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Hi all ....

Do you guys think its ethical / legal for a printer company (Epson/Canon) to force us to purchase ink ?

For example, .. my printer ( Canon Pixma Pro 9000) has been down for like a week, ... error box says that the Yellow and Magenta is out --- no problem, ...I found some time today, .. bought the ink and installed. Now, ..Canon uses clear plastic for the cartridges and when I pull the yellow/magenta out --- its clear that there is still roughly half of the ink remaining.

I'm wondering why this is, .. does the printer need more than half to operate ? Maybe it doesn't and they're ripping us off -----but why use clear plastic to show us that they're ripping us off ???

I quit using Epson printers when I found out that some Epson's have an in-built counter that disables the printer when a certain amount of prints is reached, ...regardless of the ink levels. There's no mention of that in the documentation. I experienced that with an RX500 and searched long and hard til I found a fix on a Russian developer's website which had a small app that reset the counter. Epson tech support told me to just buy another printer. ..ps, .. that printer still works fine today, ..after the reset.

I've never really owned 'good quality (loosely used term)' printers before but it always astounded me how often printers at my past places of employment were being 'serviced (yup-another loose one - haha sounds funny).

Personally I do think it's all a scam. Designed obsolescences showing it's ugly head. That example you gave about Epson printers is absolutely infuriating... but... it doesn't shock me. It all comes down to the buck. Ethics, morality, basic human decency or karma have no place in the pursuit of the almighty dollar.

Just sucks.

Luis

PS - Gotta love those Russians for those clever fixes!

Chris, it's the same problem on my fathers HP printer, it also starts blinking and warning that it's outta ink yet the cartridges are still half full. I'm sure there are plenty more users experiencing the same problems. So it smells like a ripoff to me ..a evil one.

/ Max

My large format hp light blinked for a year telling me to change it.

For my 2 canon printers, I bought 32 cartridges on ebay for 56$ (at staples it would have been almost 700$). Still using them almost 2 years later - ps, they work great

I saw an article on slashdot (or was it wired??) a few months ago about this, I'll see if I can find it.

Personally I just keep running the printer until I see a lack of ink in the prints. I've got an EpsonStylus 3000 that's just sitting in my studio now because the ink costs so damn much and it was always telling me that it was running low or it didn't bother alerting me at all.

lebbeus wrote:I saw an article on slashdot (or was it wired??) a few months ago about this, I'll see if I can find it.

Personally I just keep running the printer until I see a lack of ink in the prints. I've got an EpsonStylus 3000 that's just sitting in my studio now because the ink costs so damn much and it was always telling me that it was running low or it didn't bother alerting me at all.

That'd be great if you can find the article...

On the matter of just printing until the quality gets really low, .. that's just the thing, ...this printer won't even allow me to do that...

@Scott: man, .. that's one hell of a deal. lol...

I personally think that it's just a matter of time before we see a massive class action lawsuit waged over the entire printer industry. I also think that at present, .... there is more than enough evidence against the industry --- seems to be a matter of someone collating it into a proper legal action.

What sucks is that legal action ends up benefiting one species of parasite (errrr, ...attorneys) while you attack another. ..but I guess the real point is changing the industry practices.

Does this look empty ? or at least capable of printing a single 4 x 6 ???
It still feels pretty 'weighty' ... know what I mean ??

Chris I have the same exact thing happen with my Cannon S9000 printer. The damn thing says its out all the time. I mean all the time. It can show the levels as 3/4 full then I come back in a week or so to use it without having done any printing at all, and somehow magically that low ink screen pops up saying 3 of my 5 cartridges are about to run out. I do one or two 8.5 x11 prints and then I get the messeage that locks me out from me even forcing the thing to print.

I really do think there is some kind of counter or something going on in that thing that after x amount of time or prints just to say that its out. My wife wants to throw it out the window. Also if I do a print head cleaning that somehow sucks a 1/4 of the ink levels down in every cartridge according to the printer properties settings. I didnt even know that cleaning the heads is supposed to use ink. I started buying inks from here http://www.cartridgeworld.com/ and have had good luck as long as you have the right paper settings in the printer properties that you have in your tray. The offical cannon inks were a little more forgiving on that.

on my Canon there is first a low ink warning. You can override that. After a long while, there is also a "no" ink warning for the particular cartridge. If it is a color cartridge and I need to print in B&W, then override that warning too.

Hey Eric ...

Sounds like the exact experience....

So yeah, .. cleaning uses a ton of ink, ... its supposed to 'flush' the nozzles. Isn't it convenient that ink gets used to do the job ?

Thomas: which model ?? what's the software version ? I'm never presented with an override option... hmmm...

EDIT: I re-read your post Thomas .... yep, .. that's what it does here too, ..but still the cartridge has more than enough ink to print. Its that damn little microchip on the cartridge .... If I could only reset that thing to think that the cartridge is full, ...then I could at least go back to running out a cartridge until the image is clearly missing that particular color.

Ivox3...

We run a professional photo studio here in Houston and I've gone through several large format Epson printers.

There was a recent settlement (about $80 for me)that found Epson too generous in the amount of ink remaining in "empty" cartridges. Newer models have a much improved counter system and the cartridges I replace have very little ink remaining. I will always want some waste in the system... just not excessive... I would hate to burn out the print heads.

Getting copies of the repair techs manuals and procedures is a real boon for special procedures... but I think things have improved with the latest generation.

$80 huh ? ..... nice. lol.... ..and the lawyers? how'd they make out ?

ivox3 wrote:$80 huh ? ..... nice. lol.... ..and the lawyers? how'd they make out ?

Yep HP does teh same to me but i print out till it runs dry.. the good thing with HP is that teh print head is in the cartridge therefore you can burn them out no worry .. also you can use refill ink and when the cartridge glogs or gets old you toss it out and buy a new one...

the average shopper isn't savy enough to second guess the computer and will go and drop 50 bucks as soon as they see the message


the law suites are rather funny because all the documents printed to make the law suite were probably printed using epson or hp in LOL !!!!

Same here with my Brother printer (half full, yet "empty"), what a piece of shit. I heard printers keep a small remainder in the cartridge to keep the print head from drying out, but half full is clearly a waste and ripoff. I was gonna recommend HP (my father never had any problem with them), but reading the posts here i'm not sure about that either.

My former neighbour said, that you can expect to buy a new printer every 3 years and that there isn't much to do about that. He's running quite expensive models in the 4 digit range.

Some time ago I found that my HP cartridges had an expiration date! It doesn't mind if the cartridge is full or not (it's supposed to avoid the ink to get dry inside the cartridge) after the expiration date has passed you cannot print anymore! . Mine was not even half used so I started a search in hp forums to look for a solution. There were a lot of users going mad there about the same problem, but finally found a solution. The printer needs some kind of battery to store the date when you plug the cartridge so I started to look for the battery and found it (mine was one of those flat and round ones) but it was a bit too hard to reach to take it out so I managed to stick a piece of plastic between the battery and the conector. After that... no more expiring date problems and could print a lot more with that cartridge.

Maybe you are having a similar problem. Look for your battery! It doesn't alter your printer settings.

Good luck!


Edit: an article about that with some pictures: http://www.land.netonecom.net/tlp/ref/l ... inters.php
The battery of my printer was more or less at the same place than the one of the pictures.