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Old May 10th 04, 05:13 AM
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On Mon, 10 May 2004 03:42:27 +0200, "Alon Brodski"
wrote:

Hello world!

I have a question...since original HP cartridges are very expensive.....In
Israel they cost $10 more a piece ,than in the US.
Here it would cost $42 .And there's no way for sure to know when the ink is
completely ran out,except just to see it on a paper (fading colors and
such)...so my question is:does it damage the PRINTER itself in some way to
use the cartridge till the end (even after getting low ink messeges)?

Thanks in advance,
Alon.


I doubt it since the printhead is separate from the printer. In fact
Ive done it and didnt damage my HPs.

Your best bet though isnt to run it to the end but to take care of
your cartridges as much as possible and refill them.

Buy ink in bulk and then refill the cartridges. The black ink
cartridge is a piece of cake. The color is a little bit more
complicated. Sometimes it works other times it doesnt,

You can also of course buy remanufactured cartridges.

The caveat is there was an article at CNET claiming there was a flood
of counterfeit cartridges since they sold for such high prices. And
that the ink in refill bottles and counterfeit cartridges was often
low quality and could even clog/damage the printheads. However Ive
never experienced that. They also said the lower quality ink tended to
fade etc - so to some extent they justified the high prices by the
manufacturers but no way do I think $30-40 a cartridge is worth it.

If you are running a business and quality is more important than cost
than stick with the official cartridges unless you want to experiment
to find a decent refill seller but if you are a home user its insane
to pay that much.

Besides buying refills or remanufactured - which still isnt super
cheap - buy a cheap Canon.

Ive bought 4 HPs since I got my first inkjet a DeskJet 500 , and one
Lexmark. And eventhough my last one the 940c still works its
mothballed. I feel like a moron for not buying the Canon i470d
earlier.

Its at least as good and frankly I think better and a black ink cart
cost $6-7 , color $23 and you can get remanufactured ones for even
lower. I tend to use mortly black ink. Going to buy a new for $7 is
like nothing compared to buying one for $26 and a color for $35.

The main difference is that the printhead is built into the Canon.
Ive changed the cartridges 3 times already and havent had any problems
with the heads yet.

With HPs you do have to reset the chips.

There are instructions at several websites and I think the refill kits
come with instructions.

They show you how to put tape on a part of the contact points on the
cartridge and then inserting the cartridge to fool the printer/PC into
thinking its a new cartridge.