Tony said:
A strange departure Art from your usual almost authoritative advice. My
comments are usually up front.
I admit to have been overly tired yesterday and not using my best
judgment. I apologize.
I can only make comparisons from known facts.
Many comments in this group are at best casual and anecdotal. " I have an
Uncle, whose nephew I think said , Epson are best !" Hogwash.
I imported several Chineses "brands" such as Secajet recently: they were
abysmal.
There are many different refill cartridges out there, and some are
probably not very good quality. I suggest people buy ones from dealers
who stand behind the product with a warranty for return, and if using
ebay or other auction locales, that they check the feedback. I have had
good results with some Chinese brands, but the dealer warranted them for
2 years. I will say, however, that in my experience price had little to
do with quality in the 3rd party products.
If you can afford to buy on Ebay - then make allowances for the mistakes
waiting to happen.
I'm not sure paying more or buying from through other sources
necessarily guarantees better results, unfortunately. I suppose looking
for a dealer who has been around for several years might indicate they
wish to have and rely upon repeat business.
Your last comments are misleading. Of course cartridges not requiring a chip
have no chip. I'd like to see you insert a non chipped cartridge in a chip
requiring machine.
If they were misleading, that wasn't the intent. What I was stating is
that the older Epson printers which do not use chipped cartridges offer
more choice of generics replacement cartridges, and that those generics
tend to be cheaper because there is no chip involved. Further, these
older printers do not have the extra complexity of the electronics and
mechanics that the newer machines do. This extra complexity has been
known to cause additional problems, failures, or breakdowns which can be
avoided with the older machines.
The main advantages of the newer machines (which use the chips) are:
Slightly smaller droplet size, which on mission critical work my be
significant, but for the most part is not a drastic improvement
Faster printing, which, if time is critical for you, can be significant,
but if money is more of an issue, the older models will do.
Some models have pigmented inks. This may prove important is longevity
is important. Ink prices will be higher however. Use of the right
papers can help to make dye inks last longer, and some people find they
can use 3rd party pigmented inks in older printers without difficulty.
The chipped cartridges allow for the ink level information to be held in
the cartridge so if you exchange cartridges mid-stream, they will remain
accurate (unless you use a resetter with partially filled cartridges)
In some cases, better driver profiles allowing for more accurate color.
In general, the separate ink cartridges now used with most Epson
printers doesn't tend to save ink due to how the printer responds with
each cartridge replacement.
The advantages to older machines are:
Lower ink operating costs even with Epson cartridges
Ready availability to generics at very reasonable prices
Relative ease of refilling the cartridges
Reduction of mechanical and other issues that involve the chipped technology
Some produce between black ink only photo output
Generally have more durable heads and better physical builds (they tend
to last longer).
I am not necessarily suggesting anyone toss out their newer Epson
printer to replace it with an older one. But I do think that there are
enough good reasons to maintain older Epson printers for as long as
possible, if the needs of the owner have not radically changed to
require some of the newer features I have mentioned.
Art
