A
ajmayo
My fourth C86, replaced over a year of frustration, has now failed just
like all the others.
Although being fed only genuine Epson cartridges, none of these
printers was able to perform light-duty printing (maybe 10 pages/week)
without continuous clogging, which eventually could not be rectified by
head cleaning at all. Printer kept in a clean,dry, 20 degree centigrade
office and fed with good quality 80gsm A4 paper.
Now, I don't usually get angry about hardware failures. Things die. But
I feel deeply ripped off by Epson. It grieves me how much money I spent
on printer cartridges, most of which went into endless attempts to keep
the heads unclogged.
Firstly, you cannot clean just one ink colour, so every head clean
depletes all your ink cartridges - and it's a serious issue, because a
couple of cleans and maybe a quarter of the ink in the cartridge set -
all of them - has been wasted. At something like fifty bucks for a set
this is simply not funny. Other manufacturers - e.g Canon, support
cleaning individual heads.
Secondly, the cartridges report empty even when there's obviously ink
still in there. Now, Epson will simply claim that this is necessary to
prevent air bubbles getting into the printhead, but how come my old
Canon printer would literally run until the cartridge ran dry, then
simply replace it and, presto, no problem.
I'm going back to Canon (or maybe HP). I am upset at Canon also,
because my previous Canon printer had a printhead failure and the
printhead is a user-replaceable component (just unclips) that,
interestingly, costs as much as a new printer to replace, even though
Canon initially suggested otherwise in its marketing material, but hey,
that's life.
If you think about the amount of polluting materials created in
manufacturing a printer, its simply not good enough to rip consumers
off like this. We have only the one planet. Now I will be discarding
something that contaminated thousands of gallons of water during
manufacture, and crapped up someone's living environment somewhere in
China. This is simply NOT acceptable, Epson (and Canon). It is NOT.
I note that my Samsung laser printer, purchased over a year ago for
about the same cost as a pack of Epson cartridges, has soldiered on
magnificently. It has printed thousand of pages without a glitch.
Recently it ran out of toner. I paid about 10 bucks for a bottle of
toner from an internet outfit and refilled the cartridge. It is now
good for another thousand pages or more. The drum seems to be just
fine. This is how it should be.
I can't understand how we, as consumers, have allowed ourselves to be
so royally screwed by inkjet printer manufacturers. I know,
unfortunately, that Japanese companies can sometimes have a rather odd
attitude to product lifetimes - some companies (Teac were one) - are
great, some just don't want to know about anything over a year old.
When we had matrix printers and other technology (e.g the older
daisy-wheel printers etc) then after-market consumables were reasonably
priced and these machines were economical to run. Now we have Epson
suing everyone in sight to stop them selling third party cartridges,
for instance. This has to stop.
Can anyone suggest a reliable inkjet model with individual ink
cartridges - NOT a photo printer, just standard CMYK. At present the
Canon Pixma looks promising, although whether the printhead failure I
had before is now resolved, who knows?. Admittedly the old Canon did
print quite a lot of stuff before it failed. Compared to this wretched
bunch of Epsons which between all four of them probably managed a ream
of paper in total.
I will say that Epson's model of dealers who replace under warranty is
very good. But then, if they are having this kind of failure rate,
maybe that's the only option. Note that each replacement begins with a
progressively shorter warranty though, so eventually, like me, you're
screwed
I am going to box up this printer, and send it, with a polite letter,
by registered mail, to the UK general manager of Epson. Sure, it'll
cost me. But I will have the satisfaction of knowing someone else will
at least be mildly hassled. Of course, if we all started boycotting the
worst offenders, that would be even better. But I know other Epson
users have had more luck then me and that other printer manufacturers
have had their share of criticism. But for a mature product, I think we
expect better than this as consumers, all told.
like all the others.
Although being fed only genuine Epson cartridges, none of these
printers was able to perform light-duty printing (maybe 10 pages/week)
without continuous clogging, which eventually could not be rectified by
head cleaning at all. Printer kept in a clean,dry, 20 degree centigrade
office and fed with good quality 80gsm A4 paper.
Now, I don't usually get angry about hardware failures. Things die. But
I feel deeply ripped off by Epson. It grieves me how much money I spent
on printer cartridges, most of which went into endless attempts to keep
the heads unclogged.
Firstly, you cannot clean just one ink colour, so every head clean
depletes all your ink cartridges - and it's a serious issue, because a
couple of cleans and maybe a quarter of the ink in the cartridge set -
all of them - has been wasted. At something like fifty bucks for a set
this is simply not funny. Other manufacturers - e.g Canon, support
cleaning individual heads.
Secondly, the cartridges report empty even when there's obviously ink
still in there. Now, Epson will simply claim that this is necessary to
prevent air bubbles getting into the printhead, but how come my old
Canon printer would literally run until the cartridge ran dry, then
simply replace it and, presto, no problem.
I'm going back to Canon (or maybe HP). I am upset at Canon also,
because my previous Canon printer had a printhead failure and the
printhead is a user-replaceable component (just unclips) that,
interestingly, costs as much as a new printer to replace, even though
Canon initially suggested otherwise in its marketing material, but hey,
that's life.
If you think about the amount of polluting materials created in
manufacturing a printer, its simply not good enough to rip consumers
off like this. We have only the one planet. Now I will be discarding
something that contaminated thousands of gallons of water during
manufacture, and crapped up someone's living environment somewhere in
China. This is simply NOT acceptable, Epson (and Canon). It is NOT.
I note that my Samsung laser printer, purchased over a year ago for
about the same cost as a pack of Epson cartridges, has soldiered on
magnificently. It has printed thousand of pages without a glitch.
Recently it ran out of toner. I paid about 10 bucks for a bottle of
toner from an internet outfit and refilled the cartridge. It is now
good for another thousand pages or more. The drum seems to be just
fine. This is how it should be.
I can't understand how we, as consumers, have allowed ourselves to be
so royally screwed by inkjet printer manufacturers. I know,
unfortunately, that Japanese companies can sometimes have a rather odd
attitude to product lifetimes - some companies (Teac were one) - are
great, some just don't want to know about anything over a year old.
When we had matrix printers and other technology (e.g the older
daisy-wheel printers etc) then after-market consumables were reasonably
priced and these machines were economical to run. Now we have Epson
suing everyone in sight to stop them selling third party cartridges,
for instance. This has to stop.
Can anyone suggest a reliable inkjet model with individual ink
cartridges - NOT a photo printer, just standard CMYK. At present the
Canon Pixma looks promising, although whether the printhead failure I
had before is now resolved, who knows?. Admittedly the old Canon did
print quite a lot of stuff before it failed. Compared to this wretched
bunch of Epsons which between all four of them probably managed a ream
of paper in total.
I will say that Epson's model of dealers who replace under warranty is
very good. But then, if they are having this kind of failure rate,
maybe that's the only option. Note that each replacement begins with a
progressively shorter warranty though, so eventually, like me, you're
screwed
I am going to box up this printer, and send it, with a polite letter,
by registered mail, to the UK general manager of Epson. Sure, it'll
cost me. But I will have the satisfaction of knowing someone else will
at least be mildly hassled. Of course, if we all started boycotting the
worst offenders, that would be even better. But I know other Epson
users have had more luck then me and that other printer manufacturers
have had their share of criticism. But for a mature product, I think we
expect better than this as consumers, all told.