occasional use color printer

[Andrew]

Hi - I have a b&w laser printer on which I do the majority of my printing
....
and it does it very well...
about once a other day I need to print something in color ...
I had a canon I550 for this and it was very good ... but th print heads have
gone in less than 18months... (definately gone... on black... even took it
to
a specialist who cleaned them in an ultrasonic bath) ...
I could have been unlucky... but suspect its the infrequent use that killed
it...

I was think of buying a canon IP3000... but also looking at lexmark z815 or
epson (r300, c86)
Any suggestions ... want cheap running costs without clogging?
Thanks for your help
Andrew

 

[Stapleton]

I'm in the same boat as you. Do the majority of printing on a b&w laser.
Use my color very infrequently, could be as little as every 4-6 months.
Have found from experience that the only models that won't clog are H-P and
Lexmark. My personal preference is H-P. If you don't print every few days
on Canon and Epson they WILL clog.

 

[Hecate]

Hi - I have a b&w laser printer on which I do the majority of my printing
...
and it does it very well...
about once a other day I need to print something in color ...
I had a canon I550 for this and it was very good ... but th print heads have
gone in less than 18months... (definately gone... on black... even took it
to
a specialist who cleaned them in an ultrasonic bath) ...
I could have been unlucky... but suspect its the infrequent use that killed
it...

Fir *infrequent* use (but only for that because of the cost of
cartridges) you should at HP.

 

[Pete]

I'm in the same boat as you. Do the majority of printing on a b&w laser.
Use my color very infrequently, could be as little as every 4-6 months.
Have found from experience that the only models that won't clog are H-P and
Lexmark. My personal preference is H-P. If you don't print every few days
on Canon and Epson they WILL clog.

Funny... My experience has been different. I've had an Epson Photo 750
for about four years now, and I guess I definitely class as an occasional
user, but I have very little trouble with clogging.

It can typically go two or three months without use, and yes, I have
found some of the nozzles clogged after that, but they've always
cleaned right up (at the cost of some ink, of course). And as I just
discussed in another thread, I've been having a few paper-feed erraticities,
but Arthur Entlich's recommended procedure seems to have fixed that.

On the other hand, the Canon we had at the lab was always clogging,
and it seemed to eat ink when left alone (switched on or not)! It
was banished to a back shelf a couple of years ago.

-- Pete --

 

[Arthur Entlich]

I honestly do not know why this type of usage would kill a print head.
Clog it, maybe, but kill it....

Determining which is appropriate may depend in part on the climate you
live in. For someplace that isn't excessively dry, Epson printers can
go a week or more without clogs (especially the dye inks).

Of course, HP has a head in each cartridge for the most part, so that
might also be an option, since the very worse that can occur is that you
have to buy a new cartridges should it clog up. But any inkjet printer
should be able to tolerate being used every other day. You can expect
to use up a lot of ink that way, however, since printer start up is a
fairly large ink user. Even if it only used 1% of the ink in the
cartridge each time, the cartridges would be used up in 100 starts
without any being used for printing.

Art

 

[Arthur Entlich]

Epson printers vary both in design model per model and also in terms of
tolerances within each model. I find there can be a wide variation.

Secondly, climate (humidity level, heat, dust or dirt) seem to have
their effects upon inkjet printers.

Art