My printer runs out of ink rapidly, and the inkjet cartridges are expensive. (I have a Compaq IJ600 printer, which takes Lexmark cartridges.) The cartridges quit when the computer says they are still half-full, and the blue always runs out first in the color cartridges. Instead of cartridges, the printer could have refillable inkwells, which you could fill from large bottles of ink when necessary.

I've seen a kind of system advertised which gives you a thing resembling a hypodermic needle to refill cartridges, but that looks like an awful lot of fuss.
-- TeaTotal, Jan 27 2002

Lawsuit over replacement cartridge biz http://www.monitor..../newsbytes.html#901
[bristolz, Jan 27 2002, last modified Oct 17 2004]

Yet another no-brainer http://www.brightid...932F0D2}&bucket_id=
Yet another no-brainer the printer industry isn't (to my knowledge implementing) [LoriZ, Feb 03 2002, last modified Oct 17 2004]

Exactly what [PeterSealy] said. The only thing I have to add is that an open ink well is liable to collect debris which would clog the ink delivery system.
-- phoenix, Jan 27 2002


$30? Sheesh, mine are $71. The razor-blade model taken to an extreme. I read that the reason some of the printer makers are putting the actual print-head into the cartridges, and then patenting the assembly, is to foil the ink cartridge recharging and replacement cartridge businesses.
-- bristolz, Jan 27 2002


Buy the printer which says "piezoelectric". Get a big bottle of black ink. Wash out a used cartridge with distilled water, fill with distilled water and fit it in printer. Run printer for a few pages to flush out ink remaining.

Then you can refill the used cartridges with your ink again and again.

For colour, you will have to locate supplies of CYM inks and at present I haven't much success.
-- neelandan, Jan 28 2002


Baked. I've seen someone selling such a beast for the Epson Stylus range of printers - it had a a modified cartridge with tubes and reservoir system to store the ink, which could be just topped up when necessary. It was fairly expensive, and I'm not sure if they're still around.

Some (all?) Canon printers have 4 separate cartridges, one for each colour, so you don't end up wasting ink when one colour runs out.
-- cp, Jan 29 2002


Printer manufacturers make their money selling print cartridges. Low-cost printers are in many cases actually loss-leaders.

Print cartridge pricing seems to be designed to confuse the consumer and make it difficult to evaluate the real relative costs of the printers and supplies. While it makes sense to offer someone who's only going to print 500 pages over the life of the printer a cheaper printer than someone who will print 500,000 pages, it's often hard to determine which printer is really the best value.

BTW, I wonder whether anyone keeps more than one 'live' color cartridge and swaps among them based on color usage. If someone has a cartridge with 1% of the yellow remaining but 40% of magenta and cyan, one may be able to print a lot of seascapes before the cartridge becomes useless.
-- supercat, Jan 29 2002


That's the advantage of separate color cartridges.
-- phoenix, Jan 29 2002


Well there are tons of ways to supply ink to a cartridge using off-cartridge ink containers. Lots of patents for these in the U.S. system in class 347 subsclass 85. The main problem is the limited lifetime of most inkjet printheads, but I still think you should be able to get at least a few refills out of one printhead. The reason it costs so much to replace a cartridge has little to do with the ink and a lot to do with the head itself. More money is made of off cartridges than printers, I've seen printers with no cartidge for sale for $60 and well, you know how much cartridges costs. Also, some companies are being ridiculous with their ink level monitors to make consumers buy ink cartridges more frequently. There are much more accurate monitors out there, see class 347 subclass 7 of the U.S. Patent system for instance, the most common which comes to my mind are those which count the number of drops printed-can't get more accurate than that. I don't think its fair that cartridges cost so much and have to be repalced so frequently, but its all a marketing idea to hide the true costs and make printers seem cheaper. I'll compare it to the XBox, microsoft loses money on each system it sells, but where it makes its money is on the games. I think if we weren't paying so much for the cartridges, we'd end up paying more for the printers instead. I'd take UnaBubba's advice and look for a printer like the Canon BJC-6000.
-- Jules, Apr 30 2003



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