bought almost 20 years ago and still function today. But a company bought Epson WF series for a WFH employee had it completely fail within 3 months of decent printing with a head failure. *strokes beard critically*

Epson AiO printers did the exact same thing - All functions get locked out when a cartridge runs out of ink.

That and the constant problem of the print head gumming up every few weeks is why I moved to colour laser printers.

Wow! And I thought being unable to print black when the printer is out of yellow was dumb!

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Originally Posted by Saracen999

Well, yeah, but those cheap ink manufacturers don't face anything like the development costs the printer manufacturers do, to develop and manufacture both inks and print heads. They can afford to charge much less.

There is a LOT more than most people suspect goes into printer design and development.

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Yes but.....how does that explain the Genuine HP inks going from £35 to over £100 yet ink tanks for newer printers still being half the price?
The business model is the problem. If genuine HP cartridges were the same price as genuine HP cartridges for newer models then I would only buy genuine HP cartridges. If HP still made the heads and they were less than £80 I would have bought new heads. The argument about development costs is moot IMHO. Inkjet tech has completely stagnated and is pretty much the same as it was 10/15/20 years ago.
The current model is nothing more than a tweaked built in obsolescence except that it's done by bumping up the costs of consumables until the "old" model is non viable.

In fact, the development costs argument loses strength when those R&D costs could be amortised over a longer period by not pointlessly replacing older models with newer ones that have bits of plastic in different places and more colours on their touchscreens!

My problem with this is simply the huge waste. There are ways for them to continue to make the same profits with less waste but none will do so unless forced to. The market is consolidated into just giant players so regulating them into submission makes sense. I say that as a generally more anti regulation person.....

Wonderful news and good on them, how an ink cartridge can stop a printer from scanning is blatant money grabbing.

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Originally Posted by Saracen999

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Originally Posted by badass

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Case in point - The print head on my Officejet 8600 series got bunged up irreversibly. Probably due to me using "cheapo" ink. Why? A full set of HP ink tanks costs over £100! ....

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Well, yeah, but those cheap ink manufacturers don't face anything like the development costs the printer manufacturers do, to develop and manufacture both inks and print heads. They can afford to charge much less.

There is a LOT more than most people suspect goes into printer design and development.

One of the things I found out ages ago was the degree of thermal stress some printers go through in printing. On 'thermal' inkjets (including almost every but Epson) the ink is heated to something like 330 degrees, each droplet. Imagine how many times per second that is. And the stress it puts not just on the ink, but the printer heads. For printers that were designed to have new cartridges when ink runs out, part of the reason was the wear on the nozzle heads from all that thermal stress. If the nozzles wear excessively, ink can dry faster, and clog faster. Mix that with ink not tested to withstand the stresses either, and .... :(

There are reasons why Epson machines had fixed heads, and the heads were built in to (most) HP and Canon cartridges, and Epson's 'cold' piezo-electric techynology was one of them.

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Ah yes “significant development costs” - we have dismissed this claim.

I stopped using inkjets ages ago now, I make do with a laser, yes it's only black and white but it cost so much less to run and if you don't use it for a year ...... it still works.

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Originally Posted by Syphadeus

Ah yes “significant development costs” - we have dismissed this claim.

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When? How? You say "claim" like it's speculation. It isn't.

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Originally Posted by Tabbykatze

Tbh, a lot of that is sounding like over engineering so it can lead to failure, therefore replacement and more RoI. That's the cynical side of myself, obviously there could be an extremely valid reason (quality etc) that they are heating the ink up that excessively without an easy way to replace the print heads and therefore require a complete replacement of the unit...

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In the era I'm talking about, it was about quality ... image quality. And speed. It's about droplet size, therefore nozzle size, and about how you get their using whichever underlying tech (i.e. thermal or piezo) gets you there, and how you have to do that.

It's also about reliability in production. For intance, Epson cartridge manufacturing lines are almost entireoy automated, and run in a clean room environment because the slightest dust or dirt in the ink will likely clog the heads, especially on pigment inks. So, particle size is important.

So is the exact rasterisation pattern used in the driver, and the exact chemistry of the ink, and how they work together if you want to get halfway accurate colours. This process took years to perfect, getting all the elemens right. 3rd paty manufacturers don't have any of that to worry about beause it's already done before they start trying to make something that works in a given cartridge. They start after the hard work is already finished.

Even that manufacturing process osts a fortune. Outpou parameters ar tsted at just about every stage (by which I mean every machine) and if they drop (or rise) outside acceptable tolerancs, the line stops within a cartridge or two until the eason is found and the issue resolved. Result? Far lower waste and far greater cartridge reliability than would otherwise be the case.

But to do that, Epson had to design and manufacture just about the entire robot production line. You can't jut buy that stuff rom a cartidge machine manufacturer and get the tolerances required. They are, after all, a specialist in precision manufacturing, as part of the Seiko part of Seiko Epson. 3rd-party ink manufactuerers don't have to invest in deisgning and building that kind of manufacruring line.

One of the larger UK cartidge refillers was started by a friend of mine, and I remember seeing his initial "line" .... in his kitchen, with a refilling machine designed, IIRC, by his Dad. I'm also probably one of a pretty small number of people that's been round Epson's relatively small development production assembly line/clean room in Japan, and seen the line itself in operation, and spoken to product managers and engineering managers out there. Believe me, they're very different levels of investment.

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Originally Posted by Saracen999

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Everything you have said is utterly wonderful but then why do i have inkjets from 20 years ago that still spit out superior/equivalent quality paper and photo prints yet printers in the past 5-10 years drop like flies.

So you're telling me it was an R&D byproduct that they "increased" print quality while cut longevities/resiliencies legs off at the ankles?

In a totally automated environment where little maintenance is need to run off a million units of your products, costs are low & QA rejections will also stay low meaning margins can be played with as much as you want. The printing market is another segment where they will put a price as high as the customer will bear.

I do believe you that you've been there and seen it and it's wondrous. But i think you're being naive thinking that the COGS cost of the cartridge line hasn't been recouped in record time. There's a reason why inkjet printers suddenly got very cheap for the consumer about 10 years ago and the cartridge costs doubled/tripled. It wasn't r&d or production lines (the lines came after this realisation), it was "why sell a printer that doesn't get replaced often at 50% margin once every 2-3 years and make small margin, high volume amounta on cartridges when i could sell a printer at 15-30% margin, get them in my ecosystem they'll need cartridges so sell those at 50-80% margin and maximise my recurring profits."

I saw the flip flop of printer/cartridges end customer prices from a reseller perspective. It was immediate, sudden and from every business, almost like it was a collusion.

Epson, HP, and the lot of them can get stuffed, i hooe this suit succeeds and prepares a well earned market shake up.

I think one of the most successful bits of EU legislation was to say that consumers have a reasonable expectation that a car lasts 150000 km. Printers need something similar.

I don't use 3rd party inks, and don't buy the low end printers, but they all seem to fall apart way too easily.

wow! if you support HP/EPSON for their absurd costs of R&D what about silicon IC fabrication? If its true that designing cartridges is expensive then there would be no budget 4g capable smartphone. I mean buy a £100 smartphone and compare that to a cartridge, the phones has tech with thousands of patents that have to be paid.

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Originally Posted by Rubarb

I stopped using inkjets ages ago now, I make do with a laser, yes it's only black and white but it cost so much less to run and if you don't use it for a year ...... it still works.

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That's where I eventually got to. Years or replacing inks or even whole printers prematurely led me to just say forget it. Laser has lasted years on its initial toner, the only colour stuff I need to print is the occasional photo which can be done for circa 20p a go at a local stationers/print shop (as we're lucky enough to still have one,) or for a cheaper price but poorer print at the local Boots.

I also went with a laser, was the best move I made. Its not going to print glossy photo's as well as inkjets but I don't print photo's anyway. I have a colour HP laser printer and the toner lasts for a very long time. Even using non-genuine toner. It doesn't stop the printer working just says non-genuine toner inserted.

Though it has taken me trying a few different toner companies to find one that has been ok, I won't deny that you can get some cheap toner that is complete rubbish.

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Originally Posted by DanceswithUnix

I think one of the most successful bits of EU legislation was to say that consumers have a reasonable expectation that a car lasts 150000 km. Printers need something similar.

I don't use 3rd party inks, and don't buy the low end printers, but they all seem to fall apart way too easily.

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Agree with all of that. Add to the existing "white goods need part availability for a minimum 10 years" legislation to printers and add cost requirements to that to prevent them from using prices to keep "availability" without actually having to sell anything.

Apart from the "I don't use 3rd party inks" bit. My reasoning for that is further up the thread.

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Originally Posted by badass

Apart from the "I don't use 3rd party inks" bit. My reasoning for that is further up the thread.

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Which is fair enough. The kids used to have their own cheap printer which I filled using an ink refill kit that Morrison's used to sell (no idea if they still do) because they used to print things to crayon in etc and I wanted to keep it cheap. Actually worked quite well.

The main printer does actually print pictures though, and the proper inks on decent paper is pretty good. The downside is that three colours, black, pigment black and grey inks in their individual cartridges comes to about £70 in total, but that's about once per year so I just suck it up for those occasional "I need a picture in 10 minutes time" moments.

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Originally Posted by DanceswithUnix

Which is fair enough. The kids used to have their own cheap printer which I filled using an ink refill kit that Morrison's used to sell (no idea if they still do) because they used to print things to crayon in etc and I wanted to keep it cheap. Actually worked quite well.

The main printer does actually print pictures though, and the proper inks on decent paper is pretty good. The downside is that three colours, black, pigment black and grey inks in their individual cartridges comes to about £70 in total, but that's about once per year so I just suck it up for those occasional "I need a picture in 10 minutes time" moments.

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There's some really good (and cheap) cartridges on Amazon I found, the brand 'supricolor' works brilliantly with my canon printer. For the price of one official cartridge I can buy the whole set of 5 (!) for the same price.

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Originally Posted by Saracen999

All the bigger manufacturers (at least) do some variation of that. My most recent AiO (Epson) has what is effectively a built-in CIS (continuous ink system). I don't buy cartridges at all. Instead, I buy bottles of ink and top up the tanks, which are connected to the heads via tubing.

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There still junk in my opinion keep in mind you can't replace the print head that easy which can be a pain in rear to get clean out so I stick to color laser printer as my Brother Multifunction Printer had been trouble free for 9 year

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Originally Posted by SHSPVR

There still junk in my opinion keep in mind you can't replace the print head that easy which can be a pain in rear to get clean out so I stick to color laser printer as my Brother Multifunction Printer had been trouble free for 9 year

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Epson printers aren't designed to have user-replaceable heads. It's a service centre job, if economically feasible at all. They're designed to last the life of the machine. The piezo technique is 'cold', unlike thermal heads so they don't suffer from anything like the thermal stresses of thermal inkjets.

The reason 'thermal' inkjets have heads built in to the cartridges is that they do have those thermal stresses and much shorter life, but as most such printers have the head built into th cartridge, every time you replace the cartridge, you replace th print head.

Of course, where that falls down is if you choose to go outside the manufacturer's recommendations and refill cartridges with an unknown quantity in the ink. It might be good, and you might manage to refill without introducing either dirt, or airlocks, but you might not. If you don't get away with it, and the manufacturer declines to honour a warranty because unknown ink was used, it can't come as much of a surprise. On thermal inkjets, even if the ink is good, you still have that head damage because the print head is being expected to have a far higher duty cycle than it is designed for.

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Originally Posted by Saracen999

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Originally Posted by Dashers

Disgusting. I did a bit of reading on printers a while ago, and Canon are currently on my short list as I think you can fill up the colours individually on some models, and not have to insert a disposable plastic cartridge.

Arguably, if you never intended to use the print function, you could fill this with any liquid (although cheap after-market ink probably makes sense).

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All the bigger manufacturers (at least) do some variation of that. My most recent AiO (Epson) has what is effectively a built-in CIS (continuous ink system). I don't buy cartridges at all. Instead, I buy bottles of ink and top up the tanks, which are connected to the heads via tubing.

CIS solutions have been around due to cost/ml of ink, for a couple of decades, at least, especially on 'photo' printers that drink ink, but until relatively recently, were 3rd-party devices and warranty-risking. Major manufacturers have effectively jumpe on the bandwagon.

As for the cost of inks being high, that's self-evidently true but .... again, for a couple of decades, you've been able to buy printers that are far cheaper to run in ink cost/ml but you'll pay a lot more for the printer. All you needed to do was look at the high pagecount business machines. Ink cartridges were much larger and cost per ml comparatively (and that word is important) cheap.

It boils down to a choice - expensive printer, cheaper ink, or cheaper machine, very expensive ink. The optimum choice depends on how much per month, or per year, you print.

The practice that does wuind me up, unless it's very clearly stated in marketing/advertising, is "starter" cartridges. That's borderline deceitful, if not very clearly explained.

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I have an older printer. Canon. I use *cheap* cartridges where I pay the same for 7 sets of dirt cheap ones as I would for one set of OEM. It will allow run low and run dry. It will cease printing and alert that the print tank is empty and allow a user override. The cheap ink is awful, there's no doubt It fades very quickly and is washed out even when fresh. But, it serves my purpose which is mostly text, documents and the occasional bespoke birthday card. I used to do a lot of photo printing which made it worth buying either OEM or higher quality third party ink. Now, not so much and I question the need for an inkjet on that basis. These days we just get photos we want properly printed done at a shop and it's far better value than buying expensive cartridges for the rare occasion when they're needed. Also, these days I have a digital photo frame that we dump our photos onto which is far better than printed for everyday use.

The hardest part of having an old printer is getting 10 year old software to function on newer operating systems but, they have no idea how far I'll go to avoid buying a new printer for the sake of software obsolescence. I'll use a VM with an old version of Windows or a Pi print server if I need to. Just try me you utter ba....

With an older printer, I can run it dry if I want, or I can open and remove a cartridge, inspect the ink level and make my own decision. It scans if I want it to whatever the occasion.

I did use refillable tanks a while back but I found them far too messy. I shake a bit anyway and the potential for mess was too great for me. I think what I have represents the best balance.

What I will NOT be doing is buying Canon now. I used to prefer them as certain models allowed replacement of the heads. I will not reward this kind of nonsense and I'll be likely replacing with a tank printer if the refill methods are less hazardous to carpets. Or a dot matrix. I quite fancy a dot matrix for the nostalgia value.

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Originally Posted by Saracen999

The piezo technique is 'cold', unlike thermal heads so they don't suffer from anything like the thermal stresses of thermal inkjets.

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I raised this about the tech involved in the various manufacturers (BTW, I can absolutely validate everything Saracen has said about the various technologies with the one difference that Canon print heads for the printers I have bought from them haven't been built into the cartridge as I've purposely not bought those models. Just consider, for a second, how an inkjet works. The speed at which it works. They are precision engineered witchcraft and are clearly more expensive to build than we pay for them. The technology has been around for quite a while, yes, but I doubt anyone here could replicate that in their garage or even with a million pounds. It's an extraordinary set of technologies and they do require serious investment to exist and advance. That is not the question, it's whether their greed is taking over.) and got a reply from an Epson serivice engineer. I was told that they still can't safely print dry and the firmware will avoid it at all costs. This is because there is significant heat production from the piezoelectric effect (as someone who deals with this professionally, I can certainly agree there) and so the ink is still used as a coolant to some degree. albeit not to the levels of the thermal ink jets. More importantly, the heads are designed to operate with ink present. Without this, there will significant excess energy wich should have been lost to the liquid, which will manifest as excess vibration and cause mechanical damage to the heads.

I argued that I'd run my older Epson's dry routinely with no obvious ill effects and that certainly didn't cause their demise. I also argued that a service engineer is going to be working on high volume, high quality, long life systems which are totally different beasts to the home gamer ink jet systems where it would be perfectly reasonable to warn of low ink, state it'll invalidate the warranty to run it dry and allow a user override which is recorded.

I think, like you, I come from a time where quality and precision of such machines was paramount as you used them to replace photo developing / printing. Nowadays, I just brutalise the things with cheap ink and foul language.

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Originally Posted by Tabbykatze

Everything you have said is utterly wonderful but then why do i have inkjets from 20 years ago that still spit out superior/equivalent quality paper and photo prints yet printers in the past 5-10 years drop like flies.

So you're telling me it was an R&D byproduct that they "increased" print quality while cut longevities/resiliencies legs off at the ankles?

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Nope. I'm not telling you that. In my opinion, print quality reached it's peak many years ago. Round about, or shortly after, the introduction of 200 dpi 'resolution'. The individual droplet reached a point where each printed 'dot', which by the way consists of a collection of droplets, was to all intents and purposes, invisible. The 'dot' is just about visible but with the naked eye, not the droplet. It's that resterisation, inside the driver, that then forms the 'dots', and that is the result of a lot of work manufacturers do, and most ink manufacturers don't. That is one example of the costs manufacturers bear, that thrid party ink manufacturers don't. One of many.

It goes further. Whe nyou us a givn ink, and select the paper type, the rasterisation can change, to match the ink to the characteristics of the paper. Why? Different papers have different characteristics, not to mention the different characteristics of the and pigment based inks. For instance, to what extent does a given ink 'wick' along the fibres of the paper. That will be very different, with different papers. Some inks are designed to absorb, others to sit on the paper plasticised coating and dry. Gloss papers ardifferent to satin, and very different to 'photocopy' paper. To a much lesser extent, that's even true of lasers. A good quality laser paper drops a lot less dust over the internals of a printer than a high qiality paper.

My point was that manufactrurers face costs 3rd party manufacturers don't, and that one way or the other, you pay for it. If you want the reliability you are more likely to get from original inks, it costs. With really cheap printers, you pay in ink cost. In higher throughput units, the ink is a lot cheaper but the printer sure isn't. By "really cheap" printers, I've seen colour inkjet printers for as little as £30. They're aimed at light use low-volume users, but I have also had £1000+ inkjets with much higher capacity cartridges, and MUCH lower cost/ml of ink. They suit heavy users, either printing lots of photos, which drink ink, or 'workgroup' business class printers, often shared among multiple users and printing large volums of pages.

Either way, the cheaper the printer, the more expensive (per ml) the ink is likely to be. And vice versa

As for lasers, the same applie to dust in paper, but more so. The same principle applies to cost/page, on printer at different price levels but you lso have to be aware that some lasers (like most HPs) replace all the consumables every time you replace the cartridge, whereas others separate the three or four main components and those are replaced at the expiry of varying lifetimes. The only true way to compare running costs is to take all those components and their page life into account, and their cost, and then calculate it out over the entire life of th printer based on your average pages printed per month. Which one works out cheaprf, overall, depends on your usage pattern.

There are differencs, of course. You are far more likely to get away with not using laser for months at a time, then having it just work when you do use it, than with an inkjet. But it isn't certain. It also depends on what you print, nd the standards you expect. I have yet to see a laser that will do as good a job of photographs as a decent inkjet, but they're far better for most business printing needs.

They also vary a lot in both up-front costs, and toner costs. Generaly, they're more expensive to get started with, especially for colour, but much cheaper per page. The cheaper colour lasers tend to get you on the toner cartridges, not least on the very cheaper end of the market, with 'starter' cartridges that run out very quickly, and then cost more than the original printer for a 'full' set.

In short, manufacturerswill either get you for the machine, or the consumables. Third party inks/toners can save a lot of money, in part because they don't have the same development costs. And whether to do that or not is a personal choice, and print quality varies a lot from one thrid party ink to another, as do costs. But if you choose to ue thrid-party inks, there is a risk that they will not provide the same colour accuracy (though some are very good indeed) but you certainly can't complain and expect the manufacturer warranty to cover you if it goes wrong and damages the printer. There was a time when they would, for the sake of PR, but they've become more hard-nosed about that as more and more users opted for cheap inks.

Finally, just for the record, even I will not defend a manufacturer that prevents an AIO from scanning when an ink runs out. But then, with one exception, I don't buy AIO's. The one I do have wasn't especially chap, but has 'free' ink. Is it really free? Yes, and no. You pay up-front, in the costof the machine, up to a point, It's a gamble. If you don't print much, it's 'expensive' free ink. if you print loads, up to the rated print duty cycle at least, you get free ink .... for two years. Cartridge size? Well, no cartridge size. It comes with ink tanks, and refill bottles, with 70ml bottles for each colour, and 127ml for black (two supplied with printer). he tanks getlow you refill from the bottles. i.e. it has a built-in CIS (Continuous Ink System). But the printer itself isn't cheap.

And if you do buy an inkjet, it's not a good idea to leave it unuesed for extended periods. If nothing else, print a test page every week or two.

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Originally Posted by philehidiot

I raised this about the tech involved in the various manufacturers (BTW, I can absolutely validate everything Saracen has said about the various technologies with the one difference that Canon print heads for the printers I have bought from them haven\'t been built into the cartridge as I\'ve purposely not bought those models. ....

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I was pretty careful to say things like "most", and "tend to have". There are exceptions, but that generalisation is true for the large majority. Certainly in those Canon/HP that I\'ve seen that don\'t, they tend to be either relatively recent, and/or at the higher end. It again generally has an impact on the printer price, and those with permanent heads tend to be those aimed at heavier use, either for photos, or heavy business use. And, of course, a single A4-sized photo uses far more ink, and fires way more droplets, and virtually any business letter, or even reports with colour photos in i, or charts/diagrams.

But yeah, there certainly are exceptions to the general rule.

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Originally Posted by philehidiot

I have an older printer. Canon. I use *cheap* cartridges where I pay the same for 7 sets of dirt cheap ones as I would for one set of OEM. It will allow run low and run dry. It will cease printing and alert that the print tank is empty and allow a user override. The cheap ink is awful, there's no doubt It fades very quickly and is washed out even when fresh. But, it serves my purpose which is mostly text, documents and the occasional bespoke birthday card. I used to do a lot of photo printing which made it worth buying either OEM or higher quality third party ink. Now, not so much and I question the need for an inkjet on that basis. These days we just get photos we want properly printed done at a shop and it's far better value than buying expensive cartridges for the rare occasion when they're needed. Also, these days I have a digital photo frame that we dump our photos onto which is far better than printed for everyday use.

The hardest part of having an old printer is getting 10 year old software to function on newer operating systems but, they have no idea how far I'll go to avoid buying a new printer for the sake of software obsolescence. I'll use a VM with an old version of Windows or a Pi print server if I need to. Just try me you utter ba....

With an older printer, I can run it dry if I want, or I can open and remove a cartridge, inspect the ink level and make my own decision. It scans if I want it to whatever the occasion.

I did use refillable tanks a while back but I found them far too messy. I shake a bit anyway and the potential for mess was too great for me. I think what I have represents the best balance.

What I will NOT be doing is buying Canon now. I used to prefer them as certain models allowed replacement of the heads. I will not reward this kind of nonsense and I'll be likely replacing with a tank printer if the refill methods are less hazardous to carpets. Or a dot matrix. I quite fancy a dot matrix for the nostalgia value.

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I have a lot of sympathy with that. You may have noticed past threads where I've pointed out I still have a number of old PCs, still running not only Win 7 but even Win XP, due to old hardware, and even some old software.

Looking around my office, I have .... I'd have to go count them to even be sure to get them all. But certainly, several A4 photo printers, two A3 photo printers, an A1 inkjet, several lasers, Olympus dye-sub printers, three Alps MicroDry printers and so on. Also, everything from Nikon and Olympus film scanners to A3 flatbeds, and auto-feeding auto-duplex document scanning systems.

I really, really sympathise with that. Cheap inks have their place, and I'm not suggesting people shouldn't use them. Just trying to explain some of the reasons why they're cheaper, which in part is the different cost base of manufacturers that developed the printers in thr first place.

And also, if people choose to use cheap ink or toner, just undertand the compromises and/or risks involved in doing it.

I have a cheap colour laser thats around 10 years old, uses cheap toner, its fine for bulk printing. Also have a HP AIO inkjet for A3 scanning and printing, ink isnt that bad (have stopped it updating firmware so can use 3rd part ink), also great for its job. Lastly have an an Epson Expression A3+, yes its expensive to run, but it prints beautifully, including B&W (has a grey tank), heavy duty paper, and does A3+. Worth the cost for me. For general home muck about printing you cannot beat a colour laser, preferably with duplexer. Had a B&W and a colour laser from IJT on the toner deals, 1st was 20 years ago, 2nd was around 10.

Did a lot of research on photo forums, all of the pointed to getting somebody else to print unless you want full control and what seems to be a hobby in its own right. Also that the biggest killer is lack of use. Which reminds me, better print a test page ;)

Agreed on the B&W aspect, OwP. I covered so much tht \i was doing that bit, as it's a 'photographer' niche kinda thing, but along with paper selection (Hahnemuhle is one of my favourites) it's another area where a lot hs gone into development. I would advise .... careful .... choice if 3rd patty inks for that sort of thing. I glossed over that too, but not all 3rd party inks (or papers) are equal .... and 'cheap' can be a relative term, too.

I'm another of the users that gave up on colour printing years ago. So 2016 bought a cheap(£34) Ricoh B&W laser from Tescos and never looked back, it's on it's second toner, it sits in a cupboard connected to the network and just works when it's needed.

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Originally Posted by Saracen999

Epson printers aren't designed to have user-replaceable heads. It's a service centre job, if economically feasible at all. They're designed to last the life of the machine. The piezo technique is 'cold', unlike thermal heads so they don't suffer from anything like the thermal stresses of thermal inkjets.

The reason 'thermal' inkjets have heads built in to the cartridges is that they do have those thermal stresses and much shorter life, but as most such printers have the head built into th cartridge, every time you replace the cartridge, you replace th print head.

Of course, where that falls down is if you choose to go outside the manufacturer's recommendations and refill cartridges with an unknown quantity in the ink. It might be good, and you might manage to refill without introducing either dirt, or airlocks, but you might not. If you don't get away with it, and the manufacturer declines to honour a warranty because unknown ink was used, it can't come as much of a surprise. On thermal inkjets, even if the ink is good, you still have that head damage because the print head is being expected to have a far higher duty cycle than it is designed for.

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The printer that I've had to scrap has ink tanks too. The print heads are user replaceable. i.e. it's got 4 individual cartridges that do not have the head on them - just a chip that the printer reads from and writes to. The cartridges are then fitted into the "head". The theory being that yes - heads wear out (or get bunged up) through use but not as often as ink runs out. I bought this printer because of that. The problem is that the Ink cartridges have tripled in price and they stopped making the heads completely.

The only reason for this has nothing to do with utility and everything to do with the fact that their newer printers can now lock out 3rd party inks completely. Development wise, I expect that they've moved a few bits of plastic around on the heads and cartridges and nothing much more. Then secured their design further to keep 3rd party inks out.

This a perfectly functional multifunction printer that's quite large, has a duplex auto feeding scanner and full duplex printing is getting chucked because HP want me to throw more money at them for a new MFP that they can lock me in on for inks.

It's like me scrapping a combustion engined car because the battery has gone. Except the manufacturer has ensured that no 3rd party battery can be developed.

I see that you agree that Canon's behaviour is unacceptable. Is it acceptable to you that large amounts of un recyclable waste are created to boost profits whilst providing absolutely no social utility at all?

I think I've had a Dell Colour Laser printer for many years now, and I'm still happy I bought it due to the minimal amount of printing I actually do as it was obviously the much more sensible option than carrying on with inkjet.

When I do need to print, I can do so quickly and easily, especially in colour if that is needed. Better to have that ability and not need it than need it but not have it. I'm surprised that there aren't more here on HEXUS with colour laser printers rather than black and white ones though. Third-party compatible toner is of course still much cheaper than official ones.

As for scanning, I have a separate document scanner for that. I did have to replace a earlier generation that I had due to not having driver support on newer versions of Windows, but I'd assume that the newer one had improvements with its scanning quality/capability in the years in between anyway.

I am surprised that Canon pulled this on AIO printers for this long though, as common sense dictates that being low on ink has nothing to do with the ability to scan.

I can only assume they prioritised profits over any potential action against them. Whether the resulting cost of the action against them (if upheld) will exceed the profits they enjoyed due to it is another question entirely.

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Originally Posted by Saracen999

Cheap inks have their place, and I'm not suggesting people shouldn't use them. Just trying to explain some of the reasons why they're cheaper, which in part is the different cost base of manufacturers that developed the printers in thr first place.

And also, if people choose to use cheap ink or toner, just undertand the compromises and/or risks involved in doing it.

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This sums it up. If you can't see the value in the expensive inks, don't buy them. They aren't for you. It's like me and posh wine - I don't see the value in it if I can't stick it on me fish n'chips. Some people appreciate it. That's their choice.

My parents buy OEM HP ink and, when they printed out a few photos from my wedding, the results are excellent. I don't lay into them for using expensive ink as they have made that decision and are frugal people, only spending extra on something if they see a genuine need.

To me this is like petrol. If you don't see the point in Shell V-Power and think it's a waste of money, then don't buy it. Buy the cheap stuff from the supermarket and have done with it. But there are absolutely people who do need the posh fuel and that little bit of extra chemistry comes at a significant cost. If you commute to work in a Fiesta, you'll be wasting your money on posh fuel. These days, with E10 and E5 making a significant difference to some vehicles, there's more of a reason to use posh stuff. But when I was riding a high compression motorbike, supermarket fuel made it act like the engine was knackered. For me, it made sense to use decent fuel with that vehicle. The marketing around such fuels is a different matter.

It's the same with ink - if the cheapo stuff meets your needs, use the cheapo stuff. Accept there may be some legitimate performance and lifespan issues which may or may not affect you, as I found with that one particular bike. Certainly get the word out that manufacturers shouldn't be locking down printers and that there are alternatives and a free market out there to people who aren't aware.

But you should accept that there are people who have a use for the OEM ink. That might even be for B&W ink for legal reasons. If that OEM ink is formally tested and rated to last 100 years, you may have use of that. I know of systems which fade after 5 years and aren't legible after 10. That's simply not acceptable in a lot of legal situations and someone might use such ink purely because the cost of not having their documentation last would dwarf any extra spent on ink. They can also show they're taking reasonable precautions to ensure the integrity of printed information for the duration it needs to be stored. And yes, I do know of situations where inkjets are used for legal documentation over lasers.

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Originally Posted by Output

I'm surprised that there aren't more here on HEXUS with colour laser printers rather than black and white ones though. Third-party compatible toner is of course still much cheaper than official ones.

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I moved to colour lasers about ten-ish years ago - purely out of frustration with inkjets: the hideous costs, the nerfed functionality when carts run dry and the frankly ridiculous carry on when your infrequent/occasional use leads to gummed up print heads, and the inevitable quarter of a cartridge used when cleaning the head.

I'm on my third colour laser. The first one, a Samsung CLP 315, died after about five years of flawless performance. The second one, a Dell 1760nw, is stored in the loft after recently being replaced by a more capable Samsung C460FW AIO model, after my venerable flatbed scanner kicked the bucket.

All were bought second hand, came with extra toner carts and each one cost me less than a full set of colour oem inks for my old Epson AIO. The CLP513 was £30, the Dell was £25, and the latest one was also £30.

I can occasionally go months without needing to print anything and the reliability of switching on a laser and it just working, without having to piddle about for an hour just to get a clean print, is just one less headache.

I'm happy that Canon are being called out on this! I've got a Canon AiO that the print head has some issue that has thrown up an error code which stops the unit from doing anything... I don't see why the scanner can't be used other than Canon has decided to put that restriction in place.

I buy Epson printers mostly, and always make sure I can get affordable third party ink replacements before I settle on a model. Usually 15 quid gets me 4 full sets of all colours, and the quality is very good. I will admit, if printing photos, the colour occasionally fades on the third party inks after 5+ years if the photos aren't stored properly in a photo album. But not always.

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Originally Posted by philehidiot

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But you should accept that there are people who have a use for the OEM ink. That might even be for B&W ink for legal reasons. If that OEM ink is formally tested and rated to last 100 years, you may have use of that. I know of systems which fade after 5 years and aren't legible after 10. That's simply not acceptable in a lot of legal situations and someone might use such ink purely because the cost of not having their documentation last would dwarf any extra spent on ink. They can also show they're taking reasonable precautions to ensure the integrity of printed information for the duration it needs to be stored. And yes, I do know of situations where inkjets are used for legal documentation over lasers.

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Part of the issue is that there are all sorts of aspects to differing usage cases. The legal aspect is one much, but for that, I use a mono laser, and have since buying my first laser, an HP Laserjet II, but in the Middle Ages.

Another, for colour, is exposure to light. As mondayriot mentioned "proper storage in albums", I take the point, but not all usage cases involve album storage. Another is photos printed specifically for display, such as hung on the wall, and even more so if sold for that purpose. You really don't want customers coming back after a year or two with badly faded prints. This is one reason why I also have dye-sublimation printers, for some circumstances.

I both the legal and photo display cases, among others, the old adage "horses for courses" comes to mind.

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Originally Posted by badass

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I see that you agree that Canon's behaviour is unacceptable. Is it acceptable to you that large amounts of un recyclable waste are created to boost profits whilst providing absolutely no social utility at all?

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No, but that wasn't my point. My point is that ther are reasons why 3rd party ink manufacturers can make inks cheaper .... because they don't have the same costs in the first place. The printer manufacturers have already borne those. If they hadn't, there would be no printers for 3rd-party ink companies to make inks for.

I'm not saying there is no profiteering out of inks. I'm saying nobody not on the inside of the right departments in printer manufacturers (including me, and I have had far, far closer access than the vast majority of people) knows what proportion of the price difference is due to differing costs, and what is due to "profiteering".

What we also don't know is which printers actually make a profit on selling the printer, and which are heavily subsidised by expected future sales of inks .... like other industries have been known to do, though with parts/servicing, not ink). There certainly has been a trend for an inverse relationship between printer price and consumables pricing.

It's the assumption that differing ink prices is all down to profiteering that I'm getting at, when it is a simple fact that none of us know what the rather more complex cost base of manufacturing printers, cartridges and inks actually is, compared to 3rd party products. For instance, when it turns out that the optimum ink path for certain ink formulations is to cut ink channels in celluloid using eximer lasers, what does that add to production costs? What did it cost to do the research that led to that development, what does it do to cartridge manufacturing costs and what other channels that were explored led nowhere, and what did those failures cost? We don't know, but there were such costs and 3rd party manufacturers don't share in them.

Furthermore, when a printer manufacturer adopts such a technology, and the very small ink channels that result, they do it based on their ink formulations for that printer. Switch to 3rd party inks and you're taking a punt on how well that formulation works with those channels. It may work very well, but it may not. It's part of the risk.

My suggestion to anyone buying a printer, and this includes lasers which can also have running costs that aren't obvious up-front, is to do the research first. If you don't like the cost of printer manufacturer's own inks, either don't buy them and take those risks of 3rd party inks, or don't buy that printer at all.

It's not like this stuff is new, or should come as a surprise. I was writing articles on it 20 years or more ago, and I certainly wasn't the only one.