# Had a heart attack today.......



## 480sparky (Feb 1, 2009)

.......... after needing some ink for my printer.

Holy crapoly! It was $52 last summer. Now it's freakin' *$89*!!!!!!!



Is it just cheaper to buy a new printer instead? :blink:


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## Warren (Feb 19, 2005)

I bought a wireless, color, laser printer last Christmas for less than $100. It came with starter ink that lasted about 9 months. A full ink refill cost me about $35 on ebay and worked great.


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## rselectric1 (Sep 20, 2009)

Warren said:


> I bought a wireless, color, laser printer last Christmas for less than $100. It came with starter ink that lasted about 9 months. A full ink refill cost me about $35 on ebay and worked great.


Damn, don't do that to us Ken. I was on the phone with a customer when I saw this thread and told him I'd call him back.


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## The Coastal Craftsman (Jun 29, 2009)

I got from Amazon from company called Sofia global I think. 2 sets for about $20.


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## Warren (Feb 19, 2005)

Is that an Epson inkjet printer Sparky?
They are known to have expensive ink.


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## festerized (May 19, 2007)

Staples was out of ink for my printer….. so I bought another one on sale $150 and ink is much cheaper, can’t beat an all in one 11x17 printer for $150.00
http://www.staples.com/HP-Officejet-7612-Wide-Format-e-All-in-One-Printer/product_1016625


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## overanalyze (Dec 28, 2010)

Laser printers have way less longterm ink/toner costs. Our laser copier/network printer just got toner last year....after 13 years!

We have a Brother laser at home that is going on 2 years without needing toner. 

They sell ink jets cheap on purpose...so they can sell ink.


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## BamBamm5144 (Jul 12, 2008)

Check out HP instant ink if you have an HP printer. $10 a month for ink, up to three hundred pages.


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## tccoggs (Dec 17, 2008)

Unless you must have color, stick with a laser. The Brother HL2170-W is my go to printer, wifi enabled so you can drop it anywhere, and the toner it comes with does an easy 2000 pages. While the brother drum units are expensive, I can usually get 3 or more toners out of a drum and by then I just replace the printer for $100.


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## hdavis (Feb 14, 2012)

If you do a lot of printing, there are bulk fill conversion kits for some of the popular ink jets. Overall, the total cost for printer and conversion is expensive, but if you run through a lot of ink, it will pay for its self.

Other than that, get last year's printer as a close out for less than the price of the cartridges alone.


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## EthanB (Sep 28, 2011)

I bought a Brother laser printer for $40 in 2007. The toner just started to run out. If it gives you the old "error" message, look for an eye on the side of the toner cartridge and cover it with masking tape. Doesn't work on inkjet of course, those things need to be constantly maintained with gold, diamonds or the blood of your first born.


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## TNTRenovate (Aug 19, 2010)

Warren said:


> I bought a wireless, color, laser printer last Christmas for less than $100. It came with starter ink that lasted about 9 months. A full ink refill cost me about $35 on ebay and worked great.


Lasers don't use ink.


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## TNTRenovate (Aug 19, 2010)

EthanB said:


> I bought a Brother laser printer for $40 in 2007. The toner just started to run out. If it gives you the old "error" message, look for an eye on the side of the toner cartridge and cover it with masking tape. Doesn't work on inkjet of course, those things need to be constantly maintained with gold, diamonds or the blood of your first born.


I'm going on two years with my Canon. It's about every two years I need to replace the toner.


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## tedanderson (May 19, 2010)

hdavis said:


> If you do a lot of printing, there are bulk fill conversion kits for some of the popular ink jets. Overall, the total cost for printer and conversion is expensive, but if you run through a lot of ink, it will pay for its self.


That's what I use. It's a continuous ink flow system where there are separate tanks that sit outside of the printer and then a set of small plastic hoses go from the tanks directly into a set of specially modified cartridges that make your printer think that it's full at all times. 

For my Epson, the system was roughly $160 and it lasts 5 times as long as a standard set of cartridges. It costs me $5 per color to refill the system.


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## m1911 (Feb 24, 2009)

Ive got a Brother laser all-in-one, and the toner lasts a long time.


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## colevalleytim (Mar 1, 2008)

A friend of mine used to work in marketing at HP, he said they referred to sales in terms of "sockets" not printers. All they want to do is suck you into buying ink. The printers clean them selves needlessly, wasting ink. And the color printers use the color ink even if you're just printing in black and white. It's a shameful racket.

I've had great luck with my BrotherHL-2380


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## angus242 (Oct 20, 2007)

Won't ever consider inkjet again. Laser prices are way down and I have the same experience as everyone else with well over a year per toner cartridge.


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## jproffer (Feb 19, 2005)

Warren said:


> Is that an Epson inkjet printer Sparky?
> They are known to have expensive ink.


I may have shared this story before, but here goes (again?):


Once upon a time......

Well ok, it was a few years ago I bought an Epson inkjet printer (don't remember the model). Brought it home, got it all set up and was forced to print a test page....no option to skip it, I had to do it, but I thought "no big deal...one page...even demo ink lasts a while".

:whistling

:no:

Printed the test page, threw it away, and..."OK, finally I'm ready to get down to business". :thumbup:

Tried to print the very FIRST page (other than the test page) off of that printer, and get this message: (paraphrased)

"Your red ink appears to be low, please change the red ink cartridge and try again"  . "You son-of-a- "

There was no option to make up my own mind about the red ink being a problem. The F---in' thing wouldn't print a *black and white* copy until I changed the red ink cartridge.

So that no good POS went back to best buy and I swore off Epson forever.

The End.


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## VinylHanger (Jul 14, 2011)

I have an Epson and a Canon. One of them let's me choose monochrome if the color inks are low and if the blacks are low it will print with the colored inks. Great to keep you from not being able to print that contract out when you are already running late. It would be better if it could keep me from being out of paper in the same instance.


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## We Fix Houses (Aug 15, 2007)

I have a HP ink jet AIO. 

I print in Draft mode 80% of the time. This saves the most ink.

I've progressed through small refill kits that make a refill about $3. I just bought a larger refill set up with larger bottles of ink and syringes that will last me a year for $18.

The stuff is all over YT, Amazon and Ebay.


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