Frank’s ink cartridge, toner cartridge, printer & photo paper news!

Canon has released new PGI-5 and CLI-8 cartridges for the Canon Pixma iP4200. These cartridges have a special chip in them which tells the printer how much ink is left in the cartridge. The cartridge numbers are

PGI-5BK - Black pigment ink
CLI-8BK - Black dye based ink
CLI-8C - Cyan dye based ink
CLI-8M - Magenta dye based ink
CLI-8Y - Yellow dye based ink

Unlike traditional dye based inks, these inks from Canon are highly resistant to fading from light and gases in the air. Canon claim a 100 year life from these Chromalife inks.

These cartridges are also suitable for Pixma iP5200, iP5200r printers, MP500, MP800 and MP950 multifunctions

Compatibles are not yet available for the PGI5 or CLI8 inks probably for 2 reasons:
1. The ink formulations are quite complex - refill ink manufacturers need to make sure their inks will perform equivalent to the original Canon inks; and
2. The on-board chip has a patent from Canon on it so compatible manufacturers will have to be very careful not to infringe that patent, which could leave them open to litigation.

At the moment it is best to buy genuine Canon cartridges.

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It’s not often that you get something for free but Samsung are offering buyers of their new ML-2010 laser printer a free toner cartridge. This is quite generous as these cartridges usually cost around $100-$120. The offer is open until the 31st of March, get the full details here. The offer is also open to buyers of the ML-1610.

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Did you know that there are 2 different kinds of printheads? One uses the piezoelectric method of ejecting ink, the other uses thermal (or heat).

Piezoelectric printheads are usually found in Epson printers. The ink is fed into each individual nozzle by suction. There are hundreds of small nozzles in the printhead, and the printer software sends a message to each nozzle with information on on when to fire and how much ink to eject. The piezoelectric printhead relies on a squeezing action to eject a droplet of ink onto the page - basically a physical method of forming an ink droplet. When the ink is squeezed out onto the page this forms a vauum in the printhead nozzle, bringing in more ink to repeat the process.

Thermal printheads are typically found in Canon, HP, Lexmark, Olivetti and most other brands of printer. The nozzle containing ink is superheated for a minute fraction of a second, causing the ink to boil which makes an air bubble which forces the ink droplet out of the nozzle. This is why these printheads are more susceptible to burn out if allowed to run out of ink.

Each ink droplet is extremely small and thousands are fired from a printhead per second. It is a miracle of technology that a printer can work so quickly, and why the printhead is the most important (and most fragile) part of your inkjet printer.

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If your inkjet or bubblejet printer has clogged printheads there are 2 possible reasons:

1. Ink has dried in the nozzles; or
2. Foreign matter has blocked the holes in the nozzles.

If 1, it is important to note that although genuine inks have anti-clogging agents in their formulation, if you have not used your printer in a long time the ink will dry up in the printhead. With genuine inks a couple of head cleans will usually get the ink flowing again. If you are using refill or compatible cartridges more aggressive head cleans may be necessary. You may need printhead cleaning solution like this. The best way to stop ink drying in the printhead is to use your printer every week. Just print out a test page which will use black and colour.

If 2, this is caused by foreign matter in the ink - always from small unfiltered particles from refill ink or lower quality compatible cartridges manufactured in a dusty environment - or the printhead collecting paper dust from poor quality paper, or the printhead picking up muck in an overfull parking station.

What is a parking station? This is where the printhead sits when the printer is not printing, usually on the right hand side inside the printer. There is a small rubber cap here which sits under the printhead to protect and prevent it drying out. On most printers it also provides a cleaning function and there is a lot of waste ink in this area- so it is the perfect place to collect dust and muck. You can get a cotton bud in there and clean it by switching the printer off then on, and then when the printhead moves away from the parking station switch the printer off at the wall. You will then be able to access this area for cleaning.

If foreign matter in the ink has blocked the printheads and your printhead is fixed into the machine, put new original cartridges in your machine as this will usually dissolve any particles in the printhead. If your printhead is removable, take it out of the machine and sit it in about 5ml of very hot (not boiling!) water for a few minutes. Dry thoroughly and re-insert into the machine and do a couple of printer head cleans. Repeat until the nozzles are unblocked. Always use good quality inks or compatibles in your printer - original inks are always best.

If you open your printer and you can see a fine white powder inside the machine, this is paper dust. This is getting into the print nozzles! Always use good quality paper and once in a while use compressed air to clean out the inside of your printer (use a can of compressed air, not compressed air from a compressor - or you’ll blow away the electronics in your printer!).

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These days, is it worth repairing your printer? The answer is usually no. This is the case with all low end printers. These printers, usually marketed as suitable for small office, home office (SOHO) or home use, are built as cheaply as possible and are not worth repairing. They have plastic or very lightweight steel chassis and are built to be put together quickly. Usually if you attempt to open them up you will see that there are no screws holding them together, just plastic clips. The printed circuit boards are very thin and even some of the joins holding parts onto the chassis are just plastic soldered on. Don’t believe for a minute that printer manufacturers make a loss on selling printers with the intention of making it up from selling cartridges! The manufacturers make a profit selling printers, so if you pay $100 for a printer you can be sure it was made for a lot less.

Basically you could say that cheaper printers have inbuilt obsolescence, so they are designed to be thrown out and upgraded when they break. Manufacturers encourage this by selling parts (if they are required by law) at prices that are high enough to discourage repairs. Of course this may not be intentional on the manufacturers’ part, as it is a very expensive business running spare parts inventories, especially for superseded models.

To a large degree the more expensive printers are worth repairing - because they are quite robust and also because they are built so that parts are easily swapped out and replaced. It is also worth investing money into maintenance and repair when the amount is but a fraction of the purchase price, whereas parts and labour for a repair on a cheap machine will cost more than the machine originally cost!

So what to do? The best bet, if you are buying a SOHO or home printer is to buy one with the longest warranty - for instance Samsung has a 3 year warranty on some products. Another option is to purchase an extended warranty, most manufacturers will offer this as an option (and certainly HP, Epson, Canon and Lexmark do). The only other option is to resign yourself to the fact that if you buy a cheap printer you will have to throw it out if it breaks and buy a new one.

If you have any experiences with repairing cheaper printers, please leave a comment by clicking the comment button below!

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A new site, www.whatcartridge.com, has been launched which bills itself as the world’s largest free database of printers and supplies. I have to say that this site is huge, although by no means exhaustive. There are printers and brands in there which even I haven’t heard of. Most of the stuff though is very up to date, and with manufacturers bringing out new models so often it can be confusing as to which cartridges go with what printer. I have bookmarked it and am using it every day to look up various cartridges. Try it out yourself and see.

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Lexmark were the innovators when it came to the huge all-in-one market, they were the first to mass market inkjet multifunctions. Now they have come up with a new innovation - a photo printer with inbuilt CD burner! The Lexmark P450 is also unique in another way - it cannot be hooked up to a computer and has no printer drivers available.

This has to be a revolution in the printer industry at it’s most basic. There are many people who only use their printer for printing digital photos, so why do they need a computer? This can only expand the digital photo industry. This printer, and the others that follow it, will bring more and more people into the digital photo realm.

The P450 is roughly 15cm x 28cm x 23cm, so has quite a small footprint. It comes with a 2.4″ LCD screen for previewing photos. It prints onto photo size paper using a tricolour 18C0033A or 18C0035A cartridge. Photos can printed from all major camera memory cards, USB flash, PictBridge, CD (of course) and optional Bluetooth. You cannot print from your computer to this printer! Prints are borderless. Photos can be burnt to CD on the inbuilt CD burner. The CDs can continue to be burnt to until they are full, over several sessions if need be.

The only thing to watch is that this is a strictly home use printer - it is not a rugged machine and has a duty cycle of only 500 pages per month.

Looks like Lexmark are onto a winner with this class of printer - watch out for similar products from the other manufacturers if this printer experiences strong sales. Look for the Lexmark P450 in a computer store near you.

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Lexmark has introduced new toner cartridges which fit into the new E342 printer but which will also fit into some previous model printers. The 34217HR cartridge with a yield of 2,500 pages also fits into the following printers:

E230, E232, E330 and E332N

The 34217XR has a yield of 6,000 pages and fits into the following printers:

E330 and E332N

They replace the 12A8400 and 12A8405 cartridges in the above printers. Street prices for the 34217HR and 34217XR and the 12A8400 and 12A8405 are the same.

This is obviously another example of the printer companies bringing out a multitude of new cartridges to stay one step ahead of cartridge remanufacturers.

The 12A8302 photoconductor unit remains unchanged across this range of printers.

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Quite an interesting article at NiftyStuff.com where they tested Canon BCI-6 cartridges, both genuine and compatible/refill, on various papers and subjected them to fading.

Their tests duplicated real life and although mostly US brands of ink were tested (as well as genuine Canon), the same results are to be expected from Australian equivalents.

The basic conclusion is that while compatible inlks can give acceptable results, the best was genuine Canon BCI-6 ink and genuine Epson ink.

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Well, we got an Epson R350 to use at home, we bought it just before Xmas. It is a very nice looking printer and it took up little room on our desk. After we unpacked it we realised we didn’t have a USB cable lying around so we couldn’t install it on the computer. Had a read through the manual and found out we could print straight from the SmartMedia card (or just about any card!) from a digital camera . The printer came with a sheet explaining how to do just that. We tried it and it was TOO easy! Whipped the SmartMedia card out of our Fuji camera and slotted it into the card reader on the printer and printed out an index sheet. It was easy to choose photos to print off the index card and enter the details into the R310 control panel.

Print quality was great. The 5760 x 1440 resolution meant photos were crisp and clear, and the borderfree looks really good. After Xmas we went out and bought a USB cable and hooked up the printer to the computer. The instruction sheet made it quite straightforward and we installed very quickly on Windows XP. Software installed was the printer driver and various other little programs and utilities. We couldn’t wait to print on some DVDs as we had a stack we had burnt and they looked pretty ordinary just plain white. Of course they were printable DVDs. We were a little disappointed with the printed DVDs, they weren’t as bright and vibrant as printing on paper but I suspect that has more to do with the printable surface on the DVD rather than the printers capabilities. Well, it was easy to print on the DVDs using the Epson CD Print Designer program that came with the printer.

Straight black text printing is extremely fast and looks good even though we always use draft mode for text to save on ink.

I will give an update on how long the Epson R350 cartridges last, but after 3 weeks of printing the levels are still at abot 85% on the indicators.

Overall we are very happy with the Epson R350, a great printer for everyday home or small office use but versatile enough to do digital photos and printable CDs and DVDs.

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