The lowdown on cheap Epson compatible cartridges please........

Hello
....I'm new to this photo printing thing, and this may be a well worn
thread...

I've acquired an Epson R300....6-pot printer. Replacement Epson
cartridges are hellishly expensive....but compatible sets are
available on E-bay for around £6.00
(about $11 ?) a set....would group memebers please share any thoughts
on this
....Re quality of prints/possible damage to the printer etc...

Thanks
Kevin

www.printpal.com


"Kev Conlon" wrote in message
om...
Hello
...I'm new to this photo printing thing, and this may be a well worn
thread...

I've acquired an Epson R300....6-pot printer. Replacement Epson
cartridges are hellishly expensive....but compatible sets are
available on E-bay for around £6.00
(about $11 ?) a set....would group memebers please share any thoughts
on this
...Re quality of prints/possible damage to the printer etc...

Thanks
Kevin

DON'T use any except Epson products with your epson printer.
I learned the hard way.
After my 1200 functioned perfectly for six years I tried an off brand and so
clogged the print heads that a referbishment would have cost within $50.00 a
completely brand new 1280. I donated the 1200 with all software and warning
and places one could go for a factory authorized refurbishment and bought
the 1280 for 399 with a 100 rebate = 199.
So, bite the bullet and buy genuine epson supplies. You will be much
happier.
Yours,
Tom
"Kev Conlon" wrote in message
om...
Hello
...I'm new to this photo printing thing, and this may be a well worn
thread...

I've acquired an Epson R300....6-pot printer. Replacement Epson
cartridges are hellishly expensive....but compatible sets are
available on E-bay for around £6.00
(about $11 ?) a set....would group memebers please share any thoughts
on this
...Re quality of prints/possible damage to the printer etc...

Thanks
Kevin

It is a sad truth that non Epson ink cartridges can destroy the printer.
The only problems I ever had with my 1280 were when I used an off brand
black cartridge: never again.
Why would one buy a sophisticated photo printer like this and not want to
use inks that are essentially guranteed to provide the correct color
formulations for predictable printing results?
If you learn how to correctly use the printer, and that is not as easy as
the manufacturer would lead you to believe, the results you can obtain are
extraordinary.

Well, Rule Number 1, Dont buy any ink that is made in China.
People got clogged because of their poor quality. It is easy to tell
because they need to lower down their cost, hence they did not filter
their ink with higher quality control.
Most of time, they would give you good ink in the first few batch, but
after that, they need to earn money out there by lowering down their
quality control- where you dont know untill you get clogged.

Stay with the manufacture in USA or Europe.

Secondly, you can try to use some bulk ink system from the States.
Try this:
http://www.InkRepublic.com

InkRepublic's bulk ink system has great design and they do have great
and safe ink.
If you do some cost analysis, you may save more than 60%'s money by
using their system.

Moreover, remember to ask MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheet) from your
ink vendor. It is important - but you can only trust these data from
USA or Europe, definitely not from HK or China.

Also do not forget that the colour fastness of compatible cartridges is
zero (leave a print out in the sun for one hour and see), independant
tests just confirm this. The colour profiles for the printer are set
for the EPSON inks, compatibles will not produce correct results.
Just because the compatibles are cheap it does not follow that the
EPSON cartridges are expensive. Compare the cost per print to the cost
of a photo and EPSON cartridges are reasonably priced.
Compatibles are cheap, but there is a reason for this, quality.

Sam wrote:
Well, Rule Number 1, Dont buy any ink that is made in China.
People got clogged because of their poor quality. It is easy to tell
because they need to lower down their cost, hence they did not filter
their ink with higher quality control.
Most of time, they would give you good ink in the first few batch,
but
after that, they need to earn money out there by lowering down their
quality control- where you dont know untill you get clogged.

Stay with the manufacture in USA or Europe.

Secondly, you can try to use some bulk ink system from the States.
Try this:
http://www.InkRepublic.com

InkRepublic's bulk ink system has great design and they do have great
and safe ink.
If you do some cost analysis, you may save more than 60%'s money by
using their system.

Moreover, remember to ask MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheet) from your
ink vendor. It is important - but you can only trust these data from
USA or Europe, definitely not from HK or China.

Also do not forget that the colour fastness of compatible cartridges is
zero (leave a print out in the sun for one hour and see), independant
tests just confirm this. The colour profiles for the printer are set
for the EPSON inks, compatibles will not produce correct results.
Just because the compatibles are cheap it does not follow that the
EPSON cartridges are expensive. Compare the cost per print to the cost
of a photo and EPSON cartridges are reasonably priced.
Compatibles are cheap, but there is a reason for this, quality.

Sam wrote:
Well, Rule Number 1, Dont buy any ink that is made in China.
People got clogged because of their poor quality. It is easy to tell
because they need to lower down their cost, hence they did not filter
their ink with higher quality control.
Most of time, they would give you good ink in the first few batch,
but
after that, they need to earn money out there by lowering down their
quality control- where you dont know untill you get clogged.

Stay with the manufacture in USA or Europe.

Secondly, you can try to use some bulk ink system from the States.
Try this:
http://www.InkRepublic.com

InkRepublic's bulk ink system has great design and they do have great
and safe ink.
If you do some cost analysis, you may save more than 60%'s money by
using their system.

Moreover, remember to ask MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheet) from your
ink vendor. It is important - but you can only trust these data from
USA or Europe, definitely not from HK or China.

With apologies to Consumers Reports, here is an exercept of their test
results:

----------------------------------------------
May 2004
Off-brand printer inks: False economy

It's easy to feel like a chump when you pay top dollar for brand-name
printer-ink cartridges. That's especially true when you see off-brand
cartridges selling for enticingly low prices at office-supply superstores
and dozens of Internet sites. But don't be fooled. Our tests show that
brand-name cartridges are the better choice.

Page for page, off-brand inks yield little savings, despite their selling
prices. What's more, we found that off-brand inks have shortcomings that
their brand-name counterparts do not: They are likely to yield lower-quality
color photos and graphics, and they might clog the nozzles in the printhead.

When less is less

There are dozens of off-brand cartridges. To narrow the field, we informally
polled a small group of subscribers to ConsumerReports.org about their
ink-buying habits and the brands of printers they often used. Based on their
responses, we focused on inks for Canon, Epson, and HP printers, buying
cartridges as our subscribers do. We chose brands that are readily available
online and from office-supply and computer stores.

Some companies shipped us no-name, generic cartridges; others provided
"remanufactured" (recycled) cartridges. We didn't include do-it-yourself
refill kits because our informal poll indicated little interest in them.
Here's what we found:

No guarantee of a saving in use. Off-brand cartridges are undeniably
inexpensive. Some examples: 411inkjets charges $4 for a black cartridge for
Canon printers that costs $10 from Canon. An HP color cartridge costs $49,
but a compatible version from Staples costs $27.

But when we put brand-name and off-brand cartridges through our regular
printer tests to judge quality, fading, and cost per page, a different
picture emerged.

To determine costs, we factor the cost of paper and ink cartridges with the
number of photos or text pages we can print until the cartridges run out of
ink. Comparing off-brand and brand-name cartridges, we found that the
per-page costs of color photos hardly varied. With Canon and HP printers,
photos cost about 80 cents each; photos from the Epson printer we used cost
about $1 apiece. In two instances, as the Ratings show, photos were more
expensive when made with off-brand inks. On the other hand, black text
printing was usually--but not always--cheaper per page with off-brand ink
cartridges.

Problems with quality. Nearly all the off-brand inks faded more than the
brand-name inks on brand-name glossy photo paper. We exposed samples of each
print to a little more than six weeks of round-the-clock fluorescent
lighting that simulates daylight.

We also found that many off-brand inks didn't reproduce colors as accurately
as the brand-name inks did. Some of the lower-quality photos and graphics
suffered from ink that bled, filled solid areas poorly, or didn't blend well
with other colors. However, most off-brand inks matched or at least came
close to the brand-name inks for printing black text.

Maintenance headaches. Various off-brand inks gave us more maintenance
problems than the brand-name cartridges did; the off-brand cartridges tended
to clog the printhead, requiring us to run the printer's head-cleaning
routine more often than normal. Some off-brand inks for Canon printers were
messier to install.
----------------------------------------------

And so one. You get the picture though, but hey, test for yourself! All
you are gambling is your time, and perhaps your printer. Your mileage may
vary, of course...


--
"Stay calm. Be brave. Wait for the signs."

regards,

Frank Johansen
Aurora, Ontario

I have used and will continue to use the printpal carts.
I used them first an 80 which I upgraded to the 84.
Both still work fine
No problem with it. I print 40 to 45 double page (8 1/2 X 11) pamplets each
week with some color;
in addition to my regular computer work . Been doing so for almost a year.
Maybe you will not have that good luck...
Consumer report writes for the big companies.
this is for your information on the good luck I have had
Use what you like I will also,
tia
Jim

"stolen name" wrote in message
news:1106853079.b8a596193b2621cef258c20f70757c49@t eranews...
www.printpal.com


"Kev Conlon" wrote in message
om...
Hello
...I'm new to this photo printing thing, and this may be a well worn
thread...

I've acquired an Epson R300....6-pot printer. Replacement Epson
cartridges are hellishly expensive....but compatible sets are
available on E-bay for around £6.00
(about $11 ?) a set....would group memebers please share any thoughts
on this
...Re quality of prints/possible damage to the printer etc...

Thanks
Kevin