Printer inks

bothered

I've just bought a new printer, Epson 925. My old printer wouldn't do photos anymore. A pair of colour and black inks for the old one were £23 from Dabs, the new set is £40! I always use Epson inks as I don't buy them every week but what are your views on 'compatable' inks? Are they as good?

bothered.

DogSoldier

I have an Epson C82 here and at home. It's cool cause you can buy individual tanks but they are expensive. The ink is smudgeproof tho which is a plus. Downside is noone produces generic cartridges for these printers.

Enverex

No. Compatable inks dry slower, so they always fuzz on the paper unless you are using very expensive paper, which sort of defeats the idea.

Oh, and NEVER use a ink refil kit, they are awful in the effort > output way. Cover yourself in ink for a relatively cheap, half full cartridge

So, if you are bothered (ahaha) about your print quality then you need to use the originals. Unless you manage to find the infamous cheap but good quality compats....

NS

m-gosling

At work we sell Jettec cartridges, and we would recomend them to anyone. They are virtually as good as the real thing, and they cost a whole lot less as well (about £5-£6 on average ) And we are a Epson service centre too, so we have a lot of experiance with them

Enverex

I have used JetTek cartridges on Epsons and Canons and think they have the same performance as the other compats, and basically they do the same, fuzz and are not as good as the originals.

So my statement still stands.

NS

m-gosling

I suppose it depends on what your needs are, we print out stuff ranging from plain text to photo-realistic printouts and personally I have never noticed any fuz, and 95% of our customers are 100% happy with the quality they get from using the Jettec's. We have only ever had a few people say that they prefer the originals to the Jettec's, mostly due to slight colour differences. But then those people normally run buisnesses where the prints have to be as perfect as they can get. Either way, the prices that they charge for the official cartridges are extreme to say the least, and you have to weigh up wether its worth spending an extra £15+ or so on an official cartridge just because the non-official ones might produce a tiny bit of fuzz that a majority of people will probally never notice.
Before I switched to an Epson cx3200 a few days ago, I used to use an Epson stylus 460 with the official cartridges, and eventually switched over to 'WH-Smiths' own brand of ink which cost around £10 less. I can honesty say that apart from prehaps the black not being quite as pure, it was the same as using the official inks, and there was the slightest bit of fuzz, but that was mostly down to using extremely cheap paper.
At the end of the day it all comes down to personal prefferences and needs, but my vote is that non-official inks are fine for most uses.

Enverex

m.gosling had this to say
but my vote is that non-official inks are fine for most uses.

That they are, considdering how much cheaper they are. Thats why they are the only things I use.

If you use higher quality paper, just not any of the cheaper 80gm stuff then the cheaper carts wont fuzz anyway. It doesn't have to be expensive paper, just not crap.

I would take official cartridges over the cheaper ones if they were the same price, but when I can buy 5 cartridges for my Canon for only 15 pounds then they cheap ones win.

NS

bothered

Cheers guys, it seems there is a drop in quality even if it's very small. I don't like 'good enough' I want to get the best out of what I have so, as I do mainly photos, I'll stick with Epson. I just wondered if there was a differance.
Thanks again.

bothered.

profdlp

The first time I tried my own cartridge refilling with my old HP it worked great, but I never could duplicate that experience - subsequent refills (even with a never-before-refilled cartridge) stunk, or did not work at all.

I got a new Epson C82 in May, and I like it a lot. One thing Epson has going for it is their new "DURAbrite" ink system, which claims to be colorfast for up to 80 years. Even if that is a little too optimistic (doubt I'll be around to find out...) it is nice to have if you like to print out your photos. I've seen other inks look shabby in just a few months, the pictures I printed out in May still look good hanging on the old fridge.

Straight_Man

I have found one source fro limited supplies of Epson C82 compatible inks. NO fuzz, colors did not mathc the Epson ink values.

Unoftunately, if you air ship generics, they tend to be thin walled adn what happens is they bow inward and pressure values change. IF you can find inks mfr'd in your country or BOAT shipped, adn they will guarantee the cartridges, generic can be used. AIR shipped cartridges need to be rejected for generics. The Epson cartirdges are better packed and thicker walled and do not have this issue. For Epson GENERICS, it depends on availablility of at least a 90 day warranty whether they are even worth buying. I was able to use my generics but had to adjust color density values to do so, and those were consistent from cartridge to cartridge from same generic supplier-- and supplier TESTED randomly on their C82 they had in house also before selling a batch. Reputation is big key, shipping method also responsible for quality for most Generics.

John.

DogSoldier

Nice to know someone manufactures them. I'm gonna do a search see if I can find a Canadian supplier. I agee with the prof, the C82s produce some nice looking AND durable prints.

DogSoldier

And if you want some spectacular prints, try this.. http://www.creativepro.com/story/news/20394.html?cprose=daily