Any cheap inkjet printer without expensive inks or drying inks or drm or ink subscription? Don't want to do diy ink tank etc.

6pack

6pack

ex-Mod
Any cheap inkjet printer without expensive inks or drying inks or drm or ink subscription? Don't want to do diy ink tank etc.
Just curious. Wanted something to take 4-5 printouts month. printout costs 10-15 rupees here per page for b/w.
 
Canon Pixma Printers will do good imo. Ink lasts more than 6 months if your printing frequency is this low.
If at all there's any dryness or clots formed, you gotta run Cleanup and it'll be done. :)
 
Paying for printout will still be cheaper, but if you want a printer for convenience, any ink tank will do. They are mostly similar in price of ink as well as printer prices. Only difference I heard is that on the Canon you can reset the waste ink pad yourself. Epson has to be taken to a service center or you gotta use some shoddy software.

Also my Epson inktank dried out its printhead nozzles after it sat unused for a few months. You gotta take 1 print every week or so, else it will ultimately happen. If you want zero maintenance a B/W laser is the only option.
 
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I spent too much energy in inkjet printers to hate them to the core. My suggestion is to get a nice laser printer and enjoy the better print quality. I have a xerox color btw.
 
booo said:
I spent too much energy in inkjet printers to hate them to the core. My suggestion is to get a nice laser printer and enjoy the better print quality. I have a xerox color btw.
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you must have spent a lot on it. Do you have a shop or just for home?
 
If you do not print at least 10 pages everyday via Inkjet, ink cartridge head may clog and either need to clean it or refill to remove ink clot (due to non use, cartridge ink tend to get thick/dry).

If no use, keep machine / cartridge in AIR TIGHT container, by this way you may expand life of cartridge little more.
 
I have been using Epson L130 for 5 years now. Don't print very frequently, but the printer is used at least once a month, maybe more. Have refilled the tank multiple times, and an quite happy with it. The nozzle does need cleaning at times, but still it's useful to have a printer at home.

So, I would recommend Ink Tank printers. Canon Pixma is a good one.

Edit: The printer has been transported from Mussoorie to Bangalore, and still works quite efficiently.
 
I have gone the full circle on printers over the last 15+ years so heres my take on it.

Cartridge Inkjet: Avoid at all costs... I have gone through at least 3 of them and they all have the same issue which is that cost per print is too high. So as a user, we naturally don't print much (unless needed) -which in turn inevitably results in clogged head/ dry ink

Laser: After wasting money on inkjets, I got a HP laser. Great and reliable printer. Reasonable cost per print (but not very low either). Cartridge refills work but also result in drastically reduced print quality.
No risk of ink drying up - but B&W prints remain an issue, esp if you have a kid.
Also the key benefit (fast prints) is not of much use in a typical home.
Eventually sold this off on olx - which is another pro btw. Unlike other printers, its actually pretty easy to dispose laser printers

Ink Tank: Got a Canon Ink Tank to replace the HP as I needed colors. And I won't go back to anything else now.
The cost per print is ridiculously low.
The original issue of clogging still remains valid - but its a moot point as the cost per print is so low that you tend to print far more often for drying to be an issue IRL.
Even if it remains a concern, one can just Setup a scheduled job for a basic print to be fired every 3 -4 days or so
The only con I can think of vs a laser is the much slower speed but for home usage, it does not impact me in any meaningful way
 
Bought Brother DCP-T310 ink tank printer during 2019 and it is still going strong without the ink drying up. Did not use it for 6 months continuously but still worked good after the idle period and the prints came out as good as new. I think ink tank printers are better than inkjet as the print head does not dry off in ink tank printers.
 
6pack said:
you must have spent a lot on it. Do you have a shop or just for home?
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did own a few over the years. initially chasing best photo print quality, then for some industrial use for sublimation t-shirts, now just print stuff.
few things to note...
1. if you want ultimate photo print quality, inkjets are the best. but then you have to use pigment based inks where, the ink is suspended in solution which means that it will clog. but then good quality pigment inks wont fade and are uv resistant. which means that if you hang the pictures they wont go bad over time but if you refill ink then the replacement ink is usually shitty quality so its better to go to kodak or so to get quality prints for pictures. Also one important info to look for is the droplet size, smaller the droplet size, better the quality but also requires quality ink to work.
2. dye based ink dont clog but will have the problems mentioned above.
3. Another problem is to align/clean the head for good quality print otherwise you will have shitty printouts.
4. refilling inks is usually very messy unless you buy refill bottles with needle and cartridges with caps.
5. even if you solve all the above problems there is no guarantee that it will work after the printer decides to update the firmware.

I havnt got into color gamut and adobe photoshop etc... thats another big subject. (Basically, you see something on screen but prints would be completely different)

My solution is little simpler. got a laser printer for printouts and whenever I need to print photos I just use professional service where they have kodak printers.

One more thing, I live in high altitude place(6850ft MSL) which means inkjet dries and clogs a lot.
 
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