zlacker

Not sure about the laser side, but for inkjets, the Epson EcoTank line is the best at not fucking you - it uses ink bottle refills, no cartridges in sight.

>>Crazed+(OP)
I had one, looks good at first, but a few months on, the inkjet is just stuck with ink

>>charli+v
I have an ecotank monochrome epson, it's been fine for a few years now.

that said, they don't seem to like to sit. if I go for awhile without printing I need to do a cleaning more so than conventional inkjets, but i'm okay with that tradeoff, it's nice just refilling with ink.

also the software/driver package on Windows sucks, but unless you're doing firmware upgrades then why bother installing it, anyway.

>>Crazed+(OP)
I bought one a few months ago, about £200, because of exactly this sort of crap going on here. I didn't want to go the compatibles route, and the cartridges are so small in capacity anyway. It's been good so far, and I've been printing roughly once a week so it has been ok. I have kids so I've been photocopying pages from their colouring books etc for them to colour in and keep the books themselves clean, which means it gets fairly regular use.

I'm tempted to set up something in my home automation to print a "test" page every week or two, just to make sure it doesn't get clogged. Given the couple of feet of tubing between the tanks and the head, I suspect once that gets dried/gunked/blocked, it's game over.

>>serf+Z1
A separate bottle with pure h20 would be perfect for a post print clean.

Far cheaper, and better for the environment, than using ink for cleaning.

>>alias_+42
Are you sure it's really "small in capacity"? I was curious so I opened one of the cartridges my printer reported as empty. There was still plenty of ink in it...

>>alias_+42
I take it you have not heard about the waste ink pad counter? Once that is up, you either have to buy a new printer or take it to a service center.

https://epson.com/Support/wa00369

>>alias_+42
With previous Epson inkjets they've made me to print head alignment, nozzle declogging etc almost every.single.time I turned on the device.

Does the EcoTank do this too?

>>meragr+hf
Would be really nice if someone reverse-engineered the maintenance program and allowed a reset of this idiot-light.

>>meragr+hf
> Why not just make the Ink Pads a user-replaceable item? > Implementing this type of a design would result in more expensive printers. Most users would not benefit from such higher costs because their printers will never reach the Parts End of Life message.

This reads like actual gaslighting. Most users will never reach parts end of life? How is that even possible? Do most users buy a new ecotank printer and throw away their old one every year?

>>Gordon+5L
Mine doesnt do much of anything when turned on, just takes a couple of minutes to connect to wifi.

>>mrjin+pe
The cartridge Epson's I've had were listed as 5ml cartridges, compared to the 100ml tanks my EcoTank has, that's the comparison I'm making.

>>JTbane+kM
It has been done before, there are reverse engineed tools to reset the counter (though you should clean out our replace the pad too).

>>alias_+Xs3
I got it. I should put ONLY there. It doesn't matter how much the capacity was, the fact was when I opened it after the printer reported cartridge exhausted, the foams inside were still soaked with ink.

>>mrjin+lPb
Oh, yeah, I'm sure the manufacturer excuse is that they need a bit extra to ensure print quality; whether or not that's true, ink cartridges of this kind are just a racket.

I'm soooo glad consumer 3d printing has avoided it this far and hopefully the momentum keeps up even as the technology advances.