Epson Heralds Death of Ink Cartridge with EcoTank Printers

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
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Epson printers has introduced a new line of printers with high capacity ink storage that could last an average user around two years of printing. The new models are more expensive, as expected, since companies like Epson make more on the ink supplies than the actual printer, but even at a higher initial price, it is projected that the new systems will save the consumer around 65% on ink refills.
 
This is simply in response to the Chinese that have made aftermarket ink very inexpensive for their printers, ruining their "we give you the printer super cheap, and rape you on toner" business model.

But honestly, who even needs to print stuff out anymore? You have smartphones, tablets, and TVs that wirelessly connect now, and you can just touch many of the devices together to share media if not simply uploaded to server storage.

Its so easy to go wireless now, that using a printer is something that should be exceedingly rare anyways.
 
Buying ink is lame. Since almost everything I've needed to print is okay in black and white, I just got an entry-level laser printer..um a Brother HL something or other. Toner is sooo much cheaper even with having to buy a drum once in a while.
 
Somebody needs to tell them April 1st is half a year away because this is a sick and cruel joke to play on us.
And if this is true, then hell most of froze over.
 
I just buy refill kits off Ebay for cheap and keep refilling my ink. Bought $3 black ink that I've used to refill at least 5 times. I have huge color ink refills that cost $10 and I barely scratched them. Course I only needed to refill the color once throughout the year.
 
Ashbringer said:
I just buy refill kits off Ebay for cheap and keep refilling my ink. Bought $3 black ink that I've used to refill at least 5 times. I have huge color ink refills that cost $10 and I barely scratched them. Course I only needed to refill the color once throughout the year.
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Got any links? I've owned at least 5 different Epson printers through the years and have never had any luck with remanufactured ink cartridges. After they had sit a couple of weeks I would have to clean them about 20 times at each use and they still didn't print right. After trying a bunch of different ones from different websites I finally just gave up and went back to stock Epson cartridges which always worked well.
 
Ducman69 said:
This is simply in response to the Chinese that have made aftermarket ink very inexpensive for their printers, ruining their "we give you the printer super cheap, and rape you on toner" business model.
Click to expand...

Yes I have never been a fan of the Gillette model. I switched from inkjets for simply this reason as it was near impossible to find a reasonable running costs. SO laser has been the good enough option for the most part.


Ducman69 said:
But honestly, who even needs to print stuff out anymore? You have smartphones, tablets, and TVs that wirelessly connect now, and you can just touch many of the devices together to share media if not simply uploaded to server storage.

Its so easy to go wireless now, that using a printer is something that should be exceedingly rare anyways.
Click to expand...

This is likely they they are trying to leverage their existing technology with reasonable running cost options. I would expect they make decent money with many print head replacements etc. It would be nice to have a color inkjet for occasional printing/proofing needs. I do use much less paper, but it is still nice to have the option and I would print more if I inkjet makers had not gone to far with the cost increases due to reducing the amount of ink per cartridge with each generation. Still it might be to little to late as a majority of my family seem ok with color lasers or just rarely print at all anymore.
 
Mike89 said:
Got any links? I've owned at least 5 different Epson printers through the years and have never had any luck with remanufactured ink cartridges. After they had sit a couple of weeks I would have to clean them about 20 times at each use and they still didn't print right. After trying a bunch of different ones from different websites I finally just gave up and went back to stock Epson cartridges which always worked well.
Click to expand...



I had similar results with a Canon printer. I do know there is a model of printer by Epson that you can get the hoses (like the one in the OP) and jars for as a retrofit. Some use it for clothing.
 
Ponder said:
Yes I have never been a fan of the Gillette model. I switched from inkjets for simply this reason as it was near impossible to find a reasonable running costs. SO laser has been the good enough option for the most part.
Click to expand...

For printing documents you're right, but are consumer laser printers capable of printing images as well as ink jets?

Ponder said:
This is likely they they are trying to leverage their existing technology with reasonable running cost options. I would expect they make decent money with many print head replacements etc. It would be nice to have a color inkjet for occasional printing/proofing needs. I do use much less paper, but it is still nice to have the option and I would print more if I inkjet makers had not gone to far with the cost increases due to reducing the amount of ink per cartridge with each generation. Still it might be to little to late as a majority of my family seem ok with color lasers or just rarely print at all anymore.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure about Canon, but the problem with Epson is that if you don't print often, you waste a lot of ink cleaning/unclogging heads when you do print. OTOH, the reason that ink was so expensive is because the cheapest printers are sold at a loss. I suspect that the cheap laser printers are also sold at a loss. Fortunately for me, I print documents rarely, so I'm OK with that. Brother also sells label makers and I've seen them deeply discounted at Fry's (less than the cost of a single label cartridge). 7 years later I'm still on the first cartridge, so I guess it all works out. :D

FWIW, if you're not a pro, just send your images to an online print shop. Sites like Mpix are inexpensive and their prints look great, though I normally print on Metallic paper (i.e. Kodak Metallic or Fuji Pearl). Pros that use ink jet printers often had continuous ink systems as well as specialized papers that Canon/Epson to make/sell.
 
I'm in the "never need color" camp myself. Bought a used HP Laserjet 5N off eBay in 2006 for $23 after completely wearing out the Lexmark inkjet I had before it. It came with a high yield toner cartridge that must have just been changed.

I'm still trying to use up the toner in that thing six years later and the printer itself is a tank. Not one single problem. I'll never buy a new printer again at this rate, and I'm done with inkjets for good.

It actually did give me the low toner message once. I took it out, shook it, and put it back in. Don't know how many pages ago that was, but I'm still waiting for that message to come back.
 
I doubt this will do anything. They already make "ink tanks" that sit above the actual head, and the problem is that if you don't print regularly the ink dries up and clogs the head, forcing you to run through cleaning/alignment cycles and waste ink. I don't see how this "new" method will solve that.
 
Inkjets are just wasteful to begin with so unless this is a new style nope...
 
nilepez said:
For printing documents you're right, but are consumer laser printers capable of printing images as well as ink jets?
Click to expand...

I needed to replace my old B&W Laser (HP 5n) as it was so old the plastic parts kept breaking.

After buying a few for the office, I ended up buying an HP color laser (m451) for home. Color quality is good for a color laser, and better than the other printers the marketing department had been using.

Photo's are not a good as I get off my old Epson R220 inkjet when using photo paper, but the laser blows away the ink jet on regular paper. Plus there are several places that sale generic/refilled toners, making the cost per page pretty reasonable.

I picked one up when they where on sale for $250. Hard to beat the price, and without all the head cleaning the inkjet do, the cost per page is close to the cost per page of a inkjet.


nilepez said:
I'm not sure about Canon, but the problem with Epson is that if you don't print often, you waste a lot of ink cleaning/unclogging heads when you do print.
Click to expand...

This is the problem with all ink printers. If you don't print ever few days, the print heads will clog and need cleaning. Some printers will automatically wake up & clean the heads ever few days, so even if you don't print you'll be using up the ink. With all the cleaning, this increases the cost per page significantly if you don't print very often.

I seem to have the best luck with Canon. Even after a couple week of no use the printout is usually fine.
My Epson is ok, but I almost always have to run a couple cleaning cycles, but since it sometimes sits unused for 2-3 months, it's expected. Only reason I still have it is because it makes the best quality photo prints and it also prints on DVDs.

The Brother inkjets I've own have always required excessive cleaning and after a couple years one of the colors would stop printing. Only advantage with the Brothers was the real cheap generic ink available.




I
 
Ducman69 said:
This is simply in response to the Chinese that have made aftermarket ink very inexpensive for their printers, ruining their "we give you the printer super cheap, and rape you on toner" business model.

But honestly, who even needs to print stuff out anymore? You have smartphones, tablets, and TVs that wirelessly connect now, and you can just touch many of the devices together to share media if not simply uploaded to server storage.

Its so easy to go wireless now, that using a printer is something that should be exceedingly rare anyways.
Click to expand...

Most of the Chinese aftermarket ink is utter crap. Contrary to popular belief, inkjet ink is not just water coloring. There is a lot of science that goes into the formula for ink such as viscosity , flashpoint, how well it mixes, refraction, color etc. It is important for color accuracy and quality to have an ink that is designed for your specific print head. Most of the Chinese inks are "one size fits all" inks and so you will suffer in both quality and color accuracy. Most of the Chinese inks I've seen lack in both color gamut and consistency between batches. If you are going to use an aftermarket ink, you are going to want to use one that is made by a US manufacturer.
 
Mike89 said:
Got any links? I've owned at least 5 different Epson printers through the years and have never had any luck with remanufactured ink cartridges. After they had sit a couple of weeks I would have to clean them about 20 times at each use and they still didn't print right. After trying a bunch of different ones from different websites I finally just gave up and went back to stock Epson cartridges which always worked well.
Click to expand...

I have an HP Officejet 4500 and I just refill retail cartridges. It uses HP 901 and I just get this black ink for $3. I also bought this color ink set for less then $10 and still mostly full. Epson maybe different so you'll have to research it. The great thing about HP ink is the head comes with the cartridge. So if you replace the ink cartridge you replace the head. Makes the ink more expensive but not if you just refill it like I do. Anything that goes wrong and you just buy new ink.

I don't have an Epson printer but it took me a while to learn how to properly refill my HP. The color is easy but the black is hard cause you have to stick the needle in the correct chamber. This isn't explained very well and it took some Googling to see what other people did to get it working.
 
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MavericK96 said:
I doubt this will do anything. They already make "ink tanks" that sit above the actual head, and the problem is that if you don't print regularly the ink dries up and clogs the head, forcing you to run through cleaning/alignment cycles and waste ink. I don't see how this "new" method will solve that.
Click to expand...

It won't solve it, and they aren't claiming to have solved it. All they're doing is packaging ink in a cheaper to produce container, with the consumer simply filling up a tank. You'll still find yourself constantly going through ink or replacing printheads.

My old HP inkjet, the damn printheads would clog and no matter what they would never work right after cleaning cycles, being wiped off with alcohol, etc. resulting in $80+ worth of ink cartridges in the trash.

Years later I had a canon printer. I mistakenly thought that the ink cartridges being separate front the print head was great. Till the print head clogged and never worked right again, with a replacement print head running $80... which was almost as much as I paid for the damn printer.

These days in the rare chance that I need to print something that for some reason I can't(or shouldn't) just print at work(we're allowed to print stuff from home, the toner cost is so low they don't care unless someone abuses it) for free, I'll put it on a flash drive and take it to kinkos and have them print it. It's certainly cheaper than buying a new printer annually. I could buy a laser printer, but I just don't care and it would mean needing to store it somewhere.
 
So they're just selling a printer with a continuous ink system built in...
Been using CIS systems myself for probably seven years if not more.
First in my Epson R380, then in my Epson Artisan 720, and now in my Artisan 837.
Tanks sit on my desk, ink is cheap, prints looks great and the direct to disk printing is fantastic. Added a waste tank to the printer too so I'm not filling up the tampon in the bottom of the printer. Been at least three years since I've bought ink, and it'll be many more...
Got mine at cisinks.com, but you can find them on ebay and amazon too.
 
I bought a mixed 24 pack for my Canon MX850 from Amazon for like $6. They have worked fine.

Now, I doubt I would print important,archival photo's with them but that's what I have Pro9000 for.

Screw $13 a tank
 
BTW... Do Epsons still have the head clogging issues of printers past if they aren't used on a regular basis ?
 
I have used a number of printers, first yes a lot of third party ink is not high quality. But I have to ask, why do you care lol? An earlier poster made the most important point. Most people should never have to print anything now days. And when I do its because some idiot luddite at some organization forced me to print something instead of allowing me to do it online so I couldn't care less what the quality of the ink is. Most of the time its just hey lets take the backwards PDF document and force you to print it and turn it in because we want to make sure we waste money hiring someone to then take your form and enter it into a computer.

I found Epson and Cannon to be reasonably priced for ink but even then you could sometimes get aftermarket ink for 1/4 or less the price. Usually it worked good enough. I use the scan function on the printer more than the printer. Its really kind of sad that we still have to buy these stupid expensive printers for the once a month we need to use it.
 
Epson heralds the end of the ink cartridge... by introducing a new ink cartridge and calling it an EcoTank!

The issue I always would have with inkjet printers is that they ink would dry up in colors I never used (which were pretty much all of them, black is the most used for a reason). So print a few times in color, a couple years later whoops need to buy new toner cartridges because they don't work anymore.

The move to laser made me a happy man... unfortunately toner carts are just as expensive, but they don't dry up!
.
 
I have a color inkjet (HP Officejet Pro 8600) with scanner and stuff. Printing in color occasionally is helpful. I also have an older HP Laserjet that does the majority of my printing. I got it from work before it hit the recycle pile. I recycle a lot of good, usable printers. I have a color Laserjet, but the thing is huge (Network card is shit, but USB works perfect). When I run out of toner, I'll probably get that. Cool part about them tossing and upgrading - the old toner doesn't work. So, there are a couple cartridges for each color and black so it'll last me a long time.
 
sfsuphysics said:
The move to laser made me a happy man... unfortunately toner carts are just as expensive, but they don't dry up!
.
Click to expand...

Toner doesn't dry up, but the cartridges eventually go bad, usually after 3-5 years.

The main problem with Color Lasers, is the larger up-from costs.
The printer is more expensive, and when you need to buy toner it's expensive ($18 for black ink vs. $100 for toner). However, the number of pages is 400 for the ink vs. 2200 for the toner (comparing my Epson R220 to my LaserJet M451). Of course the price will vary depending on the printers, and could be 1/3 or less the cost with generic ink/toner.

There is some wasted toner with Lasers, however it's minor compared to the ink wasted on inkjets. If you only print a few pages once or twice a month, you are probably wasting more ink cleaning the heads than you are actually putting on paper.
 
What happened to the much vaunted paperless society? We consume more paper than ever before in offices. Ridiculous.
 
Merc1138 said:
It won't solve it, and they aren't claiming to have solved it. All they're doing is packaging ink in a cheaper to produce container, with the consumer simply filling up a tank. You'll still find yourself constantly going through ink or replacing printheads.
Click to expand...

They've had this solution with third-party inks for a long, long time.

In any case, about a year or so ago I said fuck it to inkjets (barely ever used it and always clogged/wasted ink when I wanted to use it) and bought a cheap Samsung color laser. Has been great ever since, and the image quality is not too bad for a laser printer.
 
TechLarry said:
BTW... Do Epsons still have the head clogging issues of printers past if they aren't used on a regular basis ?
Click to expand...

All inkjet printers have that problem. That's why if you're not a photographer, you should get a laser printer instead.
 
I'll stick with my color laserjet, thanks...

Got one of these and have been incredibly happy with it: HP LaserJet 400 color M451dn

After a year, the high-capacity black cartridge still reports as 70% remaining. This thing has saved me SO much money on ink, it's unbelievable.
 
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Methadras said:
What happened to the much vaunted paperless society? We consume more paper than ever before in offices. Ridiculous.
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I'm practically paperless. Really only get SPAM as physical mail. I used to only print directions as a backup to my GPS, but since my tablet and phone are both excellent GPSs I have redundancy.

The only thing I can think of that I still print are coupons for petsmart and what not once in a blue moon.
 
Aside from two photographers, everyone I know uses refill kits.

There's no way Epson and Canon are going to charge a competitive amount to what you get current kits for. They're far too comfy with their $5,000(+) per litre cash cow.
 
If you are printing on plain paper, it doesn't matter which ink you use, and you can just use generic refill ink.

However, if you are printing on photo paper (especially name-brand paper) you HAVE to use the official photo ink that goes with the paper (Epson ink for Epson paper etc) because the paper is "tuned" to the specific properties of the ink.

If you use mismatched photo ink and photo paper, the ink will either penetrate too much and bleed, or not penetrate enough and smear.
 
Ducman69 said:
I'm practically paperless. Really only get SPAM as physical mail. I used to only print directions as a backup to my GPS, but since my tablet and phone are both excellent GPSs I have redundancy.

The only thing I can think of that I still print are coupons for petsmart and what not once in a blue moon.
Click to expand...

If you can pull the coupon up on your tablet or phone screen, they can usually scan the barcode right off the screen.
 
I have to say it's about f**king time. I hate my epson 710. It works fine, does what I need, but I rarely use it. When I do the ink cartridge DRM kicks in and expires my ink. Seriously I didn't print for like 6 months, the Cartridges are still nearly full and in the machine over a year and a half now, but I was printing out something then the machine gave me an error that said, something was wrong with the yellow ink. WTF? And you know with epson All-in-one printers, if the ink isn't there the printer doesn't do anything. Not only could I not print black and white only, but even the scanner which doesn't use ink is disabled. It seems these "chips" on the ink cartridges burn out or expire or something.
 
Merc1138 said:
It won't solve it, and they aren't claiming to have solved it. All they're doing is packaging ink in a cheaper to produce container, with the consumer simply filling up a tank. You'll still find yourself constantly going through ink or replacing printheads.

My old HP inkjet, the damn printheads would clog and no matter what they would never work right after cleaning cycles, being wiped off with alcohol, etc. resulting in $80+ worth of ink cartridges in the trash.

Years later I had a canon printer. I mistakenly thought that the ink cartridges being separate front the print head was great. Till the print head clogged and never worked right again, with a replacement print head running $80... which was almost as much as I paid for the damn printer.

These days in the rare chance that I need to print something that for some reason I can't(or shouldn't) just print at work(we're allowed to print stuff from home, the toner cost is so low they don't care unless someone abuses it) for free, I'll put it on a flash drive and take it to kinkos and have them print it. It's certainly cheaper than buying a new printer annually. I could buy a laser printer, but I just don't care and it would mean needing to store it somewhere.
Click to expand...

Using alcohol on a print head or cartidge with a built in print head will damage it. Use warm water or a solution with a few drops of alcohol to 16 oz.of water.
 
Ducman69 said:
This is simply in response to the Chinese that have made aftermarket ink very inexpensive for their printers, ruining their "we give you the printer super cheap, and rape you on toner" business model.

But honestly, who even needs to print stuff out anymore? You have smartphones, tablets, and TVs that wirelessly connect now, and you can just touch many of the devices together to share media if not simply uploaded to server storage.

Its so easy to go wireless now, that using a printer is something that should be exceedingly rare anyways.
Click to expand...

I could count a lot of people and places that still do..
 
damicatz said:
Most of the Chinese aftermarket ink is utter crap. Contrary to popular belief, inkjet ink is not just water coloring. There is a lot of science that goes into the formula for ink such as viscosity , flashpoint, how well it mixes, refraction, color etc. It is important for color accuracy and quality to have an ink that is designed for your specific print head. Most of the Chinese inks are "one size fits all" inks and so you will suffer in both quality and color accuracy. Most of the Chinese inks I've seen lack in both color gamut and consistency between batches. If you are going to use an aftermarket ink, you are going to want to use one that is made by a US manufacturer.
Click to expand...

Nailed it..................

The formulation of the inks are usually patented and the hardware is designed to use THAT INK ONLY. When you buy knock off ink carts, or use a refill kit you are putting ink into the printer it was not designed for. This is usually performance goes to sh*t in short order with inkjets.

Same with laser printers. Toner formulations are patented and the printers are designed for the correct toner. Expect leaking, toner, streaks, bad color matching, damaged fusers, etc with your knock off consumables.
 
People still use bubble/ink jet printers? Once you go laser you never go back. I have a Brother all in one with the original toner in it and it's lasted me for years. I don't print a lot mind you, but with wet ink it dries up so you end up having to change it all the time anyway.
 
Cartridges have anti-refill technology in them these days. sponges that harden and self-seal as the ink drains preventing refilling. Cartridges with DRM chips to block third party and in some cases refilling.
 
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