Waste Printer Ink Now Or Waste Ink Later

[easysurfer]

I like my tank type printer. That is, until it encounters an ink clog.

Yesterday as I was printing on my Epson Echotank printer, I noticed the print nozzles were clogged. In particular, the Yellow ink was totally clogged in that when I did the printer's nozzle check print, there were no test lines at all.

I ended up having not choice but to run ink clean cycles to clear the clog. Now the nozzle check is clean but I noticed from the cleaning, my tank's ink level dropped about 1 cm. Such a waste.

Now I'm decided to try print out an ink "Purge Sheet" each morning to keep the ink flowing. This too I'm sure is wasteful, but hopefully this will waste less than having to do the clean cycles.

 

[O2Bfree]

I've owned a couple printers but printed so infrequently that I often had to deal with clogs. Gave up on home printers, and now just use the printers at the library. Usually need to print only four-six times a year, so it's no big deal to go there. I can print 70 B&W pages per week or 14 color pages. Twice those amounts if I use DH's card too.

 

[Texas Proud]

I do not think you need to print every day.... probably once a week is all you need...


I had to do the major clean run twice to get mine cleared... but I think I print enough to keep it clean...

 

[easysurfer]

I do not think you need to print every day.... probably once a week is all you need...


I had to do the major clean run twice to get mine cleared... but I think I print enough to keep it clean...

I'm going to start out once a day for about a month (that's a lot of paper wasted too ). If no clogs, then decrease the frequency til I find the sweet spot.

I tried once a week earlier with this printer. Not the purge sheet but the nozzle check. That worked for a few months when printer was new, then started getting clogs. The purge sheet uses more ink than the nozzle check page.

 

[Texas Proud]

Just checked mine and my YELLOW is clogged...


Going to blame you...

 

[easysurfer]

Just checked mine and my YELLOW is clogged...


Going to blame you...

I apologize for jinxing you .

 

[audreyh1]

Sorry, we had clogs last week! But I think three cleanings got things back to normal.

 

[easysurfer]

Sorry, we had clogs last week! But I think three cleanings got things back to normal.

Did the three cleanings make a noticeable drop in the ink levels?

 

[audreyh1]

Did the three cleanings make a noticeable drop in the ink levels?

Didn’t really notice a big drop in ink levels. We still have plenty of ink. We’ve had this printer over 3 years I think, just that initial fill, and color levels are around 75% and black a little above 50%.

 

[easysurfer]

Didn’t really notice a big drop in ink levels. We still have plenty of ink. We’ve had this printer over 3 years I think, just that initial fill, and color levels are around 75% and black a little above 50%.

I think there was a noticeable drop in ink levels for me. I had to run 3 cleans to undo the clog. At least the unclog worked before needed a power clean at that really takes a lot of ink.

I've owned the printer almost 3 years. Have gone through the original bottles that came with printer. Now on a set purchased on my own. Granted, I have printed a few camera manuals hundreds of pages long.

 

[audreyh1]

I think there was a noticeable drop in ink levels for me. I had to run 3 cleans to undo the clog. At least the unclog worked before needed a power clean at that really takes a lot of ink.

I've owned the printer almost 3 years. Have gone through the original bottles that came with printer. Now on a set purchased on my own. Granted, I have printed a few camera manuals hundreds of pages long.

Interesting. When we got the printer it came with a second set of ink bottles which remain untouched. You’ve definitely been printing way more than us.

We have a laser writer for black and white, but we make copies, do scans etc. with the Ecotank. Recently I printed several color prints - train tickets on A4 paper.

 

[easysurfer]

Interesting. When we got the printer it came with a second set of ink bottles which remain untouched. You’ve definitely been printing way more than us.

We have a laser writer for black and white, but we make copies, do scans etc. with the Ecotank. Recently I printed several color prints - train tickets on A4 paper.

I've also printed out several photos too. Those are probably the biggest ink users. Even more than the camera manuals. With this printer, I decided to go cold turkey and parted with a couple of laser printers as I just didn't have the room to keep them. It's now tank printer or bust for me.

 

[audreyh1]

The train tickets are multi-color, but not as dense as color photos.

We have a third fine art printer for those!

 

[Texas Proud]

I did a power clean awhile back when I went a month or more without printing...


The clean did not work... will do another...


BTW surfer... I was joking... but my friend showed up for the game and I hit send... so it sounded bad on my last post...

 

[The Cosmic Avenger]

This is why I'm thinking of investing in a color laser printer. There's a highly rated Brother model (MFC-L3770CDW) available for around $600, and while I could spend less on a couple of good inkjets, it would be nice to never have to worry about test pages and cleaning nozzles again.

 

[USGrant1962]

This is why I'm thinking of investing in a color laser printer. There's a highly rated Brother model (MFC-L3770CDW) available for around $600, and while I could spend less on a couple of good inkjets, it would be nice to never have to worry about test pages and cleaning nozzles again.

Great printer, but I had to look after seeing your $600 number. I bought mine in 2019 at Best Buy for $330. So there's a datapoint for the inflation thread.

 

[Texas Proud]

This is why I'm thinking of investing in a color laser printer. There's a highly rated Brother model (MFC-L3770CDW) available for around $600, and while I could spend less on a couple of good inkjets, it would be nice to never have to worry about test pages and cleaning nozzles again.

What does the ink cost? For the ecotank it is cheap and I can live with a regular clean or a power clean every once in awhile...


BTW, I do have a color laser printer but it does not come close to the quality of the ecotank for pictures... one of the reason that I got it... DW and DD complained...

 

[Texas Proud]

AND.... I got my yellow color back!!!


it did not seem to take that much ink either...

 

[easysurfer]

AND.... I got my yellow color back!!!


it did not seem to take that much ink either...

Good to see you back in business!

 

[The Cosmic Avenger]

What does the ink cost? For the ecotank it is cheap and I can live with a regular clean or a power clean every once in awhile...


BTW, I do have a color laser printer but it does not come close to the quality of the ecotank for pictures... one of the reason that I got it... DW and DD complained...

Looks like $50-60 for 3rd party toner (CMYK + 2 black carts) to $2-300+ for the same thing but Brother brand.

 

[harley]

This is why I'm thinking of investing in a color laser printer. There's a highly rated Brother model (MFC-L3770CDW) available for around $600, and while I could spend less on a couple of good inkjets, it would be nice to never have to worry about test pages and cleaning nozzles again.

Great printer, but I had to look after seeing your $600 number. I bought mine in 2019 at Best Buy for $330. So there's a datapoint for the inflation thread.

I got so tired of the clogs and wasted ink that I went to a color laser printer. The cartridges are more expensive, but they never clog and last nearly forever.

I used to get a Dealnews newsletter each day, that searched the web for good deals. Using that I was able to find color printers on sale in the < $200 range. I have two, for multiple houses. One is a Dell e525 that I like a lot. But they don't make those anymore. The other is a Canon MFC642C. I love it. It's a bit slow and noisy, but it produces great color prints, and does automatic 2 sided printing. With the Dell I have to feed the pages back through to get two sided copies.

Neither of them cost even $200. They give you starter cartridges that last pretty long. But after the first (expensive) cartridge replacement, they last a really long time without ever drying up.

 

[Texas Proud]

Looks like $50-60 for 3rd party toner (CMYK + 2 black carts) to $2-300+ for the same thing but Brother brand.

Just did a quick check and the ecotank is about $20 to $30 for 5 bottles of ink.. 3 color and 2 black...



I am about 2 years in and still on my original ink... I got two bottles of all colors and 3 or 4 bottles of black... just checked and have 4 not even opened...


As I said, cleaning every once in awhile is cheap...

 

[Qs Laptop]

I like my tank type printer. That is, until it encounters an ink clog.

Yesterday as I was printing on my Epson Echotank printer, I noticed the print nozzles were clogged. In particular, the Yellow ink was totally clogged in that when I did the printer's nozzle check print, there were no test lines at all.

I ended up having not choice but to run ink clean cycles to clear the clog. Now the nozzle check is clean but I noticed from the cleaning, my tank's ink level dropped about 1 cm. Such a waste.

Now I'm decided to try print out an ink "Purge Sheet" each morning to keep the ink flowing. This too I'm sure is wasteful, but hopefully this will waste less than having to do the clean cycles.

Wow, a drop of 1 cm? That's an insanely large amount of ink to use for cleaning!

My old Canon Pixma printer (RIP) would get clogged from irregular usage. I would then need to run a cleaning cycle and yes, it was a waste of ink.

To stop the waste I decided to print a test page every Monday morning. In order to remember I would put a recurring reminder in my calendar. It definitely worked to stop the printer from wasting ink from cleanings, but sure seemed like a hassle. Eventually the Canon printer died and I was rid of the practice.

 

[easysurfer]

Wow, a drop of 1 cm? That's an insanely large amount of ink to use for cleaning!

My old Canon Pixma printer (RIP) would get clogged from irregular usage. I would then need to run a cleaning cycle and yes, it was a waste of ink.

To stop the waste I decided to print a test page every Monday morning. In order to remember I would put a recurring reminder in my calendar. It definitely worked to stop the printer from wasting ink from cleanings, but sure seemed like a hassle. Eventually the Canon printer died and I was rid of the practice.

I did have to run 3 print cycles to clear the clog. At least the clog cleared before needing a power clean as that wastes even more ink. I'm guessing if I printed a purge page (like this: https://jennifermaker.com/wp-content/uploads/printer-purge-sheet.pdf) every morning, that should take care of any future clogs (note the word "should"). Yes, then there is wasted paper too. Pay now or pay later.

My next task is to find some type of automation to automatically print the purge page on a schedule to not have to manually do the print. But no luck finding a good solution yet.

 

[audreyh1]

We have not seen that size of drop. Even after running three cleanings. Confused.