Office Quality IP3000 cartridge suggestions please.

[Muad Dib]

I have bought 4 (so far) IP3000s for a local non-profit school for the mentally handicapped. These are replacing an assortment of dying donated/Walmart specials (the $30 kind, HP, Lexmark, Epson). Ink costs were prohibitive.

The printers are used primarily for office application and color graphics, rarely (if ever) for photo printing. Button making is one of their big graphic productions.

Re-filling carts is out of the question as all the personnel are technically challenged.

I have studied this forum, Neil's (nice site!), Stevesforums (another nice one!) and others. Shopped Ebay, Newegg etc, etc, etc.

Result: Mixed confusion. As soon as I see one cart/vendor that looks good, I see a criticism of same.

What is needed is a good quality , reliable/consistent cartridge from a reputable vendor at a reasonable cost. Not necessarily the cheapest (remember good quality/reliable), just one that beats the Canon OEM price. While the final solution may not satisfy a true photo enthusiast, much less a professional (after all they are IP3000s not the high end 6-8 color models), good photo printing results are needed as well.

Thus farther seems to be a consensus or debates, on the following ones I am looking at:

Inkgrabbers (Is the color cast in neutral grays fixed yet?)
USA Inkjets (Tylermartin)
Rainbow (Tylermartin)
Megatoners (really poor company rep!)

Any suggestion/recommendations would be appreciated.

Thanks

 

[JV]

You could try BIJC#2 with a custom printer profile. See the BulkInkJetCarts Topic at www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=192. Post #23 has a comparison of the cartridges tested. If you find a non OEM cartridge that does not have a color cast without a printer profile, please let me know.

JV

 

[Osage]

try www.bulkinkjetcarts.com 1-888-259-3827 might add this to your list of
considered cartridge vendors.

Some previous posts and some tests by JV on this forum.

Cheap and good as far as I can see. I bought some. Am happy.

Just one weird warning, their BCI-3 and BCI-6 are the same. The cartridges that carry the BCI-6 label costs thirty cents more. Ask and they will explain why. Its not a con believe me but can cause confusion.

I believe the list price for all cartridges you need will $1.39 per cart.--cheaper in sets of five or more as I recall. Shipping on any order size is $6.00 so bulk order required for economy. Order size large enough and I think they throw in shipping free.

And although I am not experienced in refilling, it only takes one tech oriented person to
refill cartridges and have many sets ready to go for tech challenged. You might look for help in that area if ultimate economy is desired. But you probably made the best available choice in choosing the ip3000 printers in my opinion.

Another things to consider. More permanent inkjet inks seem to be coming on the market for Canons--both OEM and non-OEM. So if you are using these printers to add value to an object you need to think about how permanent the ink will be in terms of fading and waterfastness.

 

[dashisiong]

I think the ink carts is from inklab hk? or print-rite? Correct me if i am wrong...thanks

 

[Muad Dib]

Thanks for the replies.

Hmmmm.. I did read the BulkInkJets posts but must have had tired eyes when I went to their web site (about 2AM this morning). Checked again and called them. They are definitely on the list.

While there are one or two people at the school that could re-fill carts they would probably shoot me if I suggested it to the director of the school. I doubt if even he would be in favor of it.

My target is $3.00 a cart or less, which is do-able assuming one can be found with reasonable output.

 

[Manuchau]

Try Atlantic Inkjet..it's in the US and Canada.

I've been using and selling their cartridges for 2 yrs now...very inexpensive and no problems so far.

 

[zakezuke]

I have bought 4 (so far) IP3000s for a local non-profit school for the mentally handicapped. These are replacing an assortment of dying donated/Walmart specials (the $30 kind, HP, Lexmark, Epson). Ink costs were prohibitive.

The printers are used primarily for office application and color graphics, rarely (if ever) for photo printing. Button making is one of their big graphic productions.


What is needed is a good quality , reliable/consistent cartridge from a reputable vendor at a reasonable cost. Not necessarily the cheapest (remember good quality/reliable), just one that beats the Canon OEM price. While the final solution may not satisfy a true photo enthusiast, much less a professional (after all they are IP3000s not the high end 6-8 color models), good photo printing results are needed as well.

Thanks

While I am a canon fan... I question the wisdom of using such things in any sort of school enviroment. The black is limited to about 500p yield. While likely a MUCH better choice than the lexmark specials... I'd seriously consider a HP businessjet 1100 series. 3x the yield for the black... 5x the yield for the color, very well bult, inktanks like the canon, and fetches a pricetag of under $200 here and there, network ready typicaly. Oddly enough it has a lower cost per page than canon for both color and black. But alas I don't know the 3rd party refill scene for the HP.

 

[Nifty]

You mentioned using these for color graphics, but what percentage of the time is it b/w vs. color? If the volume is high I'd suggest thinking about getting a b/w laser printer for the majority of the high volume printing and using the color printer(s) for the color printing.

I don't know your volume of printing or percentage of b/w to color, but just thought I'd bring it up for you to think about as an option.

 

[Muad Dib]

Good catch on both Zakezuke and Nifty-stuff's part. But I was slack in providing all the details. I would estimate their print jobs as %98 B/W,

They do, in fact have a B/W Laser networked, well sort-of. Its an older HP LJ 2100 set up as a shared printer on the office managers PC. This, along with a copy machine are used for the larger print jobs. The IP3000s satisfy 2 needs: 1) Each user still want a printer on their desktop for local "one-off" jobs - with color graphics; 2) The director doesn't want to drop $10-15.00 per cart on color graphics.

So if they are able to print color at a more reasonable cost the % of color output will probably increase. Also the IP3000s are a dramatic improvement in function and speed over what they had. I sort of pushed the issue as well. The director asked me to repair one of the old HPs that had stopped working recently (His printer!) and I informed him I don't repair $30 printers.

Eventually some donation will come in that is ear-marked for equipment that includes computers and peripherals. Right now, three new computers are on the wish list. Recently they got $1200 for a multimedia projector. So a high capacity, networked color printer is in the future. But most of their capitol money is targeted toward new buses and building maintenance.

Patience is a virtue in this org as it was only a 1.5 years ago I got them off dial-up. Yes, you heard me, they all shared a single dial up connection!

 

[Kenyada]

You mentioned using these for color graphics, but what percentage of the time is it b/w vs. color? If the volume is high I'd suggest thinking about getting a b/w laser printer for the majority of the high volume printing and using the color printer(s) for the color printing.

I don't know your volume of printing or percentage of b/w to color, but just thought I'd bring it up for you to think about as an option.

I'd agree with Rob's assessment. As the head of a non-profit, I get much use from an HP Laserjet 4. I get a lot more mileage from the Laserjet's toner cartridge on the everyday stuff like memos, basic letters on pre-printed letterhead, etc. It has cut down monthly printer costs. I first created my letterhead stationery (which requires color) on my Canons, but the other text looks very good using the Laserjet.