Epson "ink is low" ripoff

[Dan C]

What if hellman's designed the squeeze bottle so that it was impossible
to use more than half the mayonnaise? -Dave

I'd imagine that everyone would buy Kraft instead.

 

[Stacey]

oh i see... not the ink monitor, a part of the driver, but the
PRINTERS ink lite.

Exactly, it's done with via hardware not software. I incorrectly assumed
since I was using linux I wouldn't be affected by this scam.

 

[Stacey]

Noozer wrote:

If an ink cartridge says "1000 sheets at 5%" then it should provide 1000
sheets at 5% coverage. Once it does that it can shut off/etc. even if it's
still half full. It met it's requirements.

So your car should shut off and not restart once it goes out of warranty and
the only solution is to replace the engine? This ink rating should be a
-minimum- not all we will allow you to print. I print at draft quality yet
only get print numbers like I was printing photo quality.

 

[Stacey]

I'd imagine that everyone would buy Kraft instead.

Exactly what I plan on doing!

 

[Overlord]

Wow! I did see a site where a guy was trying to decode the chip to reset it
and discovered there was more info than just the "out of ink" code stored.
I bet this BS was what he saw!!!

Yup, I've seen software poll the new ink cartridges and even come up with the
date the cartridge was manufactured and who manufactured it.
I don't mind that.... it's what they do with it.....
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[Noozer]

Would you buy a gallon of milk if you KNEW you could only get

It doesn't though - just like the HP cartridges I buy it specifies a volume
of liquid.


No printer mfr specifies such hard and fast limits on number of sheets...
except apparently Epson?? There's always a rider on such statements that
they are simply a guide to toner/ink consumption *rates*. It's quite clear
from this discussion that the majority believe they are buying a certain
*volume* of ink in a cartridge; if Epson wants to change that they are
apparently on an steep uphill slope.


Absurd analogy. In fact the way tire use really works, it's a good
comparison with ink cartridges as far how it should work. IOW if you drive
moderately, you can expect your tires to last longer than if you drive
hard.

You can't control how hard you drive your printer...

....and you can drive on your tires until their on the steel belts, and you
lose control and crash.

I assume that you don't change your brake pads until the rivets are cutting
into the rotors as well.. To hell with the safety margin! Who cares if
they're squealing as long as there is some pad left!

 

[Stacey]

Noozer wrote:

You can't control how hard you drive your printer...

Sure you can. What do you think "draft quality" or "glossy paper photo
quality" is doing? It's laying down less or more ink. With the linux driver
I'm using, I can adjust the gama of the print as light as I want to use as
little ink per page as I want. But epson has decided that even if I use
less ink per page, I still am only allowed so many pages before I send them
some more money.


BTW abcink.com has a chip resetter that is about the cost of one color
cartridge. I'll bet the way I'm printing (B&W draft quality) I'll reset
those color ones 4-5 times at least before they are really empty..

 

[flap flop]

[snip>

It's not a 'rip off' by the manufacturer, it's a stupid consumer who
doesn't know how to make the math in deciding which printer to buy.
The cheapest ink jet printers are the most expensive ones in their use.

Flip

 

[gothika]

Nope, all the Canon engines are based on multiples of 600.
Only Epson has multiples of 720.

I'm not sure what you mean by that reply.
The fact is Canon did enter into a contract agreement with Epson to
have Epson produce print engines for a number of the Canon "labeled"
printerd in the late 90's.

The number of nozzles is also greater in the Epson,
though it really doesn't make the print any better.

Actually the number of nozzles do make a difference.
You DO have to use a good grade of ink and print on photo grade paper
though.
It just that simple, more nozzles= more dpi.

Do you REALLY think Canon would produce something
for another vendor that would allow that other
vendor to claim better numbers than Canon could??

As a matter of fact they did.
I work in the graphic reproduction field. Been working in the printing
industry for over 30 years with the contacts to go with it.
What experience/factual knowledge do you bring to the table?

 

[gothika]

Don't recall exactly when my canon BJC-8200 came out but it doesn't exibit
any of that grainy mess the earlier bubble jets had. It looks as good on
photo paper as the epson prints I've seen and I'm printing from 30MB down
sampled scans (the original scans are over 300MB) from 4X5 transparencies
so I'm pretty picky about the output.

You got the later Canon tech.
Like I said virtually all the printer companies stepped up R&D to get
their thermal injet technology up to par with what Epson offering.
Since then most all have passed Epson by in numbers and quality.
I have a BJC 6000 which while certainly not as good as your later
model 8200 does a very respectable job as well.(Got it at a flea
market for 10 bucks. The seller had an entire small desktop publishing
setup he was parting out. I got the Canon as well as a HP 3600C which
I paid a mere 5 bucks for.)
The early model Canons(Hp's as well) do exibit a pronounced graininess
when printing halftones or greyscale.
they've corrected that since tho'.
I do professional scanning and photo-reproduction as well as alot of
quark work for commercial printing so I have to have a pretty high bar
when it comes to acceptable output too.
I generally use a drum scanner for the large and medium format images
I have to work with.
I use a commercial plotter for most of my pre-press proof work as
well.( Occasionally my consumer inkjets do a good enough job for the
smaller pre-press work I do. You do have to tweek the drivers to get
accurate print curves though.)
When we went digital back in the mid 90's I tried to use the Epsons
for all my proofing work.
Contrary to all the Epson Rep told me they just weren't up to the job.
(I have a closet full of Epson top end crap. Some day I may dust them
off when I can get aftermarket parts and hardware mods to make them
useable.)
wish I had the nearly 7 grand I spent on all that junk.
I CAN at least warn others here about them though.

 

[gothika]

I looked at canon's site and none of their printers match epsons numbers,
they are now at 4800X1200 for most of their better (over $99) printers.
Maybe at one point they did this but I don't recall it and as I said my
BJC-8200 from just a few years ago makes really nice prints and isn't an
epson clone.

Didn't say it was. I did say that Canon did this with SOME models.(not
all) and then only for a couple of years.

 

[Kevin W.]

I switched to Canon printers when Epson started doing that.

I was gonna do that, but linuxprinting.org strongly recommended not to,
since Canons almost always don't work on Linux (or so they said...).

*sigh* Where's some real info on what's compatible and what's not?

 

[gothika]

I looked at canon's site and none of their printers match epsons numbers,
they are now at 4800X1200 for most of their better (over $99) printers.
Maybe at one point they did this but I don't recall it and as I said my
BJC-8200 from just a few years ago makes really nice prints and isn't an
epson clone.

Try looking at the specs for the BJC 3000
http://consumer.usa.canon.com/ir/co...hSpecsSupportAct&fcategoryid=230&modelid=7971

You'll see the 1440x720 dpi specs.
They did have several other models that were the same.
some in the i series as well as the s series.
Most aren't listed on the Canon site these days as they had third
party support for these.
Don't believe they sold many anyway as most of the sales reps I know
warned their customers off the "Epsons" models.
Like I said Canon soon improved the quality of their own inkjet tech
and passed Epson by.

 

[Blinky the Shark]

BTW abcink.com has a chip resetter that is about the cost of one color
cartridge. I'll bet the way I'm printing (B&W draft quality) I'll reset
those color ones 4-5 times at least before they are really empty..

I saw those (don't remember the brand) in Staples (USan office supply store)
this week. I think they were only about $12.

 

[Blinky the Shark]

I was gonna do that, but linuxprinting.org strongly recommended not to,
since Canons almost always don't work on Linux (or so they said...).

That's odd. Look at how many they show as compatible:

http://www.linuxprinting.org/printer_list.cgi?make=Canon

 

[Noozer]

Noozer wrote:




Sure you can. What do you think "draft quality" or "glossy paper photo
quality" is doing? It's laying down less or more ink.

But it's not working the printer any more or less harder as one would do
with tires.

With the linux driver
I'm using, I can adjust the gama of the print as light as I want to use as
little ink per page as I want. But epson has decided that even if I use
less ink per page, I still am only allowed so many pages before I send them
some more money.

No, they've decided that you use so many droplets of ink before they
cartridge could be at the point of causing an air bubble to gum up the
printhead.

BTW abcink.com has a chip resetter that is about the cost of one color
cartridge. I'll bet the way I'm printing (B&W draft quality) I'll reset
those color ones 4-5 times at least before they are really empty..

Printing in draft should let you print a lot more pages than printing in
normal mode. If it's not, then your printer is defective, the driver is
defecting, or you do an awful lot of cleaning cycles.

 

[Stacey]

But it's not working the printer any more or less harder as one would do
with tires.

Sure it is. Driving harder uses more rubber, printing darker uses more ink.
You can choose which way you want to use what you -paid- for.

No, they've decided that you use so many droplets of ink before they
cartridge could be at the point of causing an air bubble to gum up the
printhead.

Wrong. I weighed a new and "empty" ink well and there is very little if any
ink used from them. The decide how many pages you will get as you said and
even if you NEVER print color, you still have to replace the color ink
wells all at the same time!

Printing in draft should let you print a lot more pages than printing in
normal mode.

Nope, the printer itself is counting pages in hardware on the printer itself
and has no idea how it's being used. Like you said it decides by how many
pages you "paid for" and then shuts down.

If it's not, then your printer is defective,

Yes they all are!

 

[Stacey]

I was gonna do that, but linuxprinting.org strongly recommended not to,
since Canons almost always don't work on Linux (or so they said...).

*sigh* Where's some real info on what's compatible and what's not?

I have to agree, my canon printers never printed photo's very well compared
to how they worked with windows. For printing documents they work fine. I
read HP's work really good with linux and HP supports linux with drivers.

http://hpinkjet.sourceforge.net/

 

[Dave C.]

I have to agree, my canon printers never printed photo's very well
compared

to how they worked with windows. For printing documents they work fine. I
read HP's work really good with linux and HP supports linux with drivers.

http://hpinkjet.sourceforge.net/

With our HP inkjet, we get a low ink warning. We get it months before the
ink actually runs out. But at least it keeps printing until it is REALLY
out of ink. -Dave

 

[George Macdonald]

You can't control how hard you drive your printer...

Know what a printer driver is?... and what it means to you? Every one I've
seen, laser or inkjet has controls for "quality" or "density" or "dpi"...
whatever they want you to think the result will be. You seem to have
missed something established earlier in the thread - GO BACK TO GO.

...and you can drive on your tires until their on the steel belts, and you
lose control and crash.

I guess *YOU* could - not me!

I assume that you don't change your brake pads until the rivets are cutting
into the rotors as well.. To hell with the safety margin! Who cares if
they're squealing as long as there is some pad left!

Hmmm, quite the little ru... err... ant!

Rgds, George Macdonald

"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??