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Zoom · Jun 18, 2003, 09:51 PM

I bought an Epson C42 for the unbelievable price of $14 a while back (new) and so far it's been decent, with the stock cartridges. I just replaced the black cartridge with one from InkDaddy and I'm getting no black whatsoever. When I do a nozzle check, the big black square that's supposed to be there is not. (Okay, once I got a couple thin streaks.)

WTF?? It didn't complain about an incompatible cartridge or anything, and these cartridges are definitely for the C42. I've run the nozzle cleaner and all that, but to no avail. What am I doing wrong??

Severed Hand of Skywalker · Jun 19, 2003, 01:11 AM

Originally posted by Zoom:
What am I doing wrong??

You bought an epson.

I made the same mistake a couple times.

Zoom · Jun 19, 2003, 05:58 AM

I've had two Espon's prior to this with no problems at all.

Since I might be in the market for another, what do you suggest? I want to do general home printing with some photo printing here and there, and I don't want to spend a lot of money on it, and I want to be able to buy generic cartridges.

tooki · Jun 19, 2003, 03:09 PM

Do a search on this forum for the canon i850. It's the current winner in terms of quality, ink cheapness (real Canon ink is just as cheap as imitation Epson ink), speed, etc.

Epson used to be good. Now they've gone to crap.

That said, your C42 may work fine if you put real Epson ink in it. But it's so expensive to run!

As for buying a new printer, remember this: The cheaper the printer, the more expensive the supplies. The cheapest printers actually end up costing you more in the long run because they use tiny, expensive ink cartridges. Some printer reviews actually contain the total cost of printing, say, 1500 pages. The cheapest printers invariably end up costing the most to own.

tooki

Chito · Jul 12, 2004, 08:13 AM

Ok...dragging up an old post because this was the only result of a search on "inkDaddy".
My question is about aftermarket inkjet printer cartridges. What's your take on them as opposed to OEM carts? I used some carts from Ink4Art on my old epson a few years back and I swear it plugged up the printhead. I threw that printer away as a result and now own a Canon i950. I don't want to damage my printer but the prices advertised by InkDaddy are pretty tempting. Your thoughts? TIA....

Zoom · Jul 12, 2004, 11:10 AM

I'd like to hear some feedback on this, too. I think somehow things have changed. A few years ago, in the days of my Epson Stylus 740, I could use non-Epson ink just fine. Then it seemed like things changed. The C42 didn't like foreigh ink cartridges. My mom has a C62 and it doesn't seem like like them, either.

I've got a Canon i850 at home now and it works great with Canon ink, but I'm afraid to use third-party ink in it now.

What's the latest on this?

tooki · Jul 12, 2004, 11:52 AM

IIRC, the C42 and C62 use microchips to prevent 3rd-party ink, so if the third party didn't properly program the chips, it won't print. (The 740 did not use a chip.)

Canon does no such thing -- like the 740, its ink tanks really are just "stupid" ink tanks.

That said, Canon ink is so cheap (esp. when on sale!) that I haven't bothered with 3rd party ink. Around here, at least, 3rd party ink in retail is only slightly cheaper than the real thing -- I'm not going to risk reduced print quality to save $1.50. But I've seen the Canon ink on eBay for $1.50. Now THAT is cheap!

The risk, of course, is that the wrong ink formulation could clog the heads, or at minimum just not be as good (esp. for photos). But Canon's print heads are robust (I used to refill the cartridges on my old StyleWriter, aka Canon BC-10 print cartridges, over and over again with any old ink, and it worked fine!), so you'd probably be OK.

tooki

Zoom · Jul 12, 2004, 01:34 PM

Originally posted by tooki:
That said, Canon ink is so cheap (esp. when on sale!) that I haven't bothered with 3rd party ink. Around here, at least, 3rd party ink in retail is only slightly cheaper than the real thing -- I'm not going to risk reduced print quality to save $1.50. But I've seen the Canon ink on eBay for $1.50. Now THAT is cheap!

If you look at dealink, there's a fairly significant difference in the cost of Canon vs generic ink. (Check this link unsorted and then filter by "Canon".)

Where are you buying your Canon ink? eBay? How can someone on eBay sell it for less than inkDaddy or ink4art? Or are you buying from regular people who are trying to firesale some ink?

tooki · Jul 12, 2004, 04:41 PM

I got my stash of Canon-brand ink when the Apple store fire-sold their remaining stock of it -- they only carry ink for current printers. When the i860 (which uses different ink) replaced the i850, they sold the multipacks (the 3 color tanks) for $20 instead of $35, I bought all the i850 ink they had!

As I said, generic ink online is very cheap. In retail (e.g. Staples or Target), the third-party ink for Canons is only a dollar or so cheaper, and in fact I once saw third-party black ink that was a dollar more than the Canon!

Even so, remember this fact: real Canon ink is cheaper than generic ink for Epsons.

tooki