[jeffB]

So, I got a free Epson Stylus CS5400 for free with my pb just before xmas last year.
I've replaced the black cartridge 2 or 3 times since then.
Right now it wont let me print a BLACK AND WHITE DOCUMENT because the YELLOW CARTRIDGE is empty.
I haven't printed ANYTHING in color ever. Ever.
The cartridge is empty.
It won't let me print even if I choose "black and white" in the options.

I was given an award by my friend for getting 17 peices of paper jammed in a epson while I was still in college. 17.

But this makes me mad, even after learning that lexmark spies on their windows customers with a dll:
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?s...01&tid=218

but seriously, what happened to all my yellow ink, and why do i need it for black and white text?

hate hate hate

[tooki]

When an inkjet printer turns on (and periodically during printing as well), it cleans the print heads. It will do this for both black and color, regardless of what the print job is -- in fact, it'll be cleaning before it even knows what the print job will be.

The other thing to consider is that many printers, including Epson's, will use color ink on top of black to make it darker (or to adjust for the color of their black ink). Unless you always set it to grayscale-only mode, it's possible that this has been eating ink, too.

Finally, all modern inkjets use colored inks when printing grays in color mode. Unless you have set the printer to grayscale-only, it will print grays using black dots, plus colored dots to fill in the space between the black dots. This results in a much smoother, but costlier, gray.

As for Epson stopping you from printing anything so long as any cartridge is empty: yeah, it's a very annoying thing. (Though I will say that you could have prevented that by occasionally checking the ink level and buying ink before it ran out!) With Epson's print heads, which will permanently clog if they are not used or cleaned periodically, it makes sense to block the whole printer when any color is out. If they didn't, people would leave it with an empty color, and that color's printhead would permanently clog because it had no ink to clean itself with.

Lexmark's behavior is unfortunate. That said, I don't know why anyone would buy their printers -- their ink is even more expensive than HP's, and unlike HP, they don't have superior print quality or speed. Canon seems to be the best inkjet right now: unbelievable print speed, superb print quality, great drivers, and cheap ink.

tooki

[discotronic]

I received the Epson CX5400 model with a nice big rebate last year when I purchased an iBook. It is the worst "all in one" that I could have ever thought about owning. You can tell the software was written for Windows and it has the bugs to prove it. As soon as I have the cash I will get something else.

As far as the cartridges go I feel your pain. The same thing happened to me just recently. It had an almost new black cartridge but I couldn't print anything because one of the color carts was empty. Almost $40 later I could finally print. I never print in color. I go into the preferences and manually make sure that it prints in B/W and economy. It still eats the color carts up.

No wonder Epson was offering a hugh rebate. This thing is a piece of crap.

[jeffB]

asides from this it's been the best printer i've ever owned, but im pretty sure thats because its not plugged into the other os

still
hate hate hate

[aaanorton]

Just select Black from the ink pull-down in the Print Settings of the print dialog box. Then save that as a B&W preset.

[Disgruntled Head of C-3PO]

This is no surprise, it is the same thing I have been saying about epsons for years. They are clogging, ink wasting junk.

For the cost of refilling the damn thing once with expensive ink you could buy a much better Canon Printer (that comes full with ink) which works incredibly and has cheaper ink.

Think about it.

[jeffB]

not that im complaining, but the printer is now telling me im out of magenta, after i replaced it. twice. mr.cx5400 has a date with the bottom of the stairs

[Disgruntled Head of C-3PO]

How much does it cost to refill the whole thing once with ink? Take that money and get a canon printer that even comes with ink.

[jeffB]

it's about 50

the poor tech help kid didnt like hearing my theory that the "colors are used to make a true-er black" was crap and they're just wasting my overpriced ink.

[chris v]

Originally posted by jeffB:
not that im complaining, but the printer is now telling me im out of magenta, after i replaced it. twice. mr.cx5400 has a date with the bottom of the stairs

Don't do it!


A hammer will be much more satisfying.

I just preplaced an Epson C80, which I hated, with a new Cannon ip6000D. It's fantastic.

[tooki]

Originally posted by jeffB:
it's about 50

the poor tech help kid didnt like hearing my theory that the "colors are used to make a true-er black" was crap and they're just wasting my overpriced ink.

But Epson does do that in color mode. Even if it's just black text, it will still consume color ink.

ALL color inkjets consume color ink when performing a head cleaning, and that alone will empty the cartridge eventually.

As for it being an annoyance: when the printer tells you a cartridge is low, go out and buy a spare!

FWIW, my Canon also won't print if any of the cartridges is empty. Of course, at an average of $10.50 a cartridge, I can afford to keep ink on hand.

tooki

[Disgruntled Head of C-3PO]

For $50 you can get a new Canon Printer WITH ink.

Anywho, I had a Epson c80 and it was HORRID! Just a horrible horrible printer. It looked sorta cool, but the colours were off from day one and if I printed 10 8x10's 6-7 would be ****ed up one way or another. The Canon i950 that I have at home and at work has printed 400 8x10's and only ONE has been slightly messed. Also I have never cleaned the heads on either printer.

Originally posted by jeffB:
it's about 50

the poor tech help kid didnt like hearing my theory that the "colors are used to make a true-er black" was crap and they're just wasting my overpriced ink.