HP Canon & Epson Ink, Lexmark, Brother Toner cartridge Printer Ink Cartridges News

Epson Ink – Claria™ Photographic Ink.

With the advent of digital photography in the early 2000’s the holy grail of the printer manufacturers has been to keep up with the incredible advances in camera and memory technology and allow users to output prints that are worthy of their subject. Only a couple of years ago if you wanted professinal quality prints you had to visit a shop or pop them in the post for developing.

Nowadays however, with the advances in ink, printer and paper technology you are able to produce photo labe quality results at home which also means that you are able to manipulate the pictures via your PC before printing them.

Epson’s Photographic ink is branded as Claria™ ink and combined with Epson photographic papers which are optimised for the printer and ink will give outstanding output, with long lasting prints. Printers that are available with this technology are the:

    Epson Stylus Photo RX560

    Epson Stylus Photo R265

And    Epson Stylus Photo R360

Claria™ ink also produces great results on other types of documents from letters to web pages.

The Benefits of using Claria™ ink are:

1. Premium quality photo printing. Photographs printed with ™ photographic inks are rich, deep and the highest quality – even better than traditional photolab prints,
2. Superior Glossiness. ™ photogrpahic ink provides superior glossiness to the photos, especially when priting on Epson Ultra Glossy Photo Paper
3. Long Lasting photos. In combination with genuine Epson photo paper, up to 200 Years (if kept in an album)
4. Fade Resistant. Prints made with ™ inks are comparable to photo lab prints. This is thanks to a stronger dye molecule structure, making ™ photographic ink much more resistant to light and ozone than conventional dye ink
5. Water Resistant. If you combine ™ photographic ink and Epson Photo paper your photos won’t be damaged by spilt water or wet hands

Finally ™ inks are available in 6 individual ink cartridges, so you only replace the colour that you have used, saving you time, hassle and money

Epson Ink – Why pay full price for an original cartridges?

Over a period of many years we have all got used to the knowledge that the cost of printer ink is more than its equivalent weight in Gold!. All the major manufacturers have adopted the Razor Blade principle – i.e. sell the Razor for nothing and make your money on the consumables, in this case Razor Blades. With the price of printers well below the cost of manufacturing, all the major printer Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM’s) HP, Epson, Canon, Lexmark and Brother make their profit from the sales of their proprietary consumables – in their case INK.

The justification from the manufacturers for the high cost of their ink is always that the cost of development of new inks that match their particular printers requirements is enormous and that they have to recoup those costs. In their wake the third party ink manufacturers release compatible inks that generally produce acceptable results which means that the OEM’s are in a constant battle to protect their designs and profits.

So what is the acceptable answer, the obvious one is that the OEM’s reduce the cost of their ink. This allied with the obvious quality of the original inks should make the choice for the end user much more difficult. Epson are trumpeting that their new printers using multiple ink cartridges which are all selling for about £6.99 each give the consumer a much cheaper printing alternative.

However if you compare the cost of two cartridges, one black (T007)and one containing five colours (T009) used in early Epson Photo Printers like the Epson Stylus Photo 1290 with their latest Photo printers like the Epson Stylus Photo R265 and the costs of the ink cartridges you can see quite a startling cost comparison:

Stylus Photo 1290

T007 Black ink cartridge (Epson original)     £17.97

T009 Colour ink Cartridge (Epson original)    £20.32

Contains 66ml of ink divided by 5 colours = 13.2ml

    Total                    £38.29

Epson Stylus Photo R265

T0807 Multipack Contains 6 inks          £37.73

Each cartridge contains 7.4ml of ink

I would agree with the claims that Epson make about the quality of the output it is breathtaking, but as far as printing costs go the cost of ink seems to be actually going UP. Ally this to the fact that they no longer indicate on their packaging how much ink is contained in the cartridge and there you are – it’s all smoke and mirrors

HP launches two-pronged defence

There are lies, damned lies, and press releases. The battle for inkjet cartridge mindset and consumers’ cash has long been a contentious issue as the OEM printer manufacturers strive to protect their very profitable piece of turf in a market worth $25 billion worldwide. Printer manufacturers successfully play on fear, uncertainty and doubt (the so-called FUD factor) while their competitors play successfully on lower prices and environmental benefits, despite the FUD propaganda.

The latest battle in the war of words takes the form of a two-pronged strike by HP. The first arm of its pincer movement was the recent publication of a comparative report claiming better page yields and higher quality results from HP brand cartridges compared to refills. The firm’s second strike against the refiller market was the announcement that its new cartridges now come in two sizes, with one costing much less (and printing fewer pages).
The authors of the comparative report claimed that “European research firm Innovationstechnik proves original HP inkjet cartridges print more and are more reliable than alternatives”. Since the report was commissioned by HP, it is fair to assume we may never have heard about it if the researchers had reached the opposite conclusion.
The report concluded that HP ‘originals’ print 34% more pages than compatible alternatives and 69% more than refilled cartridges. The commissioned report also concluded that more than one in five compatible alternatives was dead on arrival or failed prematurely and that one in three refills was DoA or failed prematurely. The test covered 1,000 inkjet cartridges from 16 established European suppliers, including Pelikan, Staples, Tesco, Cartridge World and Vobis.

HP’s advertising in Britain recently led to a complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority by the UK Cartridge Recyclers Association by suggesting that using refilled cartridges was like “eating used food” and by suggesting that the environmental benefits of recycled cartridges were of little significance.

After collating material from focus groups, market research and help desk calls, HP concluded that its inkjet customers’ profile can be broadly divided into two groups. One comprises low-level users who want low prices. By contrast, the second group prints more pages and is more concerned about long term values and infrequent intervention rates. So now HP provide two cartridge sizes. Its Standard pack prints about 200 pages (rated by the ISO/IEC 24711 system of calculating yield), and costs £7.99. The Value pack has more ink, yielding about 1,000 pages and reducing the cost per page by between 35 and 55%, HP claims. A third type, the photo cartridge, will be available for some printers for premium quality and enhanced performance.

All major OEM suppliers are caught up in ink wars. Epson’s main battle is with the compatible cartridge manufacturers - of which there are hundreds in Asia, according to Iain Friar, Epson’s European IP manager. He says Epson has a robust patent enforcement policy, with 25 infringement cases settled in Europe in the past 18 months.
Friar said a high proportion of printers returned to service centres contained non-Epson cartridges. He said most problems resulted from dirty ink, bubbles, and the use of conventional ink in printers designed for pigments, which have different characteristics.

· 30 Oct 2007

 

The Epson Stylus Pro 3800 has won the Ecohitech Award 2007 for Energy Saving and CO2 Reduction.

Press Release:

Epson today announced that it has won a 2007 ecohitech award for the Epson Stylus Pro 3800 printer. The award, presented on October 29th at a ceremony in Milan, is Italy’s most prestigious recognition of environmental achievement by a technology company, and covers hi-tech processes, products, systems and services.

The jury’s appraisal of Epson’s award, given in the Energy Saving and CO2 Reduction category, states, “The Epson Stylus Pro 3800 is a compact printer developed and produced in accordance with the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). In comparison with the previous models, the estimated CO2 emissions during the whole product life are reduced by 44% and the amount of the resources used during the production is reduced by 55%. The printer is EcoLeaf certified. “

This is the third time that Epson has received an ecohitech award. The first time in 2002, was for a high altitude climate monitoring system developed for use in the Himalayas. The second time, in 2003, was for a programme launched by Epson for eliminating lead from the welding alloys in its products.

The award, now in its ninth year, was inaugurated by the Ecoqual’It and Eurotech Consortium under the patronage of major public bodies, including the Italian Government (Ministero dell’Ambiente e della Tutela del Territorio e del Mare), and with the backing of WWF Italia.

How do I reset the protection counter on my Epson printer?    

 

With most Epson printers you can reset them using a program called SSC for Epson

This allows you to reset the protection counter and continue using the printer after Epson has decided it needs to be ‘repaired’. Unfortunately this software doesn’t work with the new range of Epson printers, but there is a way to bypass this issue.

Use the program at http://www.refillingcartridge.com/wp-content/tools/ResetterForC79.zip

1. Make sure you printer is ON and connected to your computer
   
2. Change your computer’s date to 1 Nov 2006
   
3. Run AdjProg.exe file
   
4. Click Accept button
   
5. Click “Particular adjustment mode”
   
6. Select on “Waste ink pad counter” and click OK button
   
7. Click on “Initialization” button and the program will reset the protection counter
   
8. Click Finish button
   
9. Change your computer’s date back
   

Once that is done the Waste Ink Counter should be reset and you will be able to print once again, without having to buy a new printer.

Warning – this information is supplied purely for information and is not recommended for use if you do not feel confident with the consequences