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

We had yet another customer call today asking if we could supply them with a printhead for their nearly new Canon bubblejet. It was the same old story - we always ask what type of ink they are using, and the usual answer is either refilled or ‘no name’ generic ink cartridges. What people don’t realise is that refill and generic inks will clog up the nozzles in their printhead. The reason is that cheap inks are coloured with pigment that is not ground up finely enough so the dye particles slowly but surely get lodged in the fine print nozzles and block them up making the printheads useless. And whereas once upon a time Canon printheads were classed as consumbles and were relatively cheap, they are now classed as spare parts which can only be purchased from Canon’s spare parts dealers (with the associated increase in costs for parts and installation). Printer companies spend millions of dollars a year to formulate inks with just the right properties for a particular printer - inks which won’t clog, or dry too quickly or slowly, won’t dry out in the printhead, will be delivered at just the right rate etc - yet people believe someone in China or elsewhere producing ‘compatible’ inks will produce the same result for a fraction of the cost. The upshot of all this? Yes, you can save a few bucks using non-genuine ink, but be prepared to either throw away your printer when it gets blocked printheads or be prepared to pay a Canon tech big bucks to install a new printhead.

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