Economical printer and ink use

I need a printer that will provide economical ink use. I make cards for charity and find ink prices and replacements extremely expensive. Are there any printers that are economical with ink?

I agree entirely with this question, I, too, am looking for a printer that is economical with ink usage. I currently have a Canon Pixma MX300 and the ink cartridges are expensive, especially as I set it to use the black cartridge only and it drained the colour cartridge! I am on a very limited income - small pension and a 7-hour a week part-time job, so I cannot afford exhorbitant ink prices.

Two comments:

1. Injet printers always run through ink cartridges in no time at all - these, especially from US manufacturers, are really devices for selling us cartridges. So you are better off with a laserjet (monochrome unless you really need colour), and these are no longer hugely expensive to acquire.

2. Look at duration of toner cartridges. These typically print 1,500-3,000 pages, but Kyocera offers drastically better value - 7,200 pages is not unusual.

compatable ink jet cartidges are very cheap and just as good.

But do they work? Friends of mine have tried these and found that they don't work, because of software in the printer driver that will only accept manufacturers' own cartridges. If you know of a compatible that works for, say, HP inkjets, I'd like to know about it!

HP - compatible cartidges work fine, and you can also get old ones filled without to much problems. My experience is that Epson printers certainly try to reject compatibles - so many error messages you tend to give up.

select a printer and see what price the compatible replacement cartridges are . on Amazon , these will be displayed under the description '' also bought'' . e.g. canon pixma mp560 these are about £12 for a full set. it is important to have separate cartridges for each colour, as you only need to replace one at a time.

I am using Epson SX218 and ink from moreink. I see that almost all of Epson printer is easy to use third party ink :D

I have a Canon Pixma MP830 and have recently bought a twin pack of compatible PGI5BK (Chipped) tanks from More Inks - Amazon Market Place. The first one was recognised by the printer with no troube. I am now on the second one and all is well. As Secretary of a small sailing club, I have a large ammount of correspondence to deal with and these compatibles certainly save money. I will shortly be ordering some more.

Beware Canon when the ink absober shows full the help desk recommends taking it to their agent for changing which can cost more than buying a new printer. I've switched to HP because I have had not trouble with my HP printer on my other computer which uses refilled cartridges no problem

Caution with buying your USB printer cable with your printer. Buying a 71 pence USB printer cable with my HP printer cost £5.41 with delivery charge and took 4 days to deliver with Royal Mail 1st class post. Go to Argos for a cheaper USB printer cable. Cartidges I bought at same time were OK competitive with refilled.

I have LEXMARK X2350 3 in on inject. After using refill the printer stop recognise any cartridge (including the original one). I think some leaks of inks cover the sensor, I tried to clean it with a cotton material but it is still not recognise any cartridge. Any suggestion
to help me solve the problem?

If you can get them to work, i have an Epson p50 printer and bought some compatable catridges the printer rejected them, and no matter what i did, i even took my printer to the shop were i got the compatables from and they tried for a day and half and could not get it to work, and suggested i got some epson ones, which was not an acceptable answer,so i am left with a 15 month printer that will not accept compatts, Nutty Norm

epson

I am looking for exactly the same thing - my printer is quite old, an Epson Stylus Photo, and I am extremely pleased with it, but every time I have to buy new cartridges, the prices have rocketed and it will NOT accept compatible cartridges.

Compatible cartridges will NOT work with my Epson Stylus Photo, so I am stuck with the expensive ones.

No, compatible cartridges do NOT work with my Epson Stylus Photo printer, which is otherwise first-class.

If you can find a printer that uses individual cartridges for each colour these are generally more economical as you are not replacing a cartridge that may have ink left in two of the colours because one has run out.

http://www.cartridgeresetter.com/instructions.asp

Anyone tried this method.

I have used compatable ink in all my epson printers with no trouble at all I think it depends where u get it from there is a make called diamond its a little more expensive I think I paid £10 a set for my r200 and they were fantastic hope this helps

Anyone know of another HP printer (current and purchasable) that uses the 363 cartridges?

I have used a variety of printers and inks over the years. Generally it seems that if you want to be sure that your printers remains working well, use the the proper ink. Having said that some makes seem to be ok with compatible ink. One important point is whether the printer has seperate print heads (HP and Brother?) This arrangement seem to more susceptible to blockages (from inferior compatible inks). Epson printers however have the print heads built into the cartridges and often seem to me to be ok with compatible ink. Compatible ink cartridges often cause apparent error conditions (lights on or error messages) but printing usually works at least in the short term. In the last couple of years I have had an hp8000 printer and a brother 6490 that have been damaged beyond economic repair by compatible ink. Most smaller print jobs are handled by cheap inkjets. Perhaps a cheap epson run with comptible ink is the simplest cheap option. Prints take longer than perhaps a more expensive printer. But does that matter to you ?

I agree with that, i have had 2 or 3 Epson printers and neither of them will except compatables.

I have two epson printers and cannot use compatible inks in any of them.By the time you have tried all seperate inks to no avail it just isnt worth it.

nO, THEY'RE NOT! i USED SOME "COMPATIBLE" cartridges for my Epson Photo Stylus PX720. They worked at first, then I had to keep cleaning the print heads. These were £12.94 for 2 sets, as opposed to around £41 for genuine. I have now given up and bought a Kodak printer, for the price of 2 sets of genuine inks.