Which inkjet manufacturers printers cause the least hassle when using non-OEM cartridges - UK buyer

[Colin Reddish]

Question as in subject.

I am aware that the current Canon printers require the chips to be
transferred to be able to uses non-OEM compatible cartridges, and that this
results in loss of ink monitoring. I've been using an iP4200 for over a year
now using this procedure and am happy with it, but I'm now looking to
recommend a printer to a relative who would find this procedure difficult.
Do any of the other manufacturers, particularly Epson still make printers
with less difficulty in using non-OEM cartridges? Cost is also an issue so
would probably rule out HP as only more expensive re-manufactured carts are
available I believe.

Thanks for any advice.

 

[measekite]

Question as in subject.

I am aware that the current Canon printers require the chips to be
transferred to be able to uses non-OEM compatible cartridges, and that this
results in loss of ink monitoring.

Why are you looking for a headache when you can use Canon ink and get
better quality results that last longer and keep the opportunity to ruin
your printer to a minimum.

I've been using an iP4200 for over a year
now using this procedure and am happy with it, but I'm now looking to
recommend a printer to a relative You must not like that person/
who would find this procedure difficult.
Do any of the other manufacturers, particularly Epson still make printers
with less difficulty in using non-OEM cartridges? Cost is also an issue

Cost is an issue with almost everything.

 

[DanG]

Question as in subject.

I am aware that the current Canon printers require the chips to be
transferred to be able to uses non-OEM compatible cartridges, and that
this results in loss of ink monitoring. I've been using an iP4200 for over
a year now using this procedure and am happy with it, but I'm now looking
to recommend a printer to a relative who would find this procedure
difficult. Do any of the other manufacturers, particularly Epson still
make printers with less difficulty in using non-OEM cartridges? Cost is
also an issue so would probably rule out HP as only more expensive
re-manufactured carts are available I believe.

Thanks for any advice.

There are no current printers that use chip-less tanks. The Epsons can use
compatible tanks, but you need to be VERY careful that you get the right
revision of tanks for the printer, Epson likes to switch chip systems
without warning. Still kind of a no-go for the printer-noob. If you buy the
Canon tanks in the 4-pack from Amazon for $40, the cost isn't as bad and
will be WAY cheaper still than feeding an Epson.

 

[measekite]

DanG wrote:

"Colin Reddish" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:[email protected]...



Question as in subject. I am aware that the current Canon printers require the chips to be transferred to be able to uses non-OEM compatible cartridges, and that this results in loss of ink monitoring. I've been using an iP4200 for over a year now using this procedure and am happy with it, but I'm now looking to recommend a printer to a relative who would find this procedure difficult. Do any of the other manufacturers, particularly Epson still make printers with less difficulty in using non-OEM cartridges? Cost is also an issue so would probably rule out HP as only more expensive re-manufactured carts are available I believe. Thanks for any advice. -- Colin Reddish



There are no current printers that use chip-less tanks. The Epsons can use compatible tanks, but you need to be VERY careful that you get the right revision of tanks for the printer, Epson likes to switch chip systems without warning.

Why should they warn people.  They are in no danger from a chip.


Still kind of a no-go for the printer-noob. If you buy the Canon tanks in the 4-pack from Amazon for $40,

I buy 4 Canon tanks for $36.00 and they come filled with Canon ink.  What a joke.


the cost isn't as bad and will be WAY cheaper still than feeding an Epson.

 

[NotMe]

"measekite"

}Why should they warn people. They are in no danger from a chip.

Do the words 'Deceptive trade practice' have any meaning to you?

 

[Nicolaas Hawkins]

"measekite"

}Why should they warn people. They are in no danger from a chip.

Do the words 'Deceptive trade practice' have any meaning to you?

There are very few words that have any meaning to him; Measekite is a
person who acknowledges two points of view: his own, and the wrong one.

 

[Arthur Entlich]

Actually, that's one point of view, isn't it? ;-)

Art

Nicolaas Hawkins wrote:

 

[Colin Reddish]

There are no current printers that use chip-less tanks. The Epsons can use
compatible tanks, but you need to be VERY careful that you get the right
revision of tanks for the printer, Epson likes to switch chip systems
without warning. Still kind of a no-go for the printer-noob. If you buy
the Canon tanks in the 4-pack from Amazon for $40, the cost isn't as bad
and will be WAY cheaper still than feeding an Epson.

Thanks for the reply. Assuming I obtain the correct compatible cartridge for
a current Epson printer will ink monitoring continue as normal and without
any other problems. The non-OEM cartridge suppliers in the UK don't appear
to distinguish between cartridges other by Model number. I recall seeing
information which refers to manufacturing dates affecting cartridges specs?

Colin

 

[DanG]

Thanks for the reply. Assuming I obtain the correct compatible cartridge
for a current Epson printer will ink monitoring continue as normal and
without any other problems. The non-OEM cartridge suppliers in the UK
don't appear to distinguish between cartridges other by Model number. I
recall seeing information which refers to manufacturing dates affecting
cartridges specs?

Colin

April 2007. Epson printers made after that use the 2nd revision tanks only.
Printers made before that use any tanks. Many online sellers are clueless
about this distinction. The tanks come with a re-set chip on them, so your
printer sees them as genuine Epson tanks. Your printer's serial number
contains a code for the date of manufacture, I've forgotten where I found
the codes, but it was one of the on-line sellers that had it.

 

[Colin Reddish]

April 2007. Epson printers made after that use the 2nd revision tanks
only. Printers made before that use any tanks. Many online sellers are
clueless about this distinction. The tanks come with a re-set chip on
them, so your printer sees them as genuine Epson tanks. Your printer's
serial number contains a code for the date of manufacture, I've forgotten
where I found the codes, but it was one of the on-line sellers that had
it.

Thanks for the rapid reply. My relative currently has an Epson R200 which
has now died. Could it be assumed that the R240s (which would be a suitable
replacement for him) will all have been manufactured after April 2007 so
compatible carts specified for that model should be OK?

 

[measekite]

DanG wrote:

"Colin Reddish" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:[email protected]...



Thanks for the reply. Assuming I obtain the correct compatible cartridge for a current Epson printer will ink monitoring continue as normal and without any other problems. The non-OEM cartridge suppliers in the UK don't appear to distinguish between cartridges other by Model number. I recall seeing information which refers to manufacturing dates affecting cartridges specs? Colin



April 2007. Epson printers made after that use the 2nd revision tanks only. Printers made before that use any tanks. Many online sellers are clueless

The ones that are not clueless are liars.  But the smart ones do not care since they use Epson ink.


about this distinction. The tanks come with a re-set chip on them, so your printer sees them as genuine Epson tanks.

Thats all you should use anyway


Your printer's serial number contains a code for the date of manufacture, I've forgotten where I found the codes, but it was one of the on-line sellers that had it.

 

[measekite]

Colin Reddish wrote:

"DanG" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:[email protected]...



"Colin Reddish" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:[email protected]...



Thanks for the reply. Assuming I obtain the correct compatible cartridge for a current Epson printer will ink monitoring continue as normal and without any other problems. The non-OEM cartridge suppliers in the UK don't appear to distinguish between cartridges other by Model number. I recall seeing information which refers to manufacturing dates affecting cartridges specs? Colin



April 2007. Epson printers made after that use the 2nd revision tanks only. Printers made before that use any tanks. Many online sellers are clueless about this distinction. The tanks come with a re-set chip on them, so your printer sees them as genuine Epson tanks. Your printer's serial number contains a code for the date of manufacture, I've forgotten where I found the codes, but it was one of the on-line sellers that had it.



Thanks for the rapid reply. My relative currently has an Epson R200 which has now died. Could it be assumed that the R240s (which would be a suitable replacement for him) will all have been manufactured after April 2007 so compatible carts specified for that model should be OK?

Now that one is on a collision course to the junk yard

 

[Arthur Entlich]

Can I ask for a description of the death of the R200?

I am not trying to be invasive about the demise of your relative's
dearly departed friend, but he/she may actually not be dead, he/she may
be "pining" (sorry, Monty Python reference)... actually it may be in
suspended animation and require some CPR to return it to health.

Can you describe what happened to the R200?

Art

 

[Colin Reddish]

Can I ask for a description of the death of the R200?

I am not trying to be invasive about the demise of your relative's dearly
departed friend, but he/she may actually not be dead, he/she may be
"pining" (sorry, Monty Python reference)... actually it may be in
suspended animation and require some CPR to return it to health.

Can you describe what happened to the R200?

Art

Thanks for the offer Art.

It's a rather long story.

My relative is actually my 81 year old brother who is 7 years older than I
so it's not only the printer that is due to depart. We are both in the UK
but 200 miles apart so we have to comumicate by phone and email. He has
recently aquired a new PC with Vista Home Premium and I'm still on XP. I'm a
bit more computer savvy than he is so I have to talk him through diagnostics
without any knowledge of what he is seeing on his screen. As neither of us
having much experience of Vista this leads to long phone conversations.

Since starting the thread we have progressed somewhat and it now appears
that despite the prophesy of doom by Measekite the announcement of the death
of the R200 was premature as the printer is itself fit and well and the
problem lies elsewhere. I'll explain:-

With the printer diconnected from the PC it is possible to carry out a
Nozzle Check using the buttons on the printer. Also he has tried the printer
on his old PC which uses ME and it works OK on that. So we have concluded
that it not actually a printer problem but a problem with his Vista equipped
PC. When he first got the new PC a few weeks ago the printer automatically
installed using the Vista drivers (the Epson website advises this method as
they don't offer Vista drivers to download). The printer worked fine for a
few weeks but then suddenly failed to respond to print commands from any of
the programmes he used. We have since established that the print jobs he has
actioned are all stuck in a "print queue". I am now suspecting that the
problem may have occured following an automatically scheduled Vista update
as he also had some other issues around the same time. (had a 4X3 display on
his monitor rather than widescreen). We have attempted to re-install" the
Vista drivers but I'm unsure if that was successful. We located an option to
"delete" or "remove" the printer in Control Panel which I assumed is the
equivalent of "un-install". Certainly after disconnecting the printer and
deleting the jobs in the print queue this option removed the printer icon
from the Control Panel display. He then reconnected the printer and the PC
appeared to install the printer automatically. However, he did not get the
usual "new hardware found - installing drivers" message so I can't be
certain of this. The R200 icon was again visible in Control but as initially
the printer did not respond to a print command and simply placed the job in
the print queue. So we are back to square one. I'm in the process of trying
to learn a bit more about re-installing printer drivers in Vista. I have
seen some references to the need to do more than simply "deleting" the
printer in Control Panel although the reference I found was in connection
with a different printer (HP if I remember correctly). Any help with this
would be appreciated if you consider it appropriate for this group.

In the meantime I have bought a Canon iP4300 from canon_uk1, on eBay for
£30, which I think is a bargain. Canon describe them as "Refurbished" but if
it is like the iP4200 I bought from the same source a year ago they are
brand new and probably being sold of as they are now superceded by the
iP4500. When that arrives hopefully in a day or so then priority will turn
to advising my brother how to install and use that. I'm not sure if the
software that comes with that printer will have Vista drivers and need an
manual install from CD or whether it will install automatically. I notice
than Cannon have a Vista driver for the iP4300 on their website so this will
be the best one to use. Do you agree? All will be clear when the printer
arrives no doubt, unless I get around to downloading the manual before then.

 

[Burt]

Thanks for the offer Art.

It's a rather long story.

My relative is actually my 81 year old brother who is 7 years older than I
so it's not only the printer that is due to depart. We are both in the UK
but 200 miles apart so we have to comumicate by phone and email. He has
recently aquired a new PC with Vista Home Premium and I'm still on XP. I'm
a bit more computer savvy than he is so I have to talk him through
diagnostics without any knowledge of what he is seeing on his screen. As
neither of us having much experience of Vista this leads to long phone
conversations.

Since starting the thread we have progressed somewhat and it now appears
that despite the prophesy of doom by Measekite the announcement of the
death of the R200 was premature as the printer is itself fit and well and
the problem lies elsewhere. I'll explain:-

With the printer diconnected from the PC it is possible to carry out a
Nozzle Check using the buttons on the printer. Also he has tried the
printer on his old PC which uses ME and it works OK on that. So we have
concluded that it not actually a printer problem but a problem with his
Vista equipped PC. When he first got the new PC a few weeks ago the
printer automatically installed using the Vista drivers (the Epson website
advises this method as they don't offer Vista drivers to download). The
printer worked fine for a few weeks but then suddenly failed to respond to
print commands from any of the programmes he used. We have since
established that the print jobs he has actioned are all stuck in a "print
queue". I am now suspecting that the problem may have occured following an
automatically scheduled Vista update as he also had some other issues
around the same time. (had a 4X3 display on his monitor rather than
widescreen). We have attempted to re-install" the Vista drivers but I'm
unsure if that was successful. We located an option to "delete" or
"remove" the printer in Control Panel which I assumed is the equivalent of
"un-install". Certainly after disconnecting the printer and deleting the
jobs in the print queue this option removed the printer icon from the
Control Panel display. He then reconnected the printer and the PC appeared
to install the printer automatically. However, he did not get the usual
"new hardware found - installing drivers" message so I can't be certain of
this. The R200 icon was again visible in Control but as initially the
printer did not respond to a print command and simply placed the job in
the print queue. So we are back to square one. I'm in the process of
trying to learn a bit more about re-installing printer drivers in Vista. I
have seen some references to the need to do more than simply "deleting"
the printer in Control Panel although the reference I found was in
connection with a different printer (HP if I remember correctly). Any help
with this would be appreciated if you consider it appropriate for this
group.

In the meantime I have bought a Canon iP4300 from canon_uk1, on eBay for
£30, which I think is a bargain. Canon describe them as "Refurbished" but
if it is like the iP4200 I bought from the same source a year ago they are
brand new and probably being sold of as they are now superceded by the
iP4500. When that arrives hopefully in a day or so then priority will turn
to advising my brother how to install and use that. I'm not sure if the
software that comes with that printer will have Vista drivers and need an
manual install from CD or whether it will install automatically. I notice
than Cannon have a Vista driver for the iP4300 on their website so this
will be the best one to use. Do you agree? All will be clear when the
printer arrives no doubt, unless I get around to downloading the manual
before then.

Colin - When your brother has jobs in the queue, turns the printer off and
then reboots, do the print jobs print during the reboot? Try the following.
Clear the queue, disable the spooler for that printer, and then try another
print job. A shot in the dark, but this did work for one of my printers
that worked perfectly on my wife's xp pro computer and had the exact same
symptoms as your brother's on my xp pro computer. I probably had a
corrupted spooler file. It worked perfectly for the Canon i960 and HP5p
printers that were installed on my computer, but not my wife's Canon
ip5000.

By the way, you've now learned that our resident troll, Measekite, is the
foremost worldwide purveyer of misinformation.

 

[Colin Reddish]

Colin - When your brother has jobs in the queue, turns the printer off and
then reboots, do the print jobs print during the reboot? Try the
following. Clear the queue, disable the spooler for that printer, and then
try another print job. A shot in the dark, but this did work for one of
my printers that worked perfectly on my wife's xp pro computer and had the
exact same symptoms as your brother's on my xp pro computer. I probably
had a corrupted spooler file. It worked perfectly for the Canon i960 and
HP5p printers that were installed on my computer, but not my wife's Canon
ip5000.

Thanks for the advice Burt. We'll try that later tonight when I call him.
The aspect of disabling the print spooler was in the reference I mentioned I
think. But this is something I'm not familiar with. I recall this involved
using the Run command in the Start menu? Could you clarify please?

By the way, you've now learned that our resident troll, Measekite, is the
foremost worldwide purveyer of misinformation.

I learnt that a few days after I started following this newsgroup about a
year ago.

 

[Arthur Entlich]

Hi Colin,

Thanks for the detailed reply.

Before sending this on to the MS Vista printer team, I'd like to suggest
you first attempt to clean the printer spooler folder of all printer
jobs in the queue. If one gets corrupted it can "clog" the data path
and not allow anything else through, crashing the spooler program.
Since I am not well versed in Vista, if you need details on how to
accomplish this, let me know and I will ask for details from the printer
driver "mob" I am in contact with.

In older OSs you open the printer folder, and click on the printer in
question, and that opens window which may show a queue. Simply
select/highlight the spooled document and go to the printer drop down
menu and click on Purge Print Documents. I can't recall if you can
highlight multiple entries at once or have to do them one at a time, or
maybe you don't even need to highlight them. I don't have anything in
the queue right now to test.

Art

 

[Colin Reddish]

Hi Colin,

Thanks for the detailed reply.

Before sending this on to the MS Vista printer team, I'd like to suggest
you first attempt to clean the printer spooler folder of all printer jobs
in the queue. If one gets corrupted it can "clog" the data path and not
allow anything else through, crashing the spooler program. Since I am not
well versed in Vista, if you need details on how to accomplish this, let
me know and I will ask for details from the printer driver "mob" I am in
contact with.

In older OSs you open the printer folder, and click on the printer in
question, and that opens window which may show a queue. Simply
select/highlight the spooled document and go to the printer drop down menu
and click on Purge Print Documents. I can't recall if you can highlight
multiple entries at once or have to do them one at a time, or maybe you
don't even need to highlight them. I don't have anything in the queue
right now to test.

Art

Thanks Art.

We managed to empty the list of outstanding print jobs OK. Vista would not
allow us to "Delete" the printer without cancelling all the print jobs
first. Having "deleted" the printer it appeared that re-connecting the
printer re-installed it again but it will still not execute print commands,
simply adds them to the print queue.

I'm not familiar with the phrase "clean the printer spooler folder". Is
this the same as "cancelling the print jobs"? Burt also mentioned
"disabling the print spooler". I don't know what that means. As I mentioned
in my reply to Burt I get the impression from the references I have seen
(but not fully understood) that this may involve using the Run command in
the Start menu. Any more help would be appreciated.

 

[TJ]

Hi Colin,

Thanks for the detailed reply.

Before sending this on to the MS Vista printer team, I'd like to suggest

(snipped tale of woe and attempts at solution)

Wow. It happens every time. The more I hear about Vista, the better I
like Linux.

TJ

 

[smlunatick]

(snipped tale of woe and attempts at solution)

Wow. It happens every time. The more I hear about Vista, the better I
like Linux.

TJ

Linux has more printer problems than you think! Several of the Host
only style printers would not be used. As with any printer install /
usage problem, always look for the correct updated drivers from the
manufacturer's support web site(s).