I want to smash my Epson printer into a million pieces

[jæd]

Why not just buy a newer, better and perhaps non-Epson printer...? Compaq seem quite good at the moment.

 

[editor]

Why not just buy a newer, better and perhaps non-Epson printer...? Compaq seem quite good at the moment.

Because, as my article explains, I'd just bought a pile of ink for the old one.

 

[jæd]

Because, as my article explains, I'd just bought a pile of ink for the old one.

Sell ink + printer on Ebay...? Buy less annoying printer. Tranquility achieved...!

 

[editor]

Sell ink + printer on Ebay...? Buy less annoying printer. Tranquility achieved...!

I honestly couldn't put anyone through what I've been through with that printer.

And it's just managed a perfect print. Finally.

Thing is, I hate this 'throwaway' consumerism and try to stick with things if I can, but as soon as the ink has run out, that printer is going to meet a hammer.

 

[Hocus Eye.]

For those who want to re-fill Epson ink cartridges or just get rid of false 'cartridge empty' error message the utility posted earlier in this thread by Addy works. It also has other useful functions including a powerful cleaning mode (if you can spare the ink) Here is a link:

http://geocities.com/addict2_uk/epsomutility.zip

 

[mhendo]

And now it won't let me clean the black ink head because the colour inks are low.

But I'm printing a black and white document and there's loads of black ink in there you stupid fucking piece of shit.

Why, I oughta...

There should be a law against making printers that require both the colour and the black ink to be full in order to print plain black text. I had this problem on my old Epson, and it drove me insane.

Epsons, and some other inkjet brands, are notorious for using shitloads of ink on every cleaning cycle. Some estimates are that at least half of the ink in each cartridge just gets flushed out during cleaning. The printers themselves are so cheap nowdays that the companies essentially see them as giveaways, and focus on making money through selling ink cartridges. That's also why they do things like requiring that all cartridges have ink, even if you only want to print black. It's a scam.

In the end, we gave up. I don't print out my digital photos at home, and very rarely needed any sort of colour whatsoever. My partner and i are both grad students, and 98% of our printing consists of word processing documents, pdf files, text-heavy web pages, and stuff like that.

We got ourselves a mono laser printer, the Samsung ML2010. It cost us $US50, including a starter cartridge that was good for about 800-1000 pages. The full cartridges cost anywhere from $40-80 (depending on if you get a remanufactured one or a new one), but they print about 3000-4000 pages. Even at $80, that's 2c a page, which is much better than i was getting from the inkjet.

And, once it goes through the 15 second warm-up process, the Samsung pumps out 22 pages a minute.

Not much good if you need colour, or if you require a large on-board memory (it only has 8Mb), but i've never had a better printer.

 

[bouncer_the_dog]

I found this:

http://www.eddiem.com/photo/CIS/inkchip/chip.html

It seems those chips don't actually know how much ink is there... bastards!!

I'm looking for an Epson chip resetter now. Anyone ever used one?

http://www.inkjetcartridges.com/epson-resetter-CREPSON.html

 

[Cid]

Why not just buy a newer, better and perhaps non-Epson printer...? Compaq seem quite good at the moment.

Because Epson make the best photo printers by quite a long way... Well, some Canon and HP models are on a par, but generally speaking Epson quality will have the edge over them. Unfortunately Epson (and, lets be fair here, every other printer manufacturer) are absolutely profit driven so the software that comes with their printers is EVIL. It'll register a tank as empty when it's still got some left in it, it'll clean your printer heads 15-20 times and not actually tell you where the hell all the ink's gone (where does it go btw? My old Epson has swallowed nigh on half a cartridge before) - if it's just being discharged into the foam or something is that not enourmously counter productive? It'll do silly things and just be generally unfreindly.

Photo printers are a bit of a different world - laser is pretty much a no-go if you want decent prints, so you're stuck with the inefficient world of inkjets... btw ed, if it's any consolation I had exactly the same problem with my Epson C62. Using a (rather sick) R2400 now, but it's only a matter of time (and a full cartridge change costs about £80 ).

 

[mack]

but as soon as the ink has run out, that printer is going to meet a hammer.

Hope your going to capture the moment for us!

 

[Loki]

Smash it outside Woolies so we can watch it on Crispy's webcam

 

[Stanley Edwards]

I spend more time cleaning my Epson printheads than printing. It's indegestion inducingly fucking time and money wasting hell. Supposed to be fully automated. Go away and do something worthwhile.

If the paper doesn't jam then the heads get clogged.

The very best printer I ever had was some really clunky but, mechanically solid dye transfer printer. Used uneconomical wax ribbons but, the blacks were the densist blacks ever. The lines were the crispest lines ever. And, it printed metallic colours! Ultra cool and probably the reason it's no longer around - made fucking convincing bank notes (so I'm told).

Can't even remember the make.

 

[Hocus Eye.]

I found this:

http://www.eddiem.com/photo/CIS/inkchip/chip.html

It seems those chips don't actually know how much ink is there... bastards!!

I'm looking for an Epson chip resetter now. Anyone ever used one?

http://www.inkjetcartridges.com/epson-resetter-CREPSON.html

The link I posted above somewhere contains software for re-setting a range of Epson and other manufacturers chips. It even reports on a method for disabling older chips by blocking one of the contacts. Here is the link (originally posted by Addy) again:-

http://geocities.com/addict2_uk/epsomutility.zip

The helpfile for this software also explains what the Epson printer does with the ink when it cleans the head. Apparently there is room behind the sponge for ink to remain in. You can replace the cleaning sponges but I don't know where you would get them from.

 

[cybertect]

i have not had any technical problems with hp printers though out the years, just once the paper feeder was broken by accident by someone

HP hardware rocks.

Unfortunately, due to the karmic nature of the Universe, their software drivers tend to suck a lot.

 

[jæd]

HP hardware rocks.

Unfortunately, due to the karmic nature of the Universe, their software drivers tend to suck a lot.

Yes... The last HP printer I had had a driver than stopped Microsoft Word from opening. Before the printer driver was un-installed Word would (occasionally) crash on start-up... Removing the printer driver made Word reliable again...

 

[Cid]

As a tranquil peace-loving person, let me spread my positive experience..

1) I have always founded one particular much cheaper brand of replacement cartridge works great for my Epson--and buy same in industrial quantiies, helped by a perennial buy one get one free offer. They don't always send exactly what you order first time, but do eventually.

2) I have had that problem of banding/poor quality with Epson. The way I always resolve it is to change and charge up each cartridge even when it doesn't show up empty or near to it--I strongly suspect (know) those icons aren't accurate a lot of the time. I do keep getting asked do I want to use non-Epson cartridges, & I say yes, and there is no problem. This strategy works in large part because the cartridges used are so cheap. Maybe logically it shouldn't work, but it does.

I get 'are you sure you want to use this?' messages from cartridges ordered off the fucking Epson website...

 

[editor]

Ah, the memories this brings back.

After putting up ,with random horizontal lines from all my Samsung laser printer and never finding a solution, this video inspired me to replace the drum unit for £17.

I will report back shortly, but expectations - tampered by decades of frustration with printers - are low.

 

[editor]

I'd forgotten two things:

The Epsom printer was the reason why the angry man emoticon was created

And that I also wrote a published article about it - and these sections still hold true for my Samsung:

Mind you, it won't forget about those documents that it's refused to print, so even when I've cancelled the print run and sent it to another printer and rebooted my PC, the Epson will suddenly spring into life - sometimes days later - and churn out endless copies of a cancelled document that it's been secretly harbouring in its cache.

It knows when things are urgent
One thing I can guarantee with near 100% certainly is that the really big printer problems will rear their head whenever there's some sort of urgency involved.

About to go out and need to print off map directions? Cue instant printer meltdown!
Need to print out a letter in time for the last post? What better time for a random error message to appear!
Have to send off an urgent document? The perfect time for the ink readout to go from 75% to zero mid-print!

 

[editor]

Update: it actually worked!

 

[weltweit]

I gave up printing at home long time ago.

Now if I want photo prints I drive to a local shop and they print them for me.

 

[A380]