Life if an inkjet Printer

[duncan22]

I Guess asking what the average life of an ink jet printer is similar to asking how long is a piece of string as the answer will depend on a number of variables such as the amount of use, type of printer etc.
So I will break it down into sub questions.

1. Are the main makes of printer such as Canon and Epson more reliable than other printers ?
2. Is the more you pay likely to result in a printer that has a longer life span ?
3. Do printers start to show specific problems as they get near the end of their life cycle. ?
4. Is it worth replacing a printer head or is the printer near the end of it's lifecycle once the head starts misprinting and cannot print despite using the various cleaning techniques ?

 

[panos]

As I have never had a Canon printer fail on me, and that includes a Canon BJ10ex which I had used for 12 years before donating it, I can only reply this:

4. Is it worth replacing a printer head or is the printer near the end of it's lifecycle once the head starts misprinting and cannot print despite using the various cleaning techniques ?

Yes. After printing thousands of pages on my MP750, I replaced the print head and quality was restored to that of a new printer.

 

[jimbo123]

my canon MP830 died after 22,000 pages printed. i unboxed a backup MP830, moved the print head and ink carts over and was back printing in 5 min.

my four orig CLI8's ink carts outlasted my original MP830 printer, each has been refilled between 22 and 32 times each, never flushed.

have refilled my PGI5 carts 110 times, have used 4 PGI5's over the last 3.5 years.

refilling using quality ink and canon carts has worked out well for me

J

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Printers: Canon MP830, IP4500, MX700, MX860, MP980
Method: German Durchstich Method
Ink: Hobbicolors ink, PMT-BK, UW8
Misc: Squeeze bottles - so much easier than syringes

 

[Tin Ho]

Jimbo123, your MP830 uses the same print head my ip4300 uses. My ip4300 has been a work horse for me for over 6 years. I probably have printed tens of thousands of letter sized documents too. I usually print one side then will print on the other side later. The count for printed page is at least 50% higher than the actual sheets of paper used.

There was once a discussion about print head durability or life expectancy a year or two ago on this forum. Everyone believed Canon print heads have shorter lifespan than Epson print heads. The ip4300/MP830 have proven them wrong.

I don't flush my CLI-8 cartridges any more. It is proven not necessary with my ip4300. However, I did flush my PGI-5 a few times. It's like once or twice per year over the course of the 6 years.

 

[hceuterpe]

This is where I appreciate the longevity of HP LaserJets. At my workplace, I routinely come across units that have more than 500k pages printed.

I wish Inkjet printers lasted that long. Of course, the HP LaserJet printers we have complete with their MICR check printing conversions cost several thousand dollars a piece...

 

[The Hat]

hceuterpe I wish Inkjet printers lasted that long. Of course, the HP LaserJet printers we have complete with their MICR check printing conversions cost several thousand dollars a piece...

If you were to invest that much money into an inkjet printer then the inkjet would outlast the laser by miles.
Depending on the price of the HP beast you could have up to 100 inkjet printers as backup and ready when the first one failed..

 

[Fenrir Enterprises]

In spite of all the issues with air and clogging whenever I refill it, I've been pretty impressed that my R220 hasn't broken down in spite of being abused, accidentally turned on with something in the way of the print head, too-thick stock forced through it, taken on the road to conventions and accidentally left in a hot car for a few hours, etc. Lately I've been getting errors, such as rapidly flashing red lights on both ink and cancel/feed buttons but I don't know if that has to do with bad chips or if it's something else in the printer failing, it's a generic error message. Also for some reason the magenta and light magenta cartridges always need the chips randomly reset... starting to wonder if the carts just don't stay seated properly anymore. Turning it off and on fixes it, and it hasn't done it in a few months now so I may have somehow fixed whatever did it. I think there's more issues with it than a casual user would be willing to put up with but I'm heading up on five years and I think that's a good lifespan for a $100 printer. I have a backup one in storage and I may dig around to find a used one online or in a thrift store.

 

[hceuterpe]

hceuterpe I wish Inkjet printers lasted that long. Of course, the HP LaserJet printers we have complete with their MICR check printing conversions cost several thousand dollars a piece...

If you were to invest that much money into an inkjet printer then the inkjet would outlast the laser by miles.
Depending on the price of the HP beast you could have up to 100 inkjet printers as backup and ready when the first one failed..

Yeah, but we can't print checks on any Inkjet printer on the market The retrofitting jacks the price up by about 2.5x. A fully decked out one, the smallest we have without the modification is about $1200USD. So I still think it beats inkjet for longevity. I don't know of any other brands that have lasted that long on a single unit, 'cause it seems only big companies get print volumes that high, and yet they only trust a few brands. They would never even touch my Brother-branded 5340D.

 

[hceuterpe]

In spite of all the issues with air and clogging whenever I refill it, I've been pretty impressed that my R220 hasn't broken down in spite of being abused, accidentally turned on with something in the way of the print head, too-thick stock forced through it, taken on the road to conventions and accidentally left in a hot car for a few hours, etc. Lately I've been getting errors, such as rapidly flashing red lights on both ink and cancel/feed buttons but I don't know if that has to do with bad chips or if it's something else in the printer failing, it's a generic error message. Also for some reason the magenta and light magenta cartridges always need the chips randomly reset... starting to wonder if the carts just don't stay seated properly anymore. Turning it off and on fixes it, and it hasn't done it in a few months now so I may have somehow fixed whatever did it. I think there's more issues with it than a casual user would be willing to put up with but I'm heading up on five years and I think that's a good lifespan for a $100 printer. I have a backup one in storage and I may dig around to find a used one online or in a thrift store.

I know mikling sells prefilled spongeless cartridges that were deep vacuum filled. You might be able to avoid the air and clogging by using those.

 

[Fenrir Enterprises]

I know mikling sells prefilled spongeless cartridges that were deep vacuum filled. You might be able to avoid the air and clogging by using those.

I use refillable carts (it's been converted to pigment ink) but up until now I've always used original chips with a resetter instead of the auto reset chips and I pull them out to refill because I've always been paranoid about running them dry. But it takes days, if not a week to completely get rid of any air locks in the system once you pull the carts out. I'm planning on putting the printer into heavy use soon, but I don't want the hassle of installing a CIS (I just know I'd break the thing the first try and then do it perfectly on the second printer) so I think I'm going to give it a thorough cleaning, vacuum prime brand new refill carts with ARCs, and top them off weekly (or more) without ever taking them out. My main concern is having an ink flood from the waste tank on the left hand side of the printer. I've done the waste drain mod but the thing shoots ink to clean itself on the left hand side too (there's a sponge there) and it seems to dump enough ink that it may be a problem eventually. I'm trying to figure out how to get into that side and possibly replace the pads. If not, at least I have a backup, though it's been sitting unused for five years...

Back on topic, I think despite all the complaints/problems that pop up (that we need this forum to help us with!) the cheaper printers actually tend to exceed expectations. A lot of people buy a $50-100 printer and expect it to be able to do the work of a print shop. Refill ink will make it affordable but it's kind of mean to expect a little printer that's really only meant to print out your kids' book reports once in awhile to put out 1500 pages per month or more but a lot of them manage to do it anyway!