Here's How to Save Money on Printing Costs - Comments Page 2

Thank You! I have also been under the misconception that only HP cartridge work in HP printer. I cringe everytime I have to shell out for replacements. Will try LD next.

Back in the old days (1920s) the electric company would give out free lightbulbs and then sell you the electricity to light them.
That’s the concept of what the printer companies are doing that today.

I have used the oem carts and moved to LD carts and never had any problems. Finally bought a laser printer and after the cart that came with the printer was expended have used LD toner cartridges and have been very pleased with them and have had no problems. Don't do a lot of printing however. Of course this is just my personal experience. Each person must do what is most effective for them.

I was using HP Officejet for years I was using LD products. I know HP was monitoring this and one day I could no longer print. I kept getting error message that the print head was damaged, which I am sure was created by HP. I did some research and sure enough that is what had happened. They wanted me to buy all my ink through their instant ink program. I had to buy a new printer. Can anyone tell me how to avoid this from happening again?

Costco also offers printer ink refills at the counter up front by the TV and electronics department. Their prices are competitive, and they can usually do the job while you are shopping there. You have to bring in your own spent cartridges though, as they do not have piles of empty cartridges for refilling. If you stop at the food court and get one of their great $1.50 hot dog and Pepsi combos, or a slice of pizza, your cartridges should be filled by the time you finish your meal, nd you'll have the refilled cartridges right away, ready to use when you get home, too.

Inkjet printers waste a lot of ink; in "Head Clean" mode. If you have ever taken an inkjet apart, there are built in pads to absorb this wasted ink. As a matter of fact this is what killed our Dell AIO Inkjet. Excess ink got into the gears and would not advance the paper. Our next printer was a Canon B/W laser printer,scanner and copier; cost us $80 and generic cart were $7 on eBay. There have been no problems in the 4 years that we had it!

Love LD Products! Great deals! $80.00 color toner cartridges for $18.00.....and they last longer!

On your advice and others, I bought a box of LD cartridges for my Canon printer. One of them printed the wrong color and a few others leaked between opening them and getting them in the printer. I trashed the rest and went back to Canon cartridges. More expensive--yes. But I've never had a problem with one.

I find that if I need to print anything at all I can print it at the public library.

Dear Bob,

As a victim of the HP Cartridge fiasco - my new latest colour/scanner/email facility model seems to KNOW when my local top-up service (which I used for over 11 years) has supplied the ink and will only give 20 copies before totally refusing to work. I am angry about this because the original HP simple printer worked perfectly all that time on the top-ups.

Your article is. therefore, of great interest/value to me and I will advise members when replacing presnt HP cartridges are empty.

I picked up a Brother DCP 7020 lazer printer for free at a Thrift shop. They could not resell it as could not test it properly to see what condition was. Turned out to have 75% of toner remaining, and used it for 5 years before ran out, then I purchased 5 tanks of toner in bulk and will probably never have to buy again - total cost for toner was about 75.00. One refill does about 5,000 to 6000 pages. Couldn't really go wrong, but only black and white and gray tones.

If you think InkJet savings are big, colour laser toner is even better. My OKI C531DN duplex colour networkable colour laser cost me around £230 a few years ago. A proper set of high capacity OKI toner would be best part of £500, I qualify for a discount to £400.

I can get 3rd party cartridges that are also high capacity and work fine for the grand price of £60 saving of at least £340. Once the other parts of the printer need replacing (fuser, belt) I'll simply buy a new printer.

For decades I have printed on the back of previously used paper; not for a business letter, but for many situations. Think of the junk mail you get; some is printed on one side only.

I use PRINT EDIT add on in Firefox to eliminate anything on a web page I don't need to print.

Bob - for your information and to those considering ordering from LD Products - the company only ships to the US and Canada.

Thank you Bob - but there is life outside of the US hahaha

Try the Epson ecotank. I'm using the ET-4500 and fill the tanks every 6 to 9 months

On Bob's advice previously, I have ordered from 123inkjets and was satisfied with them.

I would also add to check your printer settings: on some printers, when you select "black and white" the printer will combine the color ink in with the black - you should be able to select "use black ink only".

I purchased a new Epson printer several years ago. I had an Epson before. I could use non-OEM printer cartridges with the old Epson. Not with the new Epson. What happened is the non-OEM printer cartridges somehow damaged the printer heads. I can print 3 - 5 good pages and then I must go thru the very time consuming process of testing, cleaning and realigning. I buy OEM printer cartridges at Wal-mart or on eBay, whoever has the best price. I don't do that much printing and I'm at a point where I try to avoid it whenever possible.

I did some research earlier this year and compared cartridge inkjets and tank inkjet printers from Canon, Epson, and HP.(HP doesn't sell their tank printers or ink bottles in the US)
The initial price of a basic tank printer with printer and scanner only will run you about $18, which would be a lot more than a basic cartridge printer. If you buy an all in one business model the price difference is nill between the cartridge and tank printers.
The real significant difference is that the tank printers come with four(CMYK) front transparent tanks. The printers come with 70ml each of CMY and 70 to 135ml of black. The cartridge printer cartridges have 3.5ml to 13ml of ink and you have to trust the printer to tell you when they are empty.
By using each manufacture's published page yield figures for their respective cartridge vs tank printers you would need to buy approximately 8 to 15 black cartridges and 11 to 15 color cartridges, depending upon the brand to, to equal the page yield of the tank printers.
The replacement cost for a 3.5 to 7.0 ml cartridge is $13 to $20 for black. A 70ml replacement bottle of black ink for a tank printer is $13 to $18. The color ink bottles are all 70ml and all $13 to $18 per bottle.
A new cartridge printer would require over $950 worth of cartridges to equal the yield of a tank printer. All the prices are based upon the oem website prices and yields.
Canon makes MegaTank printers, Epson makes EcoTank printers. HP makes HP Ink Tank printers but doesn't sell them in the US.
Canon and Epson tank printers cost per page is about 1/4th of 1 cent per page. Canon and Epson cartridge printers cost about 5 to 7 cents per page. A Canon mono laser printer cost about 3.75cents per page...

The initial price should read $180 for a basic tank printer and scanner.