Posts by rustysurfer79

Carol Castillo10 said:Do you guys ship Colibri ink to the US via mail?

Yeah, I'd just do a money order through HP Express.

Thomas Gonzalez32 said:Is this what you mean:

?

I see they have options for the HP Envy series too.

From what I can gather, the HP Envy series and the HP DeskJet series are pretty much in the same league when it comes to price and performance. Which one would you suggest if my main concern is how easy it is to refill the ink?

And could you walk me through that part about tossing a printer even when there’s still ink left in it? What does that actually mean in practice? Like, after how many refills do you start seeing a massive drop in print quality? Wouldn't it be way easier to just buy the official ink cartridges and then refill those instead?

Thanks

We're actually testing an HP Envy series with an Ink Tank System right now—just printing receipts. We also have an HP OfficeJet series, which is basically the same as the HP DeskJet series regarding ink, using ARC cartridges.

So, here's the deal: the HP Envy series isn't nearly as easy to refill as the Epson HP DeskJet series with those ARC cartridges.

The Ink Tank System versions work incredibly well, though. It’s a tough call. My gut feeling is
that while the Canon offers faster prints for the same quality, the Epson is way easier to refill. The ink cost is identical. With the Epson, you grab the ARC cartridges plus the refill ink for 80 refills, which is roughly $83
.
With the Canon, you'll find yourself swapping out original cartridges every once in a while. You're looking at an investment of about $83 every second or third refill.

To me, it looks like the Epson wins out. If you eventually get tired of the print quality and want a new Epson, you can just move your ARC cartridges and refill ink over to the new machine. With the Canon, you're stuck buying new cartridges every time, so it feels like a bit of a waste.

But honestly, it really just comes down to how much effort you want to put in.

Thomas Gonzalez32 said:I’m on the hunt for a printer that actually includes a scanner, and I need to keep the price somewhat reasonable. I'm not looking for anything professional grade here. Just something that lets me print out a drawing or a photo on decent photo paper every once in a while. And the scanner? It needs to actually work—you know, produce something that looks like an actual image and not just digital noise.

Mainly, I'll be printing pictures. (I've already got a laser printer for my black and white stuff.)
Think family vacation snaps or maybe some "art" I whip up in Photoshop or Illustrator.

But here’s the real kicker, the absolute dealbreaker: it has to have cheap third-party ink or refill kits available. Honestly, I don't mind getting my hands a little dirty. It would be amazing if there's a model where I can just buy ink bottles and refill it myself. I refuse to deal with that feeling of watching my money vanish into thin air every single time I hit "print."

If you could suggest a model and maybe drop a (link) for where to grab the ink, that would be huge. I need to run the numbers and see if this actually makes sense...

Thanks 🙏

For the HP DeskJet, you can find Hummingbird replacements for about $30 - $40 per refill.

An HP Envy series is hands down the best bang for your buck

Then you just go with a Canon Pixma series using ARC cartridges

lonemoose10 said:Hey guys, I could really use some help here. Just picked up a new HP Envy series, and since name-brand ink is such a rip-off, I grabbed some third-party stuff on eBay. Everything was working perfectly fine until I tried printing on DVDs. It prints the image, but it looks all weird—like there’s a ghost image or a double print where everything is shifted, including the text. I've scoured the web for a fix and nothing's working. I even tried reinstalling the software and testing it on a different PC, but no luck. Any ideas?

Run a nozzle check and email me the results.

Scott Wood84 said:I’ve got one, and honestly, it’s not exactly great.🤷

The thing takes up half my room just by itself, and when I actually turn it on, I feel like a squadron of fighter jets is about to level my house.

Colors and speed are decent enough, though.

And what do you want? Something built like a tank that works better than an EPSON? And doesn't break down like an EPSON? That kind of machine doesn't exist.

That's why a single print on this thing costs about a nickel and can last through 50,000 to 100,000 copies.

If that's a dealbreaker for you, just grab a newer consumer model instead of a Profi HP. They cost about the same anyway.

urbanviper22 said:Can you break that down for me?

Grab yourself a resetter and you can bump that chip back up to 100%. It’s not free, obviously, but it actually works. You could even split the cost with a neighbor or charge them a little something for the trouble. $1.75 If you factor in the reset, you basically break even after about 40 cartridges. Or, honestly, if you look at how much those OEM ones cost, you've basically gotten a couple of sets for free after just one or two rounds.

rustycobra28 said:I'm trying to figure out which printer would be the best bang for my buck here.
I was looking at this one:
Thanks!

HP OfficeJet K5400
Replacement ink for that model runs about $27
And honestly, the printer itself isn't great.

Charles White4 said:Anyone used this before?
$549
The Lexmark E120 laser printer?
How does the whole thing work? I've never messed with laser printers... do they use toner cartridges? Does it do color? 😁 :njubara:

Solid choice.

There's tons of third-party ink and toner options out there for that Lexmark

crimsonmason2 said:So, I've been using my Canon i250 for a few years now and everything was totally fine until about two weeks ago. Now, whenever I try to print anything, I just get this "printer not responding" error message.
I've tried restarting the drivers and swapping out all my cables, but nothing seems to work.
I did some digging online, but honestly, none of the stuff I found helped much.

Does anyone know how to fix this?
And is there any way to get this thing on the list for recycling?

Thanks in advance!

If the print head is still good for around 100 bucks, $67 you might be able to swap it for a working one at a repair shop.

It shouldn't be a huge deal.

urbanviper22 said:Here’s the deal... I swapped out the black ink by moving the chip from the old cartridge to the new one. On the printer side, everything looks fine, but it keeps throwing this error saying the color is empty when there isn't any. It's driving me nuts. Is there actually a way to reset that "color controller" thing?

The message is:
"The following ink may have run out.
Black <Epson Ink>
Prepare a new ink tank."

Thanks in advance for the help!

Just grab a chip resetter and reset the CHIP.