When Cartridges Run Dry, Tap the Ink Well
Hewlett-Packard popularized consumer inkjet printers with its DeskJet series. They were quiet, produced good-quality output and sold for much less than their laser counterparts. It wasn’t long before Canon followed suit with its Bubble-Jet printer. Epson, Lexmark and others also developed so-called inkjet printers for home and office users.
The current inkjet printers use one of two technologies.
Hewlett-Packard, Canon and some Lexmark printers use a thermal technology, or “drop on demand,” system. In these printers, a small electrical charge is applied to a heater element in the ink cartridge so a bubble is formed. The bubble forces a droplet of ink to form a letter or character at the print head nozzle. This droplet is then transferred to the page as a formed character.
Epson printers use a piezoelectric technology developed by Epson. With piezoelectric printers, the print head is part of the printer, not the ink cartridge. A device called a transducer forces ink into the print head. A small electrical charge is then applied to transfer that ink to the page. These printers create smaller ink droplets in the printing process. Smaller droplets can create characters with increased dot-per-inch, or DPI, capabilities.
There are a few things you need to know about these printers and how to get the best results.
Resolution is measured by the DPI used to create characters. Resolution determines the amount of ink used to create a single dot. Higher DPI settings allow for more ink in each character. The higher the DPI setting, the better-looking characters will be.
Printer-head alignment is critical to quality output and is performed when you first connect a new printer to your computer. Because most printers use ink cartridges that contain the print heads, alignment should be done again every time you install a new ink cartridge. Most, if not all, printers come with software that includes a print head alignment package.
Half-toning and dithering control the relative position of the dots formed on your page. A “fine” setting maintains the dot locations at rigid right angles relative to one another. The “coarse” setting is less rigid and the “random” or “cluster” setting is even less controlling. Random or cluster settings seem to work well in creating a blending effect in color output, while fine or coarse settings should be used to produce sharp, crisp images used in graphics or charts.
Most printer manufacturers would like us to believe that there is a single source for printer ink. Of course, that source just happens to be them. What a coincidence. The truth is that several third-party sources sell high-quality printer ink at much lower prices.
Using third-party ink may affect your warranty. The trick to buying third-party ink is to stick with a reputable vendor and avoid ink that says it is compatible with all inkjet printers. The requirements will vary from one printer to the next, and each printer manufacturer has specific ink specifications.
Third-party ink can be purchased in either after-market cartridges or as ink refill kits. The after-market cartridges are available for printers whose print heads are an integral part of the printer itself, like those available from Epson.
Ink refill kits are available for printers using print heads contained in the ink cartridge. Refilling ink cartridges is not all that difficult, and it can save you a great deal of money. For example, you can expect to pay as much as $33 for a color ink cartridge. You can refill that cartridge for about $1.80, and on average your ink cartridge can be refilled as many as 10 times. Similar savings can be had when refilling black ink cartridges.
Original factory ink cartridges used in Epson printers tend to be difficult to refill. I suggest that when an original Epson ink cartridge goes dry, replace it with an after-market cartridge, which you can then refill when the ink runs out.
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Jeff Levy hosts the “On Computers” radio talk show from 9 a.m. to noon Sundays on KFI-AM (640).
