Way OT: Printers, photocopiers and geek stuff - what should I buy?

A Canon Photo quality printer is probably the cheapest to run as its the ink that costs the money. I have been running Canons for about 6 years and after having HP wouldnt go back.
The Canon's have individual ink tanks so you just replace each empty one at about $12-$20 Whereas an HP with one colour gone can be $90.
I have been using Calidad carts available from Kmart at a very reasonable cost.
Especially on their 20% off days and had no trouble on any of my several models.
When I need a print head (only needed one) I got it at Dick Smiths as a pack with all the carts for $135, the same price as the carts individually.
Dont know about colour lasers but the toner is not cheap.

A Canon Scanner is also a good idea and can be bought to do slides and negatives as well.
These are cheap as chips these days and give you the ablity to copy and alter documents rather than just copy.

Hi,
I use a Canon IP4300 which uses 5 tanks.
I found a guy on ebay that sells a complete set of tanks for $15 or less depending on your printer.

Cartridges are made in China, aint everything, but they work as well as Canon brand.

His name is "AUMARKET", just do a search on ebay for that name.

Try them anyway, nothing to loose.

I would be seriously careful about cheap inks. Some printers use dye based inks and some use pigment based. If you put the wrong ones in it will work for a while but then the print head will be stuffed and you will be up for a new one. The Calidad range are the correct type for each model and wont give you any trouble.
You say you have nothing to lose. I would say that you have and if you do it will be too late.

I second the Brother nomination.

Pretty much all the Brother stuff is above average.

Colour laser toners for ANY brand are EXPENSIVE. Kyocera is the cheapest colour laser to run, but it's a business printer range, not a very good photo printer range.

OH and steer clear of Hewlett Packard ! Their warranty is pathetic.

Hi mfewster, I too have a MP530 and it is a great printer/scanner/fax, question about the continuous ink system (RIHAC) how much butchering of the rear of the machine to get the ribbons etc fitted? do you have an instruction sheet that you could email?

Thanks Shane

Shane L.
Almost no modification is needed to the mechanism of the 530. Just install a spacer (provided in the kit) under the edge of the lid. This gives the necessary space to run the silicon tubes through to the cartridges. Another small metal holder is attached inside the printer to all the tubes neat and organized.
The only other modification is removing the chips from the original cartridges and attaching them to the new bulk feed cartridges. These cartridges sit in the usual place inside the printer. A little bit fiddly, but not too bad.The tubes run to the bulk bottles which then sit on the bench next to the printer. The printer then thinks it is working with a set of original cartridges. You only have to do this once. After that, you just pour in ink into the bulk bottle of whichever colour or black you want to top up. For most users, it will be a long long time between top ups as each bulk bottle takes 100ml. The ink costs about $15.00 per 100ml.
A Rihac Ciss unit with one lot of ink costs about $130.
I reckon it has cut my ink costs by over 90% and I am very happy with the quality of both documents and glossy photos. My only concern is that I suspect that photos wont last as long as regular inks. So far, no sign of fading, but for my needs, this isn't an issue anyway.

*Beware of advice that Canon will honour printer head warranty with non-genuine cartridges .... as if!*

Shaker do you think they'll send it orrf to the Canon Scientific lab for analysis ~(*--)

I know of one thats been honoured i'll see if i can find the info on it !
I used to you genuine ones for the warranty period but do not anymore and never had any issues..If you want to be conned into buying genuine thats ok,And Canon realise that some of the Genuine looking ink aint so Genuine at all thats being sold ! The wrappers look exactly the same.

Cheers

*Canon certainly don't honour warranties if the printer has used non genuine inks* Nice little scare tactic from them

As you stated YOU would'nt be silly enough to leave the cartridges in would you !

I'm just stating a fact the non genuine ink does not stuff a canon printer from what ive seen over many years over many models...


Some company bought out a system for the ip 5000 and other models for canon where the ink wells were beside the printer,you hooked it up to the cartriges that were already in it so it was easy to fill with non genuine ink. I could not get my hands on one they had sold out completely...

This scenario reminds me of when you buy a new car you have to get it serviced through their dealership !

Cheers

Wrfer 69 The system you saw was a CISS system of the kind I have been posting about. If you go to the website I gave you will be able to buy one. A cISS system is quite a bit cheaper to run than a laser and avoids the quite heavy power drain when you turn laser printers on. Laser technology really works best when the equipment doesn't have to fire up each time you use it, ie,in a heavy use environment. There have also been a number of health warnings re the powder used in laser cartridges, especially if they are used in small rooms.
The RIHAC mob say that there are quality differences between inks. Their web page is an interesting read on the subject. I dunno, can only say that I find their system excellent and ultra cheap.
I was in Asia recently and looked in at a number of computer shops. Pretty well everyone of them had converted their printers so they were running on a CISS type system. I
Anyone who lives in SA, call in to Ink Jet City on South Road and have a look at one running.
I think you woulf find Warfer that if you looked very closely at the cartridges that were in the ip5000 you looked at, that they had the chips slightly modified so the printer's brain didn't know it wasn't using standard cartridges and ink. It is not a hard modification to do, just needs a Stanley knife or scalpel.

HiYa mfewster

Thanks for all the info will have a bit of a read !

Catch Ya

Mr B. You are correct about the cost of ink cartridges, but not about the cost if you use a CISS system. In this case they are cheaper than laser per sheet. The problem with cheap laser printers is that (in my experience, based on 3 different brands we tried in a shared office) they didn't last very long. Each lasted less than a year before it started giving problems. This was around 5 years ago, so they may have improved..

You may be right about cheap lasers in an office environment, I refuse to have anything less than a HP4250 at work, but I understood Mike to be asking about a personal use printer for home, in which case a cheap laser is the go. I have run a couple of different models over the years (FUJI-Xerox and Lexmark come to mind) with no problems whatsoever.

Does anybody make a CISS system in a small office printer? For less than $150??

Mr B
Yes they do. A Ciss with 5 different inks (including about 500ml of ink, which is an awful lot of ink, costs about $130 from RIHAC

That's $130 PLUS the printer.....

For someone who's printed "3 or 4" colour pages in the last couple of years a Laser is still the best bet.

Yes, but if you buy a Pixomat multi fiction, you get a fax, copier, autofeed, double paper tray, printer and CD labeller for about $300. If you added a CISS and never used the colour inks (remember, you only fill the colour (or black) that you need, I reckon you would still be in front when compared to the cost of a laser equivalent plus the cost of laser cartridges. And given the ultra cheap price at which high quality photos can then be done, if he wished, Mike might decide to do some of these as well.

Check the following site
http://www.rihac.com.au/
In my experience, what they claim is accurate.

I use this option too and is great,Kmart use Kodak Paper and for about 15 cents...

Just make sure you virus scan your sd when putting back into you computer as trojan viruses can jump to them !
PC USER mag did an artickle awhile back regarding this...

the Brontok virus is deadly at the moment !


Cheers

Hit the wrong button (again!) when wanting to insert a link - consider changing the button layout please David?

Bought the printer from these people:
Cheapest box shifter in Melbourne

and bought one of these:
Printer/copier

Mechanically it's a bit flimsy but the scan, photocopy and printing quality is excellent - especially for $135!

Thanks again people - the breadth of knowledge on the internet never ceases to amaze me :)

Mike Harding

You're welcome ;-))

At my age I probably don't care... but did I make a good deal? :)

Mike. I think you got a very good deal.

Richard K. Given that the post was clearly labeled OT, the question is, what little corner of your brain compelled you to waste all that precious energy by clicking on the button so you could wallow in the crap?

That old hairy goat does the rounds every year or so.
If there was any truth to it I'd be a goner years ago ;-)