HP's 'free ink for life' plan is over because some scams are legal

[CarlBar]

3 hours ago, Monkey Dust said:

At work our accounts software won't acknowledge it's properly raised an invoice unless it is printed. The printed copies no longer serve a purpose, working from home forced the hands of the few hold outs who liked to receive their invoices by post, but our ancient accounts software insists they must be printed regardless. On the rare occasions when we venture into the office these days we have to recycle large wedges of invoices, 100s of the bastards, without them even being looked at. That aside, covid has certainly hurried up a move to paperless.

 

Dump the printed paper back into the printer, if you don't need them then re-use the paper, will make for a nice saving.

[Mark Kaine]

8 hours ago, Jet_ski said:

lost two HP all in ones, $500 each, bc the ink dried inside them...

mine was like 80......

10 hours ago, AlwaysWong said:

DO YOU HAVE ANY PRINTER RECOMMENDATION? My HP inkjet 6520

 

I just checked, I don't have a inkjet, I have a officejet... 

 

 

works fine since it was released, so about 15(I guess? )yrs ago, the original cartridge didn't last long, but the "no name" cartridge I bought afterwards for 12 bucks or so still lasts! if you're buying original cartridges you're doing it wrong, you're only supposed to buy the printer and not fall for their 50 bucks / cartridge scam...

 

 

It's stashed away, still works tho and I actually use it occasionally too... 

 

[RTX 3090]

14 hours ago, Caroline said:

Epson machines are by far the worse

I have a WF2750 with refillable cartridges

Not reliable, quality not too good, but when it does work the cost per page is pretty cheap

So long as you have a bottle of printer flush (ethanol and some other stuff), you should be fine most occasions

[RTX 3090]

6 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

you're only supposed to buy the printer and not fall for their 50 bucks / cartridge scam...

 

Agree 100%. 

Some printers cost £30 and their cartridges cost £35. At that point you could sell the printer and buy a new one, with cartridges, earn some money too 

[mariushm]

15 hours ago, Gamer Schnitzel said:

I never understand why anyone even uses paper. I essentially never ever use paper, not at work, not at home, nowhere. What do people still use paper for? Even students these days use laptops, don't they? Blows my mind.

In some places it's a legal requirement.

For example, someone i know deals with business loans (loaning companies up to hundreds of thousands of dollars/euro) which companies guarantee with buildings and equipment they own - the company he woeks for is legally required to keep hard copies of everything for up to around 10 years AFTER loan is paid back... and they legally have to update interest rates every 3 or 6 months and send hard copies to the company and keep a signed copy in their records,  and re-evaluate the value of buildings and equipment once a year and keep those paid evaluations in the records... it adds up to a lot of paper.

They go through thousands of pages a month, but those semi-professional black and white laser printers that can do A3 and A4, scan, fax, print double sided, remove staples, all that shit.

Printer's probably worth around 3-5000$ but I saw a toner for it, it's like a 2-3 liter bottle of toner you just twist into a compartment in the printer, no drm and crap.

 

 

[Quinnell]

I hate printers.  And printer companies.  They're absolute garbage.  I really need to get a laser printer...

[Mihle]

16 hours ago, Gamer Schnitzel said:

I never understand why anyone even uses paper. I essentially never ever use paper, not at work, not at home, nowhere. What do people still use paper for? Even students these days use laptops, don't they? Blows my mind.

At school to become an automation electrician or whatever it is called in English, our teacher required us to print out the wiring diagrams to work from that.

Working as an automation electrician, there needs to be one copy of the wiring diagrams and some other documentation in the automation cabinets or whatever its called in English. If you need to check the wiring diagrams in one its faster to grab that than getting the digital version.

 

Both situations I only use the printer that was at school or at work tho, didnt use any printer at home. Those printers at school and work is the kind that is very big.

[GoodBytes]

18 hours ago, Godlygamer23 said:

I have an HP printer that I received for free, and it doesn't have any yellow ink, and it literally won't let me print at all, even in gray scale, because it's out of yellow ink. Pretty frustrating. Selecting specifically gray scale in the printer settings does nothing as well. It's really frustrating because it makes people spend more money than they might need to. 

That is made on purpose. So, you buy and install Yellow ink... then by the time you print color, one of your colors will dry out and now you'll have to change that cartridge. In other words, this ensures that people who don't print with colors much or at all, are still forced to changed their color inks.

[AlwaysWong]

4 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

mine was like 80......

 

I just checked, I don't have a inkjet, I have a officejet... 

 

 

works fine since it was released, so about 15(I guess? )yrs ago, the original cartridge didn't last long, but the "no name" cartridge I bought afterwards for 12 bucks or so still lasts! if you're buying original cartridges you're doing it wrong, you're only supposed to buy the printer and not fall for their 50 bucks / cartridge scam...

 

 

It's stashed away, still works tho and I actually use it occasionally too... 

 

Oh. I didnt know that

[GoodBytes]

18 hours ago, minibois said:

Printers in general are a scam, but this one sounds even worse than most.

How far have we as humanity fallen, to make placing some ink on paper so difficult.

 

So expensive for no reason and it just does not work. These printers smell fear and just won't print (or scan) when they feel like you need them the most.

 

As humanity we should move away from paper in general, especially because we use so much cardboard in general for product packaging.

 

I had excellent experience with Laser Printers, especially from Brother.

I won't claim that they are perfect, but provide a lot of tools software and hardware to keep the printer working better for longer.

You also have (at least on my printer model), the ability to force print regardless of the ink status. This option is also kept in memory. No beeps, no warning to pass through, nothing. You turn it on to allow you to get that last drop of "ink" (toner), or use the old drum, and you get what you get.

 

In addition, if you don't print a lot, or even rarely, the beauty is that a laser printer "ink", is already dry.... soooo... there is no worry on that.

The only issue is that you don't have color... but is it really an issue? Many consumers think they'll need it, use it at first a few times, then most of time print in black and white. Sure, it would be nice to have, sometimes, be able to print in color, but each time, you probably will need to buy color ink. Might as well drive to printer shop and have it print it there. Costs less, and you'll get nicer results.

 

As for paper jam and issues like this. Well HP, Epson, etc. haven't really innovated printer design since ages. It is pretty much the same mechanical system with just a different processor/specs/inputs board, and they really focus more on the outside look. 

[Godlygamer23]

1 hour ago, GoodBytes said:

That is made on purpose. So, you buy and install Yellow ink... then by the time you print color, one of your colors will dry out and now you'll have to change that cartridge. In other words, this ensures that people who don't print with colors much or at all, are still forced to changed their color inks.

Yeah I know it's on purpose. It's scummy for any manufacturer to do that.

[Distinctly Average]

On 12/6/2020 at 12:33 AM, Letgomyleghoe said:

even those are fucked, the toner cartridges are insanely expensive, for laser, and run out in a heartbeat. Also, as the toner runs out the image quality gets worse and worse, until it's just washed out.

Not really. The toner running out does not change the quality of the print as it is a measurable quantity. What happens is toner is mixed at around 3% to a developer media, usually fine iron filings. That is just a carrier and stays at the same 3% level. If it drips below that the printer will refuse to print. 
 

Developer does get used up and lost, but generally hat takes a lot of toner cartridges to do that. Then we have a drum or belt depending on model, that is where the latent image is produced and can be damaged by almost anything including light. We also have a transfer unit which is basically a high charged surface that sucks the latent image to the paper. It then goes through a fuser, hot rollers that fuse the toner powder to the paper. Finally there is a discharge roller or wire that removes any charge from the paper before it is ejected.

 

Sometimes the pre fuser components are an all in one cart, sometimes not.

 

Most fading I caused bey either low developer, or a dirty or worn transfer surface, not toner running out.

 

Many laser printers are cheaper to run than inkjet, especially mono ones. However, each consumable is expensive. Wen had the transfer unit or belt, toner carts, developer units, drums, fuser, waste toner bottle, discharge roller etc. While the cost per page is lower than inkjet, it is easy to suddenly get some nasty bills.

 

As for inkjets, we all know the actual printer is a loss leader. Would you rather pay a lot for the printer then very little for the ink? Printer companies started with the former sales model and it is hard for them to change, many brands have tried with expensive printers that have external bottles of cheaper ink that you can simply refill. They don’t sell too well as people see the cheap model and just go that route.

 

Here in the UK the average cost for a mono laser print is under 2p per page, colour laser is 12-26p, inkjet is about 45p per A4 page. All these costs are for a gives coverage of the paper, IIRC 15%. So printing photos is expensive compared to documents.

 

There is one brand that region coded their printers and consumables. So you could not for instance buy cheaper OEM toner from another country and use it in your printer. Now that is scummy IMO.

 

As you may have guessed, I once worked in the industry covering most of the brands from small inkjets to massive continuous feed printers the size of a house. 

[Distinctly Average]

On 12/6/2020 at 6:49 PM, GoodBytes said:

 

As for paper jam and issues like this. Well HP, Epson, etc. haven't really innovated printer design since ages. It is pretty much the same mechanical system with just a different processor/specs/inputs board, and they really focus more on the outside look. 

Most paper issues are either caused by dust, poor loading, or using the wrong paper.  Most people don’t realise paper has a grain alignment. This means it fields better either lengthwise or width wise. If you look at a box of paper it will usually say long edge or short edge in the specs. Using the wrong one can result in jams, as can paper that is too light, or too heavy or even too shiny. That last one is especially true in laser printers that use hot fusion as toner sticks to the fuser and builds up until the fuser is knackered, 

[Trik'Stari]

24 minutes ago, Distinctly Average said:

Not really. The toner running out does not change the quality of the print as it is a measurable quantity. What happens is toner is mixed at around 3% to a developer media, usually fine iron filings. That is just a carrier and stays at the same 3% level. If it drips below that the printer will refuse to print. 
 

Developer does get used up and lost, but generally hat takes a lot of toner cartridges to do that. Then we have a drum or belt depending on model, that is where the latent image is produced and can be damaged by almost anything including light. We also have a transfer unit which is basically a high charged surface that sucks the latent image to the paper. It then goes through a fuser, hot rollers that fuse the toner powder to the paper. Finally there is a discharge roller or wire that removes any charge from the paper before it is ejected.

 

Sometimes the pre fuser components are an Allen one cart, sometimes not.

 

Most fading I caused bey either low developer, or a dirty or worn transfer surface, not toner running out.

 

Many laser printers are cheaper to run than inkjet, especially mono ones. However, each consumable is expensive. Wen had the transfer unit or belt, toner carts, developer units, drums, fuser, waste toner bottle, discharge roller etc. While the cost per page is lower than inkjet, it is easy to suddenly get some nasty bills.

 

As for inkjets, we all know the actual printer is a loss leader. Would you rather pay a lot for the printer then very little for the ink? Printer companies started with the former sales model and it is hard for them to change, many brands have tried with expensive printers that have external bottles of cheaper ink that you can simply refill. They don’t sell too well as people see the cheap model and just go that route.

 

Here in the UK the average cost for a mono laser print is under 2p per page, colour laser is 12-26p, inkjet is about 45p per A4 page. All these costs are for a gives coverage of the paper, IIRC 15%. So printing photos is expensive compared to documents.

 

There is one brand that region coded their printers and consumables. So you could not for instance buy cheaper OEM toner from another country and use it in your printer. Now that is scummy IMO.

 

As you may have guessed, I once worked in the industry covering most of the brands from small inkjets to massive continuous feed printers the size of a house. 

Where does one acquire such arcane learnings as the ways of printers? As it occurs to me, that being able to service and repair such devices might provide better recompense than my current profession.

[Master Disaster]

A few years back now when I worked in a small local PC shop we used to sell these DIRT cheap Epson IJ printers, IIRC they were £24.99 and came with half full colour and black "starter" cartridges in the box.

 

The replacement cartridges for the thing were like £44.99 for a full set.

 

It was literally cheaper to just throw the printer away and buy a new one than it was to buy new ink for it.

[Distinctly Average]

10 minutes ago, Trik'Stari said:

Where does one acquire such arcane learnings as the ways of printers? As it occurs to me, that being able to service and repair such devices might provide better recompense than my current profession.

I just fell into it. Started working on mainframe printers and it became quite lucrative. I specialised in big machines and was considered a bit of an expert. It meant I did almost nothing and got paid to sit around only being called in for emergencies, or as a trainer. Did it for about 10 years then things changed so I moved into enterprise IT and mainframe support with a shed load of storage systems. Had a lot of learning but am still in the position of getting paid to be available for emergencies.

 

Learning printers is not that hard really. Learn the basics of ripping things apart and putting them back together, learn the basic fundamentals of how they work and you can blag your way into a job. It pays well and is in great demand. I did have a good background in electronics but that really is not needed. I studied electronics and physics and made money as a student buying broken TVs and videos from the dump, fixing them and flogging to other students. So working on printers was an easy change. In my years as a trainer I trained chefs, postmen, ex army etc for their new career. Usually it took about three months on the job and they were ready go it alone.

[Evanair]

On 12/6/2020 at 6:33 AM, RTX 3090 said:

Agree 100%. 

Some printers cost £30 and their cartridges cost £35. At that point you could sell the printer and buy a new one, with cartridges, earn some money too 

Yeah this doesn't work.  "Starter Ink" comes in the box, it only has about 5% of the ink a full set does.  You are almost required to buy both a printer and a full ink set.