HP and refilling theory.

[qwertydude]

As it goes with Canon they keep trying to circumvent refilling as if their lives depended on it. It's the same to a much lesser extent to Epson. But HP seems to be a little friendlier to refill, at least for their tri-color and black printers. Does anyone else here think HP may have gotten the business model right?

My theory is HP doesn't mind the refillers because refillers make up only a small percentage of printer users. Canon really wants to just stick it to refillers even if it's just .5% of the population. Which after talking to a bunch of my college classmates it ends up being that low a ratio. So HP let's people refill and press ok and ignore low ink warnings. In fact it's so easy it's almost encouraged by them. And I think I see why. You can refill one time with almost guaranteed success as long as you're not a penny pinching bastard and press ok after the low ink warning. But run it out after that because the cartridge usually isn't reset by the small time refillers, and voila print head death and you're forced to buy a new cartridge. At most HP only lost 1 cartridge sale, but the general population thinks they saved a bunch with that one refill. With a burned out print head they can't easily be remanufactured so it keeps the number of reusable cartridges available down for the remanufacturers. HP wins on both general good will from the population, they get a slightly reduced profit margin but guaranteed resells after the print head is burned out, and remanufacturers don't have as much of a selection of good cartridges to refill, and knowledgeable refillers are happy just topping off cartridges. Win, win, win for HP. Loss for remanufacturers. Genius.

 

[stratman]

I would think that non-OEM, reman OEM, and hobbyist refilled cartridges siphon off more than 5% of new Canon OEM replacement cartridge sales.

Even so, let's take your 5% loss of sales for Canon - a big pile of cash Canon may recoup for the lesser price or R&D and manufacture of chips and cartridges. The chipped cartridges are probably aimed more at businesses in the refill/reman/copycat design than for hobbyist refillers. There is way too much angst and paranoia about Canon gunning for hobbyists. The downsizing of cartridges has little effect on hobbyists but a lot on those whose businesses depending on selling to customers. The chip is a PITA for everyone but, once again, it is hubristic to think Canon's main reasoning for the chip was to mess with hobbyists. For pete's sake, we are a fart in the wind to Canon. As long as someone doesn't put it in the face of Canon too much, such as making a buck off them or trying to rip off warranty service, Canon will leave the hobbyist alone.

 

[qwertydude]

That's why I would say the built in print heads of HP make for a near impossible hurdle for anyone to make non-oem hp cartridges and the natural self destructive design of them make it doubly difficult to get a reliable supply to remanufacture. While on the other hand ink tank designs naturally set themselves up for non-oem manufacturers as they only have to make a tank and chip.

I know Canon's main reason for the chip was to stop the third party cartridge producers. But why in the world would they make opaque cartridges? That seems a direct stab at the hobbyist because before a chip resetter comes out you have to live with manually monitoring ink levels or risk ruining the print head. With opaque cartridges this is impossible, hence I don't think I'm too paranoid in justifying my belief Canon really is out to get you. Also there's no doubt in my mind that Canon institutes even more excessive "cleaning" cycles if you disable ink monitoring and even remembers forever if you disable ink monitoring. Something that wasn't done in the ip4600 but confirmed in the ip4700. More proof Canon hates refillers. After all it seems the differences between the cli-221 and cli-226 are simply opaque cartridges, and I'm sure another chip encryption. So if you can tell me a satisfactory reason opaque cartridges stop third parties then I'll be satisfied that Canon isn't going after hobby refillers.

 

[stratman]

While the opaque cartridges may be more related to cost control, the non-see through design does put a crimp in hobbyist refilling. I doubt the opaque design will significantly slow down businesses since they might vacuum refill or use automation for more precise filling instead of our needle/syringe hobbyist method.

Increased maintenance cycles may not be punitive in the way you are thinking but a way of keeping a printer from clogging when who knows what brand of ink is being used.

Lots of circumstantial evidence/theories though.

 

[qwertydude]

I doubt it's for cost control. I'm a manufacturing engineer, and I can tell you that having two different plastics combined in one tight fitting module will cost more than using a simple single plastic molded unit. Remember they still have a tiny transparent window and a vestigial prism optical unit. Though for what reason I have no idea, perhaps for a catastrophic situation where all the ink leaks out on accident it'll tell the printer cartridge empty.

And your reasoning is specifically pointing out that what Canon has done is targeted toward hobby refilling. It won't stop the third party producers since they'd forgo trying to collect old, used, dry, clogged and damaged cartridges and instead just simply produce a compatible with the same physical design. No, I have no doubt that Canon changed their design to spite refillers

 

[primaxuk]

Hi purchased a vacuum refilling machine with touch screen pre programmed for hp cannon Epson Lexmark dell i have sorted refill black hp 300 which was no problem but the color different ball game all together the ink keeps coming out very dark i purchased a centrifuge and also they tried sell me a boiler to clean the cartridge costing 600 would a tea boiler do the same job only costs 50

thanks advance

Peter

 

[ThrillaMozilla]

qwertydude, HP seems to have gone the way of separate heads just like Canon, except for a few cheapo consumer printers, have they not?

My only experience with those integrated heads is that a smudge in a sponge is not an adequate amount of ink. Maybe not so smart for HP, because who would buy another one?

 

[mikling]

It is possible that the opaque bodies are related to issues where the user can see the physical ink levels in the tank, yet the chips report something else.

When they went to the smaller carts like the 221s, the portion of the total ink that is contained within the sponge as compared to the total initially is quite high. That would then confuse users who saw their see through tanks empty BUT still saw their ink levels up high according to the chips. I imagine Canon got questioned and how do you explain this to the causal user. If users can't see the ink at all, then there would be no questions. Problem solved and no explaining to do.

 

[mike30]

Whilst I am a relative newcomer to the HP inkjet printer family, I have been self filling the old Olivetti cartridges
and then the Lexmark cartridges very successfully, so I was very surprised when after ordering the refilling
kits (black & tricolour) following the instructions : very simple really : to the letter and then find that HP have
some how chipped the cartridge or printer software to prevent a refill. I have traweled the net for a few weeks now for a useable remedy. Alas nothing except one or two suspect remedies. Which unless I'm mistaken is the
opposite of all the above quote, so please tell me if I am incorrect.

Printer HP D1660 B

 

[mike30]

It would appear that I have timed out so to cover the above quote I cannot refill the HP 300 BLACK or COLOUR
cartridges after buying a refill kit Cartridge also goes under the part no. Black CC64Oe
Colour CC643e

Please help I can be contacted via e-mail : mike.payne30@yahoo.com

Thanks and best wishes,
Mike.......................................