Bubblejet Printer Inks
Can I save money by buying third-party inkjet inks?
A lot of people seem to think that they are the same ink as the manufacturer’s originals, but are they right? I used to work in a bubble jet repair workshop, and several times a day the air would turn blue as a technician raised the cover of a printer and said “Non-original f**** inks again!†With some experience we could spot the usage of third party inks even if they were missing. These third-party inks often seemed to team up with little problems like blocked print heads, blocked purge units, lumps of solid gummy ink under the purge unit discharge, gummed up and overflowing waste ink pads, ink dribbling from the tanks in transit, ink tanks not clipping in place properly, and blue or green mist coating the insides of the printer. No wonder the air turned blue every time we set eyes on the beastly things.
You might think that the well-known third-party or refill brands would be alright to use, but that did not seem to be the case at all! So will third party inks save you money? They might if you are lucky, but if not, the extra ink consumption for more head cleaning, the poorer quality print, the waste of paper, the increased cost of maintenance and the general hassle will make it a very false economy.
It’s not just one ex-technician saying this – if you search around you fill find further anecdotal evidence of problems with third-party inks. And if that’s not enough for you, dig through the reports from independent testers, and you will find similar comments about head blockage, etc.
There is also the question of how long the prints will last. It’s possible to test for this, and if this is a concern you should read some of the reports . The life of prints can vary greatly, with some manufacturers claiming 100 years for their recommended ink and paper, and others faring far worse. If a life of four years or less won’t please you, read the reports. The third-party inks fare particularly poorly.
There are images in photo museums that are over 100 years old. The chances of the bulk of today’s photos surviving 100 years either printed or in digital form seem pretty dim – if fading doesn’t get them, then hard disk crashes, CD-R rot or technical obsolescence (read this 8†floppy, anyone??) surely will.
The adverts for third party ink use phrases like “Save two thirds of costâ€, “Qualityâ€, “Environment†etc. If anyone tries to tell you that third party inks are good, you should ask yourself if they have a vested interest in telling you this. The replacement inks (usually from China) don’t cost much in bulk, so the ink to refill an ink tank costs only a few pence, so even at their low prices they are making a good profit out of you while they could be causing unquantifiable damage to your printer.