You would not need your warranty if you did not damage your printer.  So if
you use refilled cartridges and nothing bad happens, it would not be a
problem.  If something does happen, then you have a problem. The bottom line
is that if you use a refilled cartridge and you make a warranty claim that
the manufacturer can attribute to that, you are out of luck.  You make a
good point about using sub-$100 printers.  If a refillable cartridge kills
it, who cares?  You can buy a replacement with new cartridges, and the
difference between a new printer with two new cartridges and replacing two
cartridges separately is probably less than $50. If you are using a
$300-$500 inkjet the cost of throwing it away to buy a new one becomes more
onerous.

Keep in mind that what allows manufacturers to sell inkjets so cheap is that
they make it back on the ink cartridges.  They hire risk assessment people
to figure out how many purchasers may opt for refilling cartridges as
opposed to buying them. Setting up prices for printers and cartridges is a
science.  If Epson thought that 80% of the purchasers of their sub-$100
printers would refill cartridges, you can bet the price of the printer would
go up.  As the price of the printer goes up the warranty becomes more
valuable.  In your specific case about your son's print job, you saved
several times what the 640 was worth, and considering all the work that it
did you could throw it away and be ahead of the game.  It would be a
deduction for your son's new business as would the printer that replaced it.

I would not be inclined to use refilled cartridges in a new Epson 890, 1280
or 2000 since at $300, $500 and $900 a pop, respectively, the warranty is
gold.  They used highly specialized proprietary inks that make droplets as
small as 3 picoliters. I would give it a lot of thought for HP's 990, 970,
2200, 1220 as they are not throwaways.

Everyone's situation is different, and what worked for you on a throwaway
printer is not applicable to any of the printers I mentioned above.  Not to
say that some people will not refill cartridges for those printers, but I
don't think a lot of users would do it.  As I said in my first posting, I am
not against refilling cartridges, I just believe that people should give
some consideration to all the angles.  How would you like Epson to tell you
that the damage to your new 2000 is not covered by warranty because you used
a refilled cartridge?  Either you pay some professional hundreds of dollars
to fix it, or you're out $900.  I would be willing to bet that there are a
lot of people out there who could submit horror stories about using refilled
cartridges.  You didn't mention how many person hours you and your son spent
on this project that would be attributable to the ink thing, how much the
pints of ink cost, how much the hardware for refilling cost, and how much
you paid yourself for all this work.  If you did that I could compare it to
the cost of buying replacement cartridges in bulk from the Internet.  But as
I said, you were using a sub-$100 printer, so it's all moot.  To each
his/her own.

Subject: Re: [PCBUILD] Liquid ink refill


While I respect your opinion, I feel that I should point out
some inaccuracies in your comments.

1. First of all, the warranty is not voided just because you use
non-manufacturer cartridges, which by the way are not
necessarily refilled. The warranty is voided only if the
cartridge actually damages the printer. The warranty is not
critical in any event, as a new printer costs no more than 3 or
4 new manufacturer's cartridges anyway, and you save quite a bit
more than that by refilling.
2. Inks are available specifically formulated for virtually any
manufacturer's cartridge. I have refilled Epson cartridges, for
three different models, many, many times with no loss of quality
or performance. Of course I have used refill ink specified for
the exact cartridges refilled.
3. To put this in perspective, last year my son had a
requirement to quickly send out prospectuses, for the business
he was starting, in full photographic mode on glossy paper on
our Epson 740. The quantity was such that in one day we would go
through 2-3 color and black cartridges, and I'm sure you have an
idea how much that cost. I bought four pints of ink, (CMY and K)
and we started refilling. We made back the cost of the ink in
one day of savings on cartridges, and the job was done in about
a week. We had so much ink left over that we still have not
bought ink or cartridges for that printer in the last year. We
also have an Epson 600, which uses the same ink, and we haven't
had to buy anything for that printer either. And we won't have
to for some time to come as there is still much ink left. Of
course everyone's needs are different, and what was right for us
won't necessarily be right for everyone else. Out of necessity,
we saved hundreds of dollars in a very short time on one big
print job. Only you can decide what your time and trouble is
worth, but once you do it a few times, it only takes about 20
minutes to refill a color cartridge, and much less than that to
do a black cartridge. The money we saved could have bought
several new printers.

Joab

>
>Re-filling ink cartridges may be OK for some printers, but I
>would not
>recommend it while your printer is under warranty.  If you read
>some of the
>fine print you'll see that using non-manufacturer cartridges
>(re-fillables)
>will void your warranty. It could also be a problem with
>certain types of
>cartridges that use special inks.  Epson comes to mind because their
>cartridges are electrically charged and often use proprietary
>inks to
>achieve the photo-quality prints.  If you shop online for
>cartridges for
>your printer you can get some real deals.  When you're
>refilling cartridges
>attach some value to your time spent preparing to refill,
>refilling, and
>cleaning up afterward.  I think if you pay yourself a minimum
>wage of
>$10/hr. you'll find the money saving isn't much when weighed
>against the
>danger of damaging your printer.  For instance, I can buy the color
>cartridge for my Epson Stylus Photo 700 at CompUSA for $17.95,
>and have seen
>it online for $14.95.  This is a 5 color cartridge that just
>wouldn't be
>worth my time to refill.  The black cartridge is more expensive
>at the same
>store, but is only $21.95.  I'd have to be saving the cost of
>the cartridge
>to make it worthwhile.  HP cartridges are more expensive, but
>how much will
>I really save?  Is the savings worth it when weighed against my
>printer not
>working?  Kevin has a working system, but as he says, his
>cartridge is full
>of ball bearings which have to reduce the already limited
>capacity of the
>cartridge.  By now he must have to refill it much more
>often.  I am not
>against refilling, nor do I work for a printer manufacturer.  I
>just think
>as consumers we need to consider all sides of an issue.  If
>your time has
>zero value, you have a printer that's out of warranty, and you
>are on a
>budget, refills may be your cup of tea.

               The NOSPIN Group Promotions is now offering
              Mandrake Linux or Red Hat Linux CD sets along
         with our NOSPIN Power Linux CD...  at a great price!!!
             http://freepctech.com/goodies/promotions.shtml

               The NOSPIN Group Promotions is now offering
              Mandrake Linux or Red Hat Linux CD sets along
         with our NOSPIN Power Linux CD...  at a great price!!!
             http://freepctech.com/goodies/promotions.shtml