Buying a new printer for me + another

[Parhs]

Hello guys....
I have bad experience with printer refilling. My first printer was an epson stulys 440 ,had many problems with that printer - never refilled it but it had technical problem and they didnt fix it completely.
THen i got an epson c86 i think. I bought not the original inks and even with the original the print head got clogged... i couldnt do anything.... i purchased an HP photosmart d5160...

I have unexplained problems and cant refill .. few times had success.Tried isopropylic alcohool, boiling the print header to clean it and then inserting fresh ink, steam to clean the print head...
but nothing prints or 40% of nozzle check dont print.
Before 2 moths i got a ready refilled cartidge 339 and i didnt print anything for 3 weeks because i was abroad and it got clogged!!! Wiping it with paper made the ink to flow too much but although that it cant print!!!
I print the test page and it starts printing from the middle
So far so many problems....

I think i'd buy from the internet my supplies because local stores suck...
So, i want to buy a new printer and for the first time i am doing a research which printer is easily refillable..

Today i used 2 canons and i think that they are great.... Saw an mx870 and a ip4500...

ip4500 wasnt used for a year!!! and no clogged heads, everything was printed great!!! even mx870 wasnt used for 2 months and worked GREAT!!!
It had tons of features and was too easy to use!

WHAT I AM LOOKING FOR
Ι dont bother printing high quality photos as all inkjets suck at this... most of my inkjet photos are almost faded out ...! if not kept in 100% dark..
Mostly simple text and few grafics...
I want fax, copier etc the features that mx870 has.. I would get mx350 but i know that mx350 inks are difficult to refill..
One option for me is mx870 .
Other options? Laser printer?
I print about 100-300 pages /month

Extra
I am building systems for doctors to print some prescriptions ONLY text black! . I amnot sure whether a laser SAMSUNG-ML-1665-Laser-Printer
would be better as one guys implementation used this printer.... or a simple inkjet printer with cheap black cartidge... Any suggestion?

Thank you for your time

 

[printfan1138]

We have an Epson 1400 Inkjet that prints quality photographs and even a cheaper Epson c-88+ that we have also prints really beautiful photo's. We like to print full page photograph's and have found that the keys to good pictures is first of all make sure your camera images are top quality, use the correct paper, ( we like good quality high gloss photo papers) and print a lot daily even if it's just purge pages. These inkjets do much better when they are used daily and of course that can get very expensive if your paying top dollar for OEM Cartridges, we got around the cost by using CIS systems. As for clogging there are many ways to clear that up and even the worst are fixable. I recently bought an empty damper cart designed with a direct hole that fits over the Inkjet posts and is open straight through so I can push a syringe full of Windex on the post. Then I push Windex into the head slowly a little at a time and go watch TV or something then come back and add a little more Windex etc. When the windex goes in without any back pressure your post and head is clean. At times I pull the Windex back into the syringe and am amazed at all the "chunks" of dry ink I get. Then just print a good purge page and do a nozzle check and do a print after that. But before doing anything at all start printing a page with cheap paper and when the paper feeds about half through pull the electric plug and then do all of the above. That paper will collect most all the ink this procedure flushes through the print head. It also frees up the Cartridge carrier unit so it can be freely moved around. Good Printing My Friend!

 

[Parhs]

I tried local equilivment of Windex here with little effect initially.. I tried again and used a vaccum cleaner and paper to suck the link with great success! Its not perfect but prints great!

 

[RMM]

If the print is not perfect try and clean again.

Windex takes a while to fully dissolve all of the deposits. Let it sit overnight, rinse, and repeat.

 

[Parhs]

So much time?
I got a perfect nozzle check but i noticed after printing some black only pages with black picture it seemed that after a while it started to fade out like ink is flowing slower than it should....
The brand of the ink is unknown ,the shopkeeper told me that it is "secret" ..
Is think an ink problem or clogged head??

 

[qwertydude]

I would bet it's just cheap ink. If a vendor won't tell you who supplies their ink. It's not worth getting. Any vendor affiliated with this site is proud to sell hobbicolors, image specialist, or any other trusted ink brand and make a point to specify they use that. As for your ink flow problems, HP integrated cartridges are the easiest to refill but there's one big caveat with refilling these. You CANNOT let it run out, you have to keep them constantly topped up with ink. Every person that comes here with refilling problems with HP is because they let it run out, then they filled it with ink. That will cause failure of the print head within a couple fills, remanufactured cartridges seem especially susceptible to print head failure. The print head will self destruct and or develop irreparable flow issues if you let it run dry. I've been refilling my HP cartridges at home at least 20 times without issue. And I use cheap stratitec pigment ink with no issues. So get one brand new oem cartridge and every couple weeks or so top the cartridge off with ink. Even if it overflows a little, all you do is blot the cartridge on some paper towels until it doesn't drip any more. Then install the cartridge and run a cleaning cycle. You can even do this with color but you have to be a little more careful and blot more because of color contamination issues with overfilled color cartridges.

For simple printing I would say get one of the cheaper HPs with the print head built into the cartridge. They tend to have the largest black cartridges with their XL lineups so have the highest yield. The problem with the higher end Canons is their built in print head, if you're not careful and run it out of ink because you're refilling the print head is shot. But for pure black and white for an office environment I'd say get a laser as their reliability is probably more important than fiddling with iffy remanufactured inkjet cartridges

 

[Parhs]

So the flow issue is because of damaged print head,or low quality ink in my case?
Nozzle check is fine now but when i print in normal mode a picture i get flow issues...

If i buy CANON mx870 which uses cli521 and pgi 520 bk,is bad choise?? 3rd party refillable cartidges with auto reset chip are good or not?? ( I would be able to see the level of the ink )

For the HP i always did the mistake to let it dry,however now i unclogged for the first time using AZAX~Windex)!
I dont know what is better.
All XL are refillable?

 

[Parhs]

I did a little reseach and i am between cli 521 and HP 920 ,364...
What would you suggest?

 

[qwertydude]

It's difficult to diagnose without actually having the cartridge in my hand it could be a combination of both you could have a small stubborn bubble in the ink path brought on by running the cartridge dry and when flow demands are high the poor quality ink with it's higher surface tension just can't make its way past the bubble fast enough and you get banding issues. The only way to tell for sure is to literally blow or suck out almost all the the old ink but leave enough so it doesn't actually run dry and introduce new air into the print head then buy a known good quality ink and inject it into the cartridge. The blowing of the ink from the top or sucking it from the bottom usually allows the cartridge to prime properly getting rid of any bubbles but its tricky and takes practice to know when it's almost empty but not all the way empty. My best suggestion is buy a new OEM cartridge, get a good third party pigment ink, and a squeeze bottle with needle. Then you'll be all set to refill yourself. You'll bypass your iffy quality vendor, have a known good quality ink for probably less money than your vendor charges, and you control the quality of your refills. Again I state this with as much importance as anything. DO NOT LET THE CARTRIDGE RUN OUT. Just keep topping it off every couple weeks and you'll be printing non-stop with the same cartridge. My HP 95 cartridge is going on almost 2 years now just fine as proof of how durable the HP cartridge is when refilled properly.

 

[Parhs]

thank you but i am going to buy a new printer,now it just works how ever i sucked a little the ink but the situation didnt get lot better...I shouldnt have let it dry... But HP 344 yellow dries too fast it has tiny amounts of ink!
The ink is 1 year old i think
HP that uses 920 or canon cli 521/221 ...?
HP has 4 colours canon 5,that means more ink.
however 920XL seems good because of the large capacity..
I cant deside which is cheaper and easier to refill..
However both have refilable autoreset cartidge..