Please note: In these days of litigation taking the place of true justice, where many politicians are in the pockets of big corporations, it is necessary that those wishing to read the monograph must understand that they must not, nor will ever hold the author responsible for any damage or injury. I put my knowledge on the web to help make a better world, not so that some damn fool can sue me.
Because of parasitic lawyers, you must not read nor act upon this information. As lawyers get richer the rest of society gets poorer. Always use your vote to keep lawyers well away from politics. Have a nicer day :)
Version 1f. July 2008.

(I apologise for any repetition in this page, as it is constantly updated and subsequently needs a complete re-write and paring which I hope to do soon.)

This is just one of many pages on my website, wherein you can design, build, experiment and always keep costs low. From printers to trikes, boats, yachts, computers, alternative energy, steam engines and home repair, the website has much to offer, so please visit the front page too, at www.btinternet.com/~jhpart/index.

Whether for just one A4 photo a week to many full photos every day, the perfect printer would be free, or cost little to buy, be able to print photo quality using cheap inks for mere pennies and run reliably for five years.

The technology exists, but of course is not conducive to manufacturers making a profit.
Nevertheless the reader can get fairly close to all three parameters with a little cunning and careful hunting shopping.
From 1987 until 2007, I had many perfect printers, mostly Cannons which were bomb proof and cost pennies to run, but they eventually died through hard work. The modern canons are not perfect.
In 2008, my nearest to the ideal is a HP printer, not perfect, but very close.
We can all get close to our perfect printer, as described below.

The perfect printer is not the most expensive to buy, often quite the opposite.
Genuine Ink cartridges are expensive.
Aftermarket or 'pattern' or reconditioned ink cartridges are less expensive.
Refilling your own is by far the cheapest, but can be a tad messy.

Refilling your own is also convenient, especially if you run out of replacement cartridges and the shops are shut.
As most people print at home, then both costs and convenience is often the bottom line.

As print ink cartridges are expensive, it is often cost effective to dump a working printer, simply because other types of ink cartridges are far cheaper to run in the long term.

If you can't afford to bang out fifty A4 photo prints for mere pennies, then you should seriously think about your printer again.

The technology for both is similar and often identical.
The only difference may be the 'bells and whistles'.
An expensive printer may have the same ink technology as the budget version, and print just as well !

The only differences may be in the size and some finer aspects of print quality.
Since 2006, most modern printers now do very good photo quality, then the differences between cheap and expensive is getting harder to differentiate as nozzle technology gets incredibly fine, such that all manufacturers have reached close to perfection that is capable with inks.

In many ways, the cheaper printer is the better one, as it is usually smaller, easier to use, cheaper to run and far easier to replace.

Your choices range from buying a cheap budget model for most uses, then fill it until it eventually stops working.
Or buy an expensive model if you want high quality photo printing and prepared to pay through the nose for many years of careful use.
Unfortunately, next years printers will be cheap and probably as good as today's top photo printer.

The only real trick of interest to most people, is running costs.

In 2006-8 I now use a budget HP (bread bin) printer using the 21 and 22 carts. Under 20 pounds for a new HP 'breadbin' printer.
This and similar machines are fine little tools which print surprisingly well for minimal cost. Once the inks start to run out, they are easy to refill and I buy my bottles of ink at the pound shop.

I can refill a three colour HP22 cartridge about three times for three pounds and a black cartridge twice for one pound. I have refilled them many times and they show no wear or tear. But when they eventually fail, as they occasionally do, I will buy new cartridges for under a tenner apiece - OR -
As is often the case, a new budget printer can cost about the same cost as the new cartridges - about 20 to 25 pounds, so if such a deal exists, I simply buy a new, almost identical printer.
Eventually the 21 and 22 carts will probably become unavailable in about six to ten years, but until then, I will continue this path, as I did in 1982 with the old Canon BJC240 and a free BJC 2100 in 1991 which I enjoyed with almost free printing then with a free Epson printer in a similar manner until 2004. The HP breadbin printer is the latest in a line of low cost, excellent quality, cheap to run printers.
When it's inevitably time to change, probably about five to ten years, I'll discard this fine printer due to mechanical wear and tear or the 'death timer'. (See later). The printer cost about 20 quid, and I'll probably refill each cartridge five to twenty times. By then it has done its job and cost me another ten quid in ink. Thirty quid for a printer and about five years of printing.
The bottles of 'after market' ink will cost about ten pounds about three pounds for three bottles of black, and two magenta , two blue and three yellow. - Mere pennies.

Yes you can get ten years of low cost, happy printing if you are careful.
It is a great shame that most people do not get this budget longevity, as most people don't have a clue, simply because they are customers who are indoctrinated into a world where disposal is the only solution.
Many people spend sixty quid for one set of genuine ink cartridges.

The real solution is to start using a little common sense. (Yes, it still does exist.)

Yes, Britain is a country of two extremes under Blair, (who spent 400 pounds on socks in one day - That's OUR taxes !). The poor and rich may have financial differences, but we can only eat a certain sensible amount of food, sit in one seat in car, and only print out so many family pics and letters and the occasional invitation cards and such like.
So despite being poor, there is no reason why people cannot have excellent printing at low or almost zero costs, without wasting taxes like a politician.

In Britain, we're taxed to death. We should all spend little or preferably nothing: I always refill my cartridges.

(If you can't afford to bang out fifty A4 photo prints for mere pennies, then you should seriously think about your printer again.)

This web page is written between the age of expensive printers and the age of disposable printers, and back again to expensive printers. Therefore I approach printers as if they were valuable, whereas today, they are increasingly disposable.
So if you prefer to give any printer a chance of making the most of its time before recycling, then read on.
To glean the most of such excellent engineering, read some of the following as you may deem appropriate, rather than purchasing another adequate printer.

Quick advice.
As a designer, artist and engineer I have used all types of printers, from discarded inkjets to massive Drawing office A0 lasers.
Whether employed or unemployed, I retain the same approach: Choose the print quality and the most affordable printing costs first, - then see what printer fits the bill.

If you want cost effective HIGH quality photo printing, then look at Epsons but always check that 'third party' ink cartridges are affordable first, as they usually cost about a third of the genuine items. After using four sets of these, you have often saved the cost of a new printer.

In plain English, buy the ink, not the printer.

One of my 'discarded' Epson 830 colour uses ink cartridges which cost 7 pounds each on the high street, but can cost 175 pence each with a little looking. - Check those costs ! For a printer costing (the previous owner) 60 quid, these carts will pay for a new printer, in just (7 -1.75) x 2 = 10.50 quid, so using cheap ink cartridges just 6 times will save the cost of the printer.

If you want cheap printing and don't mind a little hassle, then look for printers which are easy to refill.

If you are not good with your hands, so dislike the thought of refilling, then always check you can buy cheap replacement ink cartridges and that often means Epsons or Brother.

Refilling applies to nearly all makes and models, with or without integral print heads, (although Epson's will need to have the cartridge chip override codes. See later).
Because of chipped cartridges, it is best to stick with a cheap Lexmark or HP, plus an ink refill kit. My wonderful older canon BJ200 work horse was regularly refilled for seven years and never complained. A pair of BJ200 ink cartridges cost 175 pence apiece or 5 quid genuine. But I always refilled with cheap ink and must have used a few pints! through the original cartridges before the circuit board died. You work out the savings.

A few words on 'photo quality' printing.

As to what the punter calls 'photo printing' depends upon the standards needed.
For many people, this means reasonable printing which does not show any imperfections with casual looking.
For others, photo printing means accurate colour reproduction with fine detail carefully scrutinised for imperfections.
Remember that unless your computer and screen have been carefully matched to a colour accuracy suitable for photo quality, then any adjustments you make such as lightening a dark picture to bring out the hidden detail, or darkening an over exposed picture, then printing will always be less than perfect. It is always worth setting up your camera, computer, screen and printer such that what you take at the scene of the photo, is what you get on the paper. So always check a few prints and if needed, adjust any problems such as monitor gamma or overall colour balance before making many prints. See printing techniques, later.
TIP: Set up your computer to neutral colours, then adjust the screen to match reality. Use a digital camera to take a photo out of the window on a bright day and on a dark day, then use these to 'calibrate' your system to get very close to reality.

Tip: It is common to get very dark shadows, which the human eye naturally adjust for, but cameras cannot. So if you have Paint shop Pro 6 or later or similar, then do not use the brightness and contrast to adjust dark or light pictures. Instead, use the histogram to adjust the overall light levels, as this will allow just the dark or light areas to be adjusted, with minimal damage to the other parts of the photo.

For most people, especially if there was shake or slight misfocusing when the photo was taken, or the room too dark, or the flash not powerful enough, then standard photo printing as found with even the cheapest modern printers is perfectly good enough.
If looking for the absolute best, then buy a high cost printer, but otherwise, simply get a modern printer for 95 percent of photos and if needing the very best, - take your camera or memory card to a high street printers for those very special prints and perhaps also for bulk prints of your holiday snaps.

Today, it's the ink that's expensive. The printers are often sold at just above manufacturing cost. So if you get the ink costs right, they can often offset the cost of a new printer.

Now that my second hand old Canon BJC200 has finally died, I bought a brand new Canon 4200: It was complete crap.
My latest printer is a HP.

Bottom Line - May 2008: The most cost effective printer at present for daily use and reasonable photo printing on standard paper, then I recommend the HP 3940 'bread bin' using the 21 and 22 cartridges. These are budget printers and easy to fill. There are no real problems other than the excessive software which can be overcome - see later.
If you can't find a 3940 or similar, then HP use the same internals for a similar family of printers. The bottom of the (21/22 cartridge) range often uses the same print engine as the top of the (21/22 cartridge) range.
So don't buy the printer, choose the cartridges and smile.
More on choosing and getting the most from cartridges later.

In the world of computing, ignorance can get very expensive, so this webpage describes how to save money before buying a printer- how to choose and then buy a new printer - also how to look after older printers.
Then keep your printer working when it is normally discarded.
Then get the best from it.

Choosing a printer means more choices than you can shake a stick at.
Printers are changing week by week, so the choice is difficult.

There are dot matrix printers, which are essentially dead.
The biggest laser printer I serviced could handle paper 1.5 metres wide, as I was a draughtsman at the time.
Laser printers are usually for offices.

Warning : Some colour printers now have a hidden USA Government programme which prints almost invisible coded yellow dots, so they can tell from which individual printer the printing comes from.
We ARE ALL under unknown surveillance by government. More info from www.eff.org/privacy/printers.
Be warned: Despite so called freedoms, individual freedom is being lost: Big Brother government spying IS here, there and everywhere, and getting worse.
Write to your MP or congressman today and tell him or her to keep their dirty noses out.

The humble inkjets (and bubble jets) of today, squirt incredibly small amounts of ink from a line of fine nozzles, with ink droplets in the 'pico litres' range. This is phenomenally fine engineering, yet takes an extraordinary hammering on a daily basis, in almost every environment yet with very little hassle.
Ink jets are everywhere, not just on paper, but printing the date codes on cartons, bottles, even eggs.
To do this, the printer has a structure, usually to take a sheet of A4 paper and feed it under the moving inkjet head. Inside, to keep things under control are two main motors, one to move the paper forwards in steps, and one to move the print head back and forth across the page. the position of the ink head is sensed by various electronics, so the ink droplet is sprayed in exactly the right place relative to the 'map' of the page held in the printers memory, as sent by the computer or camera.
The inkjet literally sprays the paper with ink in the right places, using three colours plus black. The effect is that printing and pictures are created. If you look at a partially finished page, then it will display that each of the colours is being sprayed to build up the wide selection of tones and brightnesses.
Most printers will recognise when a page is simply black on white text, and only use the black cartridge. (If you find the printer using to much colour, then check its not printing in a dark shade of very dark off grey, made up from various colour inks.)
The ink is usually held in a foam filled plastic tank above the print head nozzles and this is swept left and right as the paper is fed underneath, to bring the wonderful world of text and colour to illuminate our minds and homes.

The ink nozzles are integral with the ink tank, common to HP and Lexmark, or
The ink nozzles are part of the printer and use separate tank tanks, common to Epson and Canon.

Until early 2006, all inkjets were well behaved and placed most of the ink onto the paper. -
Many people believed this was the intended purpose of buying such a device.

Since early 2006, the latest designs use incredibly fine nozzles for photo quality and fast drying inks for speed of printing. Yes, you have guessed, this advance in technology is a Faustian pact - what it gives with one hand, it takes away with the other. The latest printers, especially those with permanently fitted print heads, such as Epson and Canon, have taken to using half (yes, HALF) of your expensive ink to keep the nozzles clean and working. I am quite sure that this will be solved with time, but at present, you may consider yourself as throwing away money when buying certain printers.
If you think you would prefer to buy a printer with print heads in the cartridges, which do not waste so much ink, such as Lexmark and HP, then you guessed it, these also work out as expensive.

Welcome to the modern world.
Printer manufacturers want your money, not your love.
Like genetic engineering or ID cards, technology is never your friend, just another tool of someone else to wield over you for their convenience or power or cash.

Because of the 'advances' in technology, any sensible running costs will depend upon how you avoid the demands of the printer manufacturers.
If you are dextrous and not afraid of a little inky finger mess, then nearly ALL printers can be refilled using the popular ink refill kits.
(Certain nastier printers cannot be refilled and need the genuine cartridges, but these are mainly by the large computer names, and are modified and rebadged standard models, often part of package deals. Indeed, some are actually identical to other budget models, but modified so they can only use exorbitantly expensive ink cartridges. Just say no. See later.)

The popular refill kits are not rocket science.
Ink has been with us for thousands of years, since early Chinese times, when paper and ink made a superb combination.
The refill kits contain bottles of black, yellow, cyan and magenta ink and a syringe. You simply inject ink into the cartridges to fill them. If the (Epson) ink cartridges contain a 'chip' then you must also buy a chip re-setter, or download an override programme available free from the internet. (see later).

If you do not want any mess, or are not very good with your hands, then ALWAYS check the cost of replacement inks first. This invariably means looking for replacement ink cartridges without the print head, (Epson and some Canon printers) as these aftermarket or reconditioned ink cartridges can be as cheap as a couple of quid, rather than the 25 quid of ink cartridges with integral print heads. Search out the after market ink replacement costs, then narrow down your choice of printers to fit them.

A little Background.

Printer manufacturers and profit margins.
Many years ago, printers were terribly overpriced. The law has eventually outlawed fixed pricing, especially in 'treasure island' Britain, where the price of printers was artificially high, but this has now dropped to almost global levels of profits.
Because the profits are now much lower, the manufacturers want to get fat somehow.
With some cheap printers, this is done by selling overpriced ink cartridges. Due to the laws of supply and demand, the third party manufacturers appear, to sell much cheaper versions. One manufacturer is now throwing their fat lawyers at low cost third party ink manufacturers to make sure they can fleece the customer fully.

At present, (march 2007) I'm not quite sure what has happened, but the word from the trade is that third party ink manufacturers are again supplying but perhaps have done a deal with the manufacturers to lease their patents or such like or perhaps the fat lawyers did not do their homework. So watch the prices of 'after market' replacement inks, to see if they remain sensibly affordable. Otherwise buy a printer you can refill at home.

Many people use printers to do lots of printing, be it in busy offices, or printing your own books or fliers for local shops or whatever. This would normally use lasers in large scale use, but for home and small office use, the overall running costs of inkjets are much lower. The initial costs of lasers is steep and laser photo quality is not yet as good as a top class inkjet.
Whether you are printing for fun, or printing for profit, the costs can be exorbitant, unless you understand the nature of the game of inkjet refills. To keep your running costs low, read on.

The worst problem with printers, and this is common to all printers, is that the manufacturers are no longer making massive profits from them.
This is particularly so for inkjets for ordinary domestic use.
This causes many problems for both manufacturers and for owners.

It is not that we want something for nothing, for that way, we all loose and technology grinds to a halt.
We simply prefer to own sensible printers with sensible running costs.

Printer manufacturers and technology.
If you were a printer manufacturer you may well have a design and development team creating the latest print heads, often to overcome shortcomings in the previous generation of designs and also to keep up or surpass the competition. The developments would hopefully lead to the next generation of print technology which would then lead into the production runs. The new technology would be put into the market place in a single introductory test machine, to check the market place shows up no problems in public use. Then the technology would be fully 'rolled out' in many forms, from the basic to the most expensive machines. They may all use exactly the same technology, although the budget printers may use the print heads with poor quality runs, while the top of the range using the best print heads. (In the canon pixma, the print head has seven nozzle sets, but may only use five - two blacks and three colours, so some production redundancy for budget use may allow partially failed runs to be used, while the best print head chip runs would be put into the top of the range models using seven inks.)
Eventually, after a year or so, the technology would settle down and all printers, from budget to top of the range would use identical technology and all print to identical standards. Then the next step in technology would roll out, as the older production runs are gradually run down. It is not unknown for some microchip manufacturers to have excellent production runs, that they have to 'downgrade' much of their technology to fill the budget end of the market place. This is why many CPU's can be oveclocked and why many budget printers print so beautifully.
As can be seen, most technology is giving the customer high quality, be it in the budget or the most expensive machines. By buying a printer or other technology after a year from 'roll out', then even the budget machine will be to the highest standard. So never buy an expensive machine, simply choose wisely.

Which printer to choose.

In recent times Cannon and Epson went with the print head built into the printer, while HP and Lexmark went with print heads in the cartridge.
Both types can print equally good quality.

The ink cartridges with integral print heads are far more expensive to make and cost the punter about 15 to 25 pounds each time they are replaced, but the advantage is that if the print head fails, you don't have to scrap the printer or call out a service engineer. They also waste less ink.
These are best for occasional use.

The designs with separate ink cartridges are cheaper to run for most people, and if considered a disposable printer when the print head fails, then this is a possible route to long term economical printing.
These are best for daily or regular use.

Unfortunately for printer manufacturers who sell ink cartridges without print heads, anyone can buy printer ink and refill their cartridges with a home refill kit. Almost any back yard plastics press can mould an ink cartridge without a print head, insert some foam and fill it with ink, then sell it by the tens of thousands for mere pennies. Therefore Epson and Canon started loosing money in the area where the real profits were concentrated - ink sales. Epson started adding electronic counter chips so they would not be so easy to copy, but these too soon appeared at budget prices. Canon relied on a solid customer base, affordable inks and superb build quality.
Either way, they lost money.

Because most of the profits are in replacement inks, the profit margins of all types of genuine ink cartridges will remain high.
Despite the tears of the printer manufacturers' accountants caused by DIY refilling, those reading this webpage will still want to print for a decent, low cost. We all know that ink costs mere pennies to fill a cartridge, and so this is where we all look, especially in this age of the digital camera, where we all expect to enjoy a lot more printing at high photo qualities. (Whatever happened to the 1960's, 1970's, 1980's dream of a 'paperless office'?)

In many ways, domestic printers are now considered as general purpose machines which can print out all the holiday photos, homework and letters to granny.
Unfortunately, the modern demand for high photo quality has placed demands upon printer technology. The superb photos obtained in the high street photo machines use dye sublimation or other exotic means to print high quality.
Although domestic printers can almost match these professional printers, the modern domestic print heads need to be very fine. These modern fine print heads can clog easily, so must be cleaned often to prevent damage.

If the print head is in the cartridge, then when the prints start getting streaky, the manufacturer expects you to replace the cartridge with its integral print head. This is not much of a problem and easily solved by replacing the cartridge or removing and cleaning it yourself.

Where the print head is fixed in the printer, then you cannot clean it easily and need a service engineer to sort out. Therefore the manufacturer ensures it must NOT be allowed to fail for many years. This is now a very great problem with super fine nozzles.
With modern designs, up to half your ink is now wasted keeping these fixed print heads from failing. Yes, half the ink of a modern printer may not reach the page - expensive indeed. In this respect, Epson and Canon have a bit of a problem, and it is the customer who picks up the costs of paying through the nose for their expensive ink running costs.

Perhaps a few years ago, it could be morally wrong to buy cheap ink replacement cartridges, especially if they were infringing Canon and Epson patents or copyrights, but today, with the modern printers being so wasteful of ink, then no one can afford to be too friendly with any manufacturers genuine ink replacement costs. You may wish to consider yourself as saving the planet in your own little way. (Never be like rich lawyers and 'our' politicians who waste our taxes with such profligate ignorance.)

It is therefore important to carefully choose your printer for
the way it is used and how you intend to replace the inks.

The official way to replace inks is to buy the genuine replacements. Only lawyers and politicians can afford this financial extravagance at our expense. This is very expensive for everyone else, for we have to live in the real world of high taxes.

So, whether you like it or not, the final choice comes down to whether you want to:

Option A. Buy a printer for regular use which wastes lots of ink on a fixed head printer which has cheaper cartridges, or can be refilled easily. This fixed print head failure (Epson) means replacing the printer, or with Canon, buy a new print head.
or:
Option B. Buy a printer with print heads built into the more expensive cartridges. This can be reasonably affordable for occasional use, especially if using recycled ink cartridges, or refilling them yourself. If the print head fails, replacement will cost almost as much as a new budget printer.
or;
Option C. There is no longer an option C. - The sensible, robust, reliable and frugal printers from a few years ago are no longer available.

For most domestic purchasers, the answer may seem a problem, especially if you buy your ink cartridges.

But the answer is simple: It all works out about the same if you are prepared to refill them yourself and treat all printers as disposable -

Option 1. Buy a good quality budget printer and use cheap cartridges until it dies, then buy a new printer.

Option 2. Buy, any printer which can be refilled at home, until it dies, then buy or find another printer.

Who really cares if a printer fails after three years ? They are cheap to buy nowadays and allows the latest printer technology to be updated at home for the cost of a replacement print head or costly ink refills.
Do you really think manufacturers are interested in recycling or are they after your money ? You decide.

My personal preference is to refill at home, as I can get ink very cheap and I print photos by the score. I have refilled my various printers for over twenty years, since the very first inkjets appeared.

The 'buy, refill then dispose' philosophy is good for most high street people who don't want to spend too much money. But if you are reading this, then you are probably wanting to get the most from your printer, and that means running on next to no costs, or to pump pout massive amounts of printing for mere pennies. This needs a workhorse of a printer.

This web page is for those who do not want to waste money like most high street customers, but for those who wish to keep their printer for many years.
I like to print lots of stuff, so expect my printer to be VERY cheap to run.
As you read through, you may wish to glean some of what many people have discovered over the years, and hopefully save yourself ridiculous amounts of money and stay clear of official inks which are extremely expensive for those who do not understand the 'printer ink game'.

You may find a dumped printer, perhaps a minor problem which you can fix (see later) to give you almost free printing - until the next high quality printer turns up for free.
I have been given five printers in the last two months. Two are superb after a couple of hours work.
My best ever printer Canon S200 was thrown away from a shop, and has given impeccable printing since I gave it one good cleaning and reset the ink tank counter. The latest is a Canon S400 for free, and am also very happy with it.

Yes, many people can print for free and that includes the initial cost of the printer.

Scavenging for gold. Unfortunately, sensible printers are now unavailable unless second hand. So look around at car boot sales for the best value printing ever. It is easy to get the printer diver software off the internet. Finding a free printer is not something most people think they can go into a shop and get. - In charity shop, or even computer shops, there may be an old printer being dumped for free. They may even be marked 'to a good home', or cost a couple of quid in a charity shop. One of my best ever printers was dumped by a retail store and the security guard asked me how many did I want. I should have taken a half dozen, but the one I did take was excellent and lasted six years. I have even walked back streets scavenging before the dustbin men and found a couple of excellent printers. I only keep one printer and one spare, but merely repair (or find out why they cannot be repaired), then pass them on to friends.
So keep your eyes and ears open, and make opportunities arise for you, by being in the right place at the right time. Having a good spare printer in the kids room or in the loft is worth while, especially if poor or far from any computer shop.
Even buying a good budget printer need not cost much if you scan the 'special offers'.

The ink replacements cartridge scam.

You can buy a printer for 25 pounds, but the replacement ink cartridges are 35 pounds. - But be warned, the print cartridges with the new printer may only be partly full as a 'test cartridge'. - So don't go getting any ideas about buying a new printer every time, printer manufacturers are not that daft.
If you do buy such a printer and there is nothing wrong with this, but only if you can refill these 'test' cartridges yourself. - They are usually standard items that are just half full. So fill them soon.
But hey ! at that price, buy it anyway and refill. If it doesn't refill easily, you've had a cheap printer for a few weeks.
(Many cheap lasers also have standard toner cartridges which can print 25,000 pages, but come with a cartridges which can only print 1,000 pages. Exchange units are very cost effective, so buy (or recycle) some toner and use plastic gloves. A friend recently bought a top of the range commercial Xerox colour laser printer for under 11 pounds on Ebay, and this included 300 pounds worth of replacement colour toner cartridges. It prints very nice indeed, and even folds and staples the sheets, although it does weighs a quarter of a ton ! )

I recently bought a Canon Pixma ip 4200 and regretted it as the inks in the massive transparent ink tanks disappeared alarmingly. I truly thought I had leaking cartridges !
The print head is 'cleaned' far too often and I think the 'ip' stands for 'ink pisser'. So never buy a modern Canon pixma printer.
Admittedly, the development of ultra fine nozzles half the thickness of a human hair, and fast drying inks will naturally lead to the heads clogging more, needing more cleaning. Nevertheless this waste of half the ink is a sheer disgrace. I consider it a rip-off and no longer use my brand new pixma 'ink wasting device'.
I'll probably do an autopsy. (I'm guessing it has a big ink felt reservoir or a shorter time to the death counter.) Its internal 'nappies'(diapers) will surely be a big mess. With the latest technology, some printers are very fast with excellent results, nevertheless printer designers must develop a far more affordable means to keep the nozzles clean.
I have shelved the pixma and await a reply from Canon, but I have been told they are one of the most ignorant corporations. They have not replied to three contacts by me in three months. They may be the best engineers, but appalling management.
'i pee' on cannon.

So as you read through this web page, check the relevant aspects of your printer. -
If you have an old printer but want a fancy new one, ALWAYS keep the old one as it may be far nicer than you imagined after the new one threatens to eat you out of house and home.
If like me, you may soon be looking for one of the few modern printers without these scams. - It mostly comes down to inspecting the ink cartridge racks for the true running costs.

A closer look at the cartridges.

Skip this section of you don't intend to refill.

Black, Cyan, Magenta and Yellow are the primary ink colours used in printers.
Some have six, adding light magenta and light cyan for skin and sky tones.
Some printers use up to ten, yes ten different ink cartridges and the cost for a genuine replacement set can be as high as sixty pounds. This of course is ridiculous unless you are rich and or stupid or working for a government quango with your fingers in our taxes.

Four colours are quite acceptable.
Four separate cartridges or dual cartridges, one with black and one with three colours, is perfectly good.

The Lexmark ONE cartridge is a three colour ink cartridge, which uses all three colours to make a fairly acceptable black. It is a simple concept, but costly to run unless refilled at home.

A sensible cost of a cartridge refill set for a four colour printer should be about three to four pounds. Only the contents of the other exotic print tanks such as specialist exotic blacks will still need to be genuinely bought at present.

Some printers use two blacks.
The two blacks are dye or pigment black ink. Pigment is for long lasting documents, where text may be needed for over a hundred years. Some manufacturers such as HP guarantee their photo inks from fade for up to 100 years, if kept properly.
The Canon ip4200 uses two backs, one of each type, presumably for documents, but in reality, unless you place your documents in direct sunlight, then they are most unlikely to fade.
Only for legal purposes are documents stored for centuries on paper, parchment or vellum, such as Magna Carta, - the one where our basic freedoms are enshrined against nasty government. (Although truly evil lawyers such as Tony Blair wants imprisonment without trial.)

For most people, documents and photos will remain stored on CD's and these can be copied to very high quality CDs for long term storage.

There are many types of inks, but four is about right for most people for most of the time.

But how much ink do you want to buy?
To confuse the situation more, -
Ink cartridges come in all sizes. For example, the 'HP 28' colour has 8cc of ink and costs about 14 pounds, whereas the 'HP344' colour has 14cc of ink for about 19 pounds. Now ask yourself whether the later model has to use more ink to clean its nozzles or is one of the larger capacity cartridges, whereupon the whole malarkey gets very muddy indeed.

To make matters more interesting, the HP C18230 is a truly massive tank, as used high end home and office printers. My HP backup Deskjet 815 certainly is a robust workhorse, and one day I will find just how much ink these cartridges can take. I would guess about 50cc in the black cartridge, and about 3x30cc in the three colour sections of the colour cartridge. This type of capacity is for a workhorse for constant daily usage.

The same capacity malarkey applies to all other printer manufacturers. I recently saw some Lexmark cartridges (17 and 27), marked 'moderate capacity'. I simply don't know if this means they are filled most of the way, or if there are similar cartridges with lesser contents or if it's just a marketing scam. - I'd simply refill until it died, and worry not one jot.

When my HP23 colour cartridge ran dry on yellow, I opened it up and was surprised to see the internal foam was NOT soaked in ink. There were large areas where the foam was unstained, showing the supplied ink was not enough to fill the cart. I must point out that these were the carts supplied with the new printer and may have been 'test carts', nevertheless, they have now been refilled eight times. I filled the little cartridges about three quarters with cheap inks and taped the cap back in place. They took about six hours for the ink to settle, I then cleaned the nozzles using the computer programme supplied by HP and continued printing quite happily.

So the ink cartridges are horses for courses: Small, comparatively expensive cartridges for occasional home use and massive super tankers for daily office use. But beware - if you buy the massive super tankers and only us it one a month, then it will probably dry or fail after a few months, whereas with a cheaper home printer with a cartridge a third of the cost, you can at least have a spare or get another from the shops. Likewise, if using a printer all the time, then a small cartridge will soon become very expensive unless you have a passion for filling them, and no one really likes inky fingers.
So be sensible, the clich‚ - 'horses for courses' applies to printers too.

The answer of course is to focus on buying a suitable printer and its cartridges first, then to buy the ink:

Three, 30cc bottles of ink, with instructions and a syringe costs just 8 pounds.
Most 'pound shops' now sell separate inks, and 3 x colours for 3 quid will fill a typical HP22 colour cartridge eight times or more. A 99 pence black refill will fill a HP 21 about three times.
That makes approximately four refills for four pounds, depending upon whether you do a lot of photos or a lot of text. Either way, this makes such cartridges very cost effective.

(My NEW HP3940 printer, plus four bottles of ink cost under 40 quid ! This will last about a year of hard work and include many hundreds of full size A4 pictures ! If I need more ink then all is well. If the printer fails, I simply buy another new printer for 19 pounds.
2008: A brand new HP printer with scanner using 21 and 22 cartridges was available from a national shop chain for under 20 quid. In the same shop the genuine HP cartridges were 11 quid for the black and 12 quid for the colour. They also sold refill kits for eight pounds for 3x30cc of colours and 3x30cc of black. Cheap printing indeed and eminently disposable at these prices.
Sometimes it truly is just as cheap to buy a spanking new printer and power supply with its spanking new ink carts, than to buy new ink cartridges.

The ink comes in various forms, the most popular is a pack of three bottles of black or three bottles, one of each colour, plus with a medical syringe and needle, and cost about three pounds.
I have also used solo ink which came in a plastic concertina bottle with a steel needle on the top for a pound each. The ink comes with various rubber bungs for cartridges and bits and pieces. Each kit cost a pound for about 25cc of ink which was enough to fill a domestic black cartridge about three or four times. So a sensibly priced aftermarket cartridge costing anything from 2 pounds to seven pounds, could be filled for about 30 pence, which is about one sixth to one twentieth the running cost.
There are also larger bottles of ink where 125 and 250cc of inks can work out even more cheaper.

More on refilling later.

In Plymouth, there were five ink cartridge shops close to the city centre, so bog only knows what London or New York must suffer from customers being ripped off. Beware - More shops of one type, often equals massive profit margins, and the customer is the one who pays for this.

Please feel a little sorry for the printer manufacturers, as they are trying to maximise profits, but the public continually won't want to pay the exorbitant fees. Its a sort of technology war, a 'weapons race'. The manufacturers tried stinging us with high printer costs in the eighties. After the true costs appeared, they tried stinging us with expensive inks. We should thank people who make cheap inks to keep the manufactures on their toes, but hope that they do not get lawyers to outlaw refilling ink. What ever next - Gestapo style smoking bans or ID cards ? - your vote - your call ! A fairly sensible world please.

Waterproof inks.
If you print out your own maps, which I find very useful as I walk Dartmoor and the coast, and if you get caught in the rain, then most official replacement inks are waterproof or water resistant. I usually walk in sunshine, or at least in dry weather !
If needing waterproof inks then check by washing a dry test print before getting lost with a washed out map and look for printers which use archival quality pigmented inks. See also my guides to Dartmoor.
Always scan and print out the section of the map you need as this is so much easier to carry and read.

Well there you have it, ink does not need to cost you much, it just needs a little checking of the costs of ink cartridges BEFORE buying your printer.

PLEASE DO NOT throw away printer cartridges. - Wrap in cling film or a polythene bag and give them to computer friends, recyclers or charity shops. In most cases you can refill them, or practice refilling them to see if you want to, or exchange them for discount prices on a replacement new cartridge.

Death timers.

I used a very nice, faultless Canon BJC2000, a wonderful printer which I got for free, chucked out from a shop which was updating its interior. It had a print head which was crusty and dry, along with empty cartridges. I suspected it had been lying around for a year. I removed the cartridges, flipped the lever to remove the excellent Canon print head, soaked it in meths overnight, filled the cartridges, downloaded the software drivers from the Canon website and it worked perfectly and faultlessly !
But after six months, it came up with the error that the 'ink overflow tank full' and then refused to work. I then decided that this printer had been used quite a lot and had built up many years of use.

If you use any printer a lot, and I hope you do, then be very wary, - as such a 'death timer' will appear after a year or three. It is officially there to prevent the ink in the felt reservoir from spilling out onto your desktop, a bit like a leaking nappy. When the error code appears, you are on a hiding to nothing (officially), so you are supposed to pay up for an engineer to call, or throw your printer away.

(The ink overflow tank is just a large pad of felt to absorb the inkjet nozzle cleaning ink residue. I easily took the printer apart, soaked the old ink felt in meths, gently washed it, then dried and replaced. The printer was then perfect, except it is not allowed to work until the Canon error code is reset. Resetting the error code was hunted down on the internet and took me about twenty seconds using a code press of the two buttons and power lead. Canon wanted 35 pounds for the service man to call and 'service' the printer. - Boll**ks to that it's easier to buy a new printer. I told the service department that I'm off to buy a HP printer.)

I hunted down and talked to a computer engineer: ALL inkjet printers have such 'death timers'. The Epsons he serviced in my local 'university' would simply stop and demand a service engineer. No excuses, no hints. At least the Canon printer gave a reason as to the problem.

Such 'death timers' are indeed needed to prevent the ink overflow from getting too full, but the printer can at least be allowed to continue. Perhaps the lawyers don't like the thought of an old printer leaking excess ink over the users table and getting sued, such is the litigious mentality of too many narrow minded people nowadays.
Such servicing is not rocket science, often seen as a scam for service departments to make money from ten minutes work and a piece of felt, or a lawyers time bomb to prevent the manufacturer from being sued and to sell more printers.
As an ordinary Joe Punter, I would be quite happy to put up with a simple warning on the screen telling me that the ink reservoir needs cleaning, tick a 'void warranty' and be allowed to carry on using my printer.

So unless wishing to do a little work, always choose a printer as if it is a disposable item, unless you are prepared to pay highly for this service malarkey or you have the reset codes and prepared to do some cleaning or run a slight risk of staining the desk.

Luckily there is a solution to this problem for most printers.
(If the service engineer can solve it, then someone 'out there' also has found the same solution.)

The solution is to 'clean the nappies', then reset the timer codes as used by service engineers.
If you want to buy an expensive printer, always make sure you have total control and not subject to the service engineer to keep it working.
ALWAYS check the reset codes are available before buying any expensive printer.

Canon ink tank reset codes are given at the bottom of this web page and on many places on the internet, such as the good folks at http://www.fixyourownprinter.com/forums/inkjet/, to whom many of us are eternally grateful.

A little tip I discovered by accident while repairing Epsons, is to use the 820 software drivers on the 830, which then ignores the readings from the ink cartridges. This may work for similar printers which use the same 'print engine', but in a slightly different model.

See later for ways to clean the overflow ink reservoir. (wash the nappies).

Chipped cartridges.

Having the control codes and chip override programmes makes sure that the printer you pay good money for is the printer you are in control of for many years. -

No one would expect to buy a car which stops when it needs an oil change or service. No one would expect that only the manufacturer's gang is allowed to get the car working again and at high cost. This is the way printer scams work, and it is commonly believed that cars and other equipment, even washing machines, will soon be going this way.
So Beware: Such micro chips are already in your computer printer, even your washing machines and cars, even in ID cards. So it is only a matter of time before we customers are pushed into a 'mind set' into accepting this type of consumerist crap and control.
Once the computer became popular, no one has any real freedom anymore. The computer is a real Foustian pact with the devil. So always be wary of these and many other massive corporate scams to fleece you of money. Never allow lawyers or accountants or your politicians to steal anything from you.

So there you are: All printers contain a scam of one sort or other.

In the real world, there are always some nice folks out there, who can help to make a better, nicer world for us all.
Until we get open and sensible printer servicing, you must always consider your printer as disposable and buy accordingly, OR expect to find the codes or software to make it truly worthwhile spending good money on.

There are five main manufacturers of inkjets.

Canon.
Cannon are superb engineers. Until the pixma series, the Canon range has been invariably a line of superb printers, faultless apart from the death timer common to all printers. Well built and easy and cheap to refill, they were excellent printers with easily removed and cleaned print heads which would last many years of excellent, hard work, without hassle.

Despite many other printers others along the way, for 20 years I have always had various canon printers as my impeccable main work horses.
I recently bought a pixma 4200: What a rip off. Cannon have got things badly wrong. After just two months of hassle from new, I have scrapped my brand new pixma. I never had one full page of print from it !
Evidently this is quite common. I will no longer buy a modern canon printer and recommend you learn from the mistakes of others. I still await a reply from Canon for my money back. I now dislike cannon. Perhaps they suffer from 'modern' management.
I happily recommend PRE pixma canons as excellent investments, especially if you refill and intend to maintain the printer yourself for many years. But pixmas are an abysmal choice.

Epson
Epson have to my knowledge, never made a bad printer.
As a fixer of printers, I don't particularly like them, as they are hard to repair, but when working, they do print superbly. Epson have an excellent name for photo printing, mainly sticking with print heads built into the machine and a slightly different print head technology. The only real fault is their introduction of the chipped cartridge, possibly due to cheaper ink manufacturers. You can buy cheap third party chipped ink refills or you can refill them yourself and use the Ruskie override programme. I would recommend Epson's if you want high quality photo prints, but only if you can buy third party ink cartridges, or have a printer on the Ruskies list.
Cleaning the Epson print heads is a real pain, effectively making Epsons disposable. See later.
(I temporarily replaced my appalling new canon pixma with a discarded Epson 830 and was very happy with it until the print head failed, then I had to scrap the printer.)

H.P.
Another excellent manufacturer but with excessive, bloaty' software.
Hewlett Packard have always used the ink cartridge with integral print head until the recent 8250.
All standard HP ink cartridges are excellent and they just get better and better, to give some of the best photo results available. HP have certainly done their homework. You can buy a HP and refill it yourself, perhaps even replacing the expensive cartridges once or twice over a lifetime of many happy refills, and eventually dispose of the whole printer when it stops working. If you like your HP, then or looking out for a spare set of discarded cartridges makes HP life even easier and longer.

I now own a bottom of the range, budget HP 'bread-bin' printer and it has all the advantages of the latest photo printing quality, and al the advantages of my long lamented Canon BJ200, plus excellent modern photo printing quality.

Why a bottom of the range? simple, it uses the same cartridges as the model range printers , so has the same drivers and same technology, so will happily print to the same high standards. The budget device is also easier to replace and often more reliable due to less complexity such as integral card readers, scanner and such malarkey. Keep it simple, keep it reliable.

TIP: Modern HP software is atrociously large, consuming massive amounts of hard drive space, so consider ways around this. My last HP standard install was a massive 300 megs and had just too much totally unwanted software, wanting to email for updates and such crap, and generally being a real pain in the software when all you wanted to do was print.
Luckily, there is a better way.
Begin by going to printers in your operating system, be it Linux or windows, and add a printer, and lo and behold, there is your printer in the list. (Mine was under Hewlett Packard rather than HP.) Install this as the printer and you can circumvent all the horrible HP crap.
Linux has a superb method for printer installing and the latest models often have drivers ready and updated drivers before windows. Even if the drivers are unavailable, Linux can often use generic or similar drivers for excellent printing with unknown printers. Go to 'Sourceforge' for the latest Linux printer drivers :)

If your copy of windows does not have the basic drivers, then install then uninstall the basic HP software which came with the printer. It takes time but uninstalling does leave just the basic HP drivers in place on the hard drive for other programmes to use for printing. Now go to 'install printers' from control panel and search the hard drive. It will find the basic drivers for your printer which were left behind, without all the other crap.

Yes software writers can be daft. - For a recent HP I installed had atrocious amount of software to be installed to run the printer - and then it stopped installing because I did not have a moderately modern version of Windows Internet Explorer - so it stopped. Just how daft is that, - as if any web browser should prevent the printer from working ! - HP are sometimes just plain idiots. I had to rummage around for a recent free internet access disk from an Internet Service Provider and install a later version of IE 5.5. Totally unacceptable tosh. HP software is appalling, massive and never worth the bother. Thankfully, it's the only real H.P. fault.
If using Linux, then veer towards HP, who graciously supply their drivers as open source available for all operating systems, unlike other printer manufacturers, who may only supply windows drivers. When you install Linux, it will automatically recognise and install the printer if the printer is plugged in and switched on - no hassle.

HP printers have another advantage, they often have a wonderful low head height, ideal for fitting into short shelves and have always had excellent paper handling - from the front to the front of the printer.
Finding a discarded or scrapped HP printer is difficult, because they simply refuse to die.

Although many manufacturers may struggle to find ways to prevent aftermarket replacement ink carts, at least HP have the wherewithal to realise that although their cartridges can be refilled, when they do eventually die, at least the owners will be attracted towards genuine HP replacements for another round of refill fun. It simply saves so much hassle for both HP and the owners, who both win in the long run.

Some of the latest HP printers (e.g. 8250) use a very different system to others, where the ink tank is separate from the print head and fed by a connecting pipe. - The ink does not pass left and right with the head, but stays in separate tanks under the front flap. This may be for easy replacement, but it is also believed that this system uses pumps, as it allows the ink to be reversed flushed or cleaned, rather than profligately waste ink to clean the print head. We can but wait and see. These cartridges are chipped and too small for my liking. I have also been told they are easy to refill, but will depend upon the ability to override the chip controls if they prevent constant use, but this awaits my chance to 'test drive' one of these. If this prints as well then this could then make it the worlds best printer. The technology is there, it just has to be made sensible for the punter to use. You may not even need to stop the printer to refill the ink tanks. See Brother.

At the bottom end of the market, HP uses its latest generation of printer cartridges with integral print heads. For example, the 21 black and 22 colour cartridges may be budget at about 11 pounds each, (some places charge almost double this), but are superb and easily refilled. This means that even when the print head dies, you only spend a little to replace.
Warning: ALWAYS refill such cartridges BEFORE they become empty, because the modern micro-fine print nozzles are not so robust as earlier types. If the cartridges are with the printer, they may be low capacity ones, so will need refilling sooner. See later.

Lexmark.
This used to be the IBM printer division which also uses ink cartridges with integral print heads. IBM used to make good hard drives and laptops, but little else of worth and have now moved into less than perfect 'corporate and government software' with its appalling track record, and the dreaded ID card fiasco and probably worse to come. You have been warned. 'Big Blue' and 'Big Brother' are not dissimilar. Billions upon billions of our taxes are being thrown on the bonfire of certain software firms.
Out of IBM printers came Lexmark, who never seem to get good write ups in magazines and are considered by many as budget printers. Nevertheless, they sometimes make superb printers, but not always.
The print quality is not bad, just not up to the high standards at the cutting edges set by the other manufacturers. If you want a cheap, disposable but refillable printer, then Lexmark is a very good budget purchase for office work.
For example: In march 2007 I could buy a new Lexmark printer for 20 pounds and an ink refill kit for 8 pounds, in a local high street general purpose shop so I could refill the three colour cartridge about five times for a total of 33 pounds before affording to discard it. The money saved can then be used to have any high quality holiday photos printed professionally in the high street.
A few years ago, Lexmark tried putting a hidden chip in each genuine cartridge, such that the printer would not work unless this was present. This is a bit like the dreaded RFID chips (radio frequency ID) which may cause great social consternation in the future, as they not only ID you, but can track your movements too.
When the good people at Static Control Components made their own ink cart override chips, Lexmark took them to court and lost. So Lexmark have thankfully stopped this pernicious practice.

Warning: You may wish to be aware that Dell market some of these printers under their own name and 'can only use Dell cartridges'. So be very wary of being stuck with a printer you may not want to afford, yet looks cheap at first sight, but then you have to live with the unwanted consequences. (A bit like ID cards.) RFID has now been approved for insertion under human skin.

Be wary of free printers. They are never free.
In some cases, brand new 'free' printers haven't even been taken out of the box, before being dumped for a better printer. I know of two cases where brand new printers have been sent to charity shops in their unopened boxes.

TIP: Lexmark is touting the 'one cartridge' for its cheaper end domestic printers. A recent customer asked for a 'cartridge 1' for a lexmark, having just paid 39 pounds for it in the high street. After much searching, we could find no pattern version, but a large and well known, popular computer super store was selling them for 14 pounds.
So always keep your eyes open and please don't get ripped off.
They can also be easily refilled.

Brother.
Brother have been quietly making good inroads into home printers. They have been in the game for decades and have always made good, reliable kit. Usually for offices and corporates, but the latest range is most definitely good enough for home photo use too.
These Brother printers use what I consider the most effective design to date. Brother use external ink cartridges with pipes running to the print head. Therefore I not only recommend, but also commend Brother for anyone who wants excellent design, reliability and cost effective printing. As the picture shows, the ink carts are simple, indeed a delightfully simple design and they are subsequently easy to refill, and they even have a little float level in the front face. If you buy these cartridges wisely then they can offer quarter the printing costs of some others. Yes, they can be that cheap, and are still very easy to refill if you so wish.
Well done Brother.

Others.
Other manufacturers also 'make or re-badge' inkjets. But because the main five have the most affordable ink replacement costs, then there is no point looking for cheap replacement cartridges for uncommon printers. If your workplace has such a printer and you can keep their discarded cartridges with integral print heads, then this may offer cheap printing, but unless you have a good reason, I would stick to the big five.

Apple printers are usually rebadged Canons.
Kodak, Compaq and Dell printers are usually rebadged Lexmarks and may sometimes be slightly modified to only accept branded cartridges, so be wary. (possibly RFID.)

I consider all printers as inevitably disposable. - By the time it probably needs a full service or a costly service engineer, often about three years, the print technology has (hopefully) moved on to far better options for your money.

As an ordinary person in the street, (without access to reset codes or cheap ink cartridges) my final choice for photo print quality and refilling is between HP and Epson.
It is a very close call.

At present, I steer clear of Lexmark and modern Canons, as my money can get much better value elsewhere.
As a 'techie', I use older, (non-pixma) canon printers as they are truly reliable, cheap to run and give excellent prints.

For a new printer, HP looks best for print quality and affordability, but only if refilling the ink cartridges at home or using recycled ink cartridges.

Otherwise, like most of the world, you never really go far wrong with a budget Epson, but only if you can buy cheap replacement cartridges !
For high quality photo work, then Epson again.

Perhaps one day, modern printers may overcome the need to waste half the inks keeping the modern print heads clean, then we would all be winners. Perhaps a dedicated park and wash/scrub print head parking zone with my 'wick 'n seal' technology using cheap methylated spirits and a simple, large cleaner refill tank. It is not exactly rocket science. If Epson or Canon want this copyrighted idea from me, I'd be only glad to offer my help.

Happy hunting for your perfect printer.

Printer Use.

Often the printer is wanted as a domestic 'Jack of all trades' and preferably a master of most.
Perhaps a general office use or for homework and general domestic use.
Perhaps for many people out there with digital cameras, where printing photos is important.
Perhaps you just want a basic hack for printing thousands of flyers or adverts.

Many modern printers now allow direct printing onto a blank CD.
(The Epson 300/340 is reputed to have a feeble design of CD printer tray, but probably due to people who simply print thousands of bootleg CD's and DVD's every week. This shows that many people prefer Epson's because they can take a constant hammering at decent costs. If you know how to bootleg, then you certainly know how to buy cheap inks at bulk discount prices, and Epson's seem to like to work hard.

Some printers allow camera memory cards or 'pictbridge' cables for direct photo printing without a computer. Personally I prefer to post edit before printing, so the picture is nicely composed and any details enhanced where needed, such as in dark areas.

Choose according to your needs - yet another advantage of NOT that high street computer package with that free crappo printer.

Printer Use: Quality of print.
Most modern printers are capable of high quality printing.
Even the average printers are surprisingly good nowadays and improving all the time. A few cheaper ones cannot reach the standards of photo quality, but by 2008, few if any bad printers remain.
There is still a debate as to whether a printer needs the light cyan and light magenta inks, as for most people the photo reproduction is often impossible to distinguish. Only if you are a photo expert will these extra inks be needed. For nearly everyone else, the four colours of Black, Cyan, Magenta and Yellow are more than adequate.

Printer Use: Speed.
Some printers are slow, so if using in an office or for many prints, then compare those printing speeds.
Pixmas are VERY fast, but at a high cost. - My pixma took an appallingly long time to get ready, then prints out fast, (when they work) but the OVERALL time to print is appallingly slow for non-office environments. So although fast on paper, it's really crap for single prints.

Learn from my mistakes: With my older canon BJC2000, I print single sheets and pictures at will, with no waiting. But the 4200 Pixma makes a song and dance of the whole start-up affair, that I can only recommend them for batch mode. It's just a pain and wastes even more ink, possibly about two thirds in starting, stopping and 'preening' its print head. If you just want to print one page just now and again, then forget it !
A 'spoilt primadonna' of a printer.
So for occasional high quality printing, HP looks best, with its integral print heads which need less cleaning, with Epson and Brother second. Lexmark fourth then Canon pixmas last.

Remember that in most situations, the 'fastest' printers are often the slowest overall and the least economical.

Printer Use: Positioning and size:
Look for a printer which will fit neatly with the rest of the computer. If your printer is to fit on a shelf, make sure it has a paper feed out tray, or be prepared to modify some wire coat hangers to prevent the sheets from falling onto the floor. Use a tape measure if things look tight.
HP offer low height with excellent front paper handling.

Printer Use: Connectivity:
Most modern printers and computers use USB connectors, but rarely come with a USB cable included in the box.
You should be able to buy a USB printer cable for under three pounds. If you are charged more, then you are being ripped off. Some high street shits shops will charge as much as 12 pounds. USB cables are also available in 'pound shops'.

Older connections.
If you have a very old computer, then look for a printer with parallel input, or budget for a USB card and windows 98SE. A PCI card with six USB ports should cost about 9 pounds.
Some expensive printers can use wireless or infrared links, but these are not worth the effort unless specifically needed. (Use the cable and get faster, safer printing.)

Read a few magazines first.
Lexmark seem to make good and occasionally less than good printers, so you have to check the latest magazine tests. HP are consistently very good, but their massive software sometimes takes time to get around to printing. Epson and canon give excellent results, are fairly fast in computing time and generally easier to live with, especially if in a rush to get the job done to a high standard in an office.
For occasional domestic use, where the printer is mostly left switched off, then HP every time.
For regular domestic use, then a cheap Epson.
(If your daughter keeps printing out 'barbie' web pages, then buy some extra magenta carts ! )

Printer Use: High quality photos.
Always compare any printer preview screens if you are printing direct from camera memory cards. Some screens are awful and some only give menus, not preview pictures. Those with picture screens can be very vague.
Most modern printers can print on glossy paper to that of reasonable photographic printing, but it is often cheaper to get the best photos printed on the high street, with numerous prints being cheap.
High street 'One hour printing' is vastly cheaper than using an expensive home photo printer.
Also checkout the dedicated specialist 6 x 4 inch photo quality printers, then perhaps add a cheaper standard inkjet printer for your general work.

TIP: If you do very little printing, then ANY printer may well clog up if not used for a few months. If you are away from home for six months at a time, then look for a printer using an ink cartridge with integral print head, such as lexmark or HP.
ALWAYS print one sheet a week, just to keep the print head happy, or run a 'clean nozzle' once a week.
If on holiday for a month, look to buy a cartridge storage case, as this will keep your printer ready even after a year or so. I always print a small section of solid black and colour each month to prevent them becoming blocked. for this purpose I have a simple print page on my photo software with a section of each colour, to print out once a week when otherwise not in use.
It was possible to buy older special Canon and HP cartridge cases which have a rubber print head seal and thus keep stored cartridges in better condition for long periods.
My old Cannon BCO2 and BCO5 cartridges with integral print heads have survived in such cases for over TEN years without hassle, although such incredible reliability is academic unless a technology museum curator.
If the printer heads clog up after many months of non use, then at least you have the choice of trying to clean or replacing the cartridge with its print head, rather than simply dumping a printer with a built in print head.

If you want a high quality printer, but only expect to use it just a few times a year, then consider using high street printers, or perhaps a HP. You may wish to keep a couple of spare print cartridges nearby, retained in their vacuum sealed packs, just in case.

If you want to print lots of high quality but do not intend to keep the printer for many years, then the Epson is often a good choice, even more so if you can refill the inks yourself and use override codes.

TIP: If you already have a printer with expensive cartridges, but don't like filling it yourself, then seriously consider changing your printer, not the expensive cartridge !

TIP: If a printer for photo work, always go to a large computer warehouse and check out the print quality by comparing them side by side. There really is no substitute for direct comparisons of the print-out. Take your camera and 'pictbridge' lead, or your memory card to the computer warehouse which has demonstration printers. Have a test photo ready in memory, which usually has a face and a scenic view including a tree and some water, then grab a salesperson to test the print quality of the more sensible printers on display. Finally check the inks are affordable by looking at the replacement inks rack and only then choose the most suitable printer.

Some really cheap printers have just one very expensive, three-colour cartridge.
Cheap printers have two ink cartridges, - a black and a three colour cartridge.
Good, sensible printers have a black and a three colour cartridge.
Better quality printers have four separate ink cartridges, black, magenta, cyan, yellow.

Top photo quality printers also add two extra inks for skin and sky tones, so have six separate ink tanks, which may keep running costs a bit more sensible, especially if photo-print happy.
Some HP printers also allow the black to be replaced with a special photo cartridge which has black plus light cyan and light magenta.

Future printers may have up to ten ink tanks, including pigment black and different coatings, so be wary of the actual running costs, as a set of genuine replacement inks may cost over sixty pounds !

The manufacturers still want as much of your money as they can legally lay their hands on.

TIP: From personal experience with the latest technology and digital cameras, it is often cheaper to go to the high street to get digital photos printed onto 6 x 4 inch photo high quality prints. Even the high street instant print machines at 29 pence per photo can often work out cheaper than any home printer which may cost up to 50 pence per 6 x 4 print.

So check those costs before spending any real money.

Printer Use: Multi - Function devices.

It may seem a great idea to have the printer, scanner and fax machine all in one.
It may indeed be a good idea if you want to use it as a stand alone photo copier or simply to save space.
But when the power supply or the printer dies, oops! there goes the scanner and fax too !
If you only use a scanner very occasionally, then consider a cheap USB scanner which can be hidden away under the desk and used only when needed. Cheap scanners don't even need a power supply and are very convenient, with just their single USB plug.
Many word processors have a fax option, but unless in an office environment, then a fax may not be needed, especially if you don't have a land line or have a fax function in your software office suite.

The point of considering using discrete, separate devices, is that you are not hassled when things go wrong. If the scanner dies, then you are not short of the printer and vice versa. Where used, a separate fax machine is always there for emergency, perhaps to order replacement inks or even a new printer :(

Neither scanner nor fax technology is likely to improve in the next decade, so updating just the printer is always a far cheaper option in the long run. Some 'all in one multi function printer scanners' are also more expensive to run, as the inks are not so cheap to replace. If you intend to refill them yourself, then they can also be harder to refill, once you have lifted the heavier top with the scanner.

(A customer recently presented with an expensive, top quality 'all in one' which had died. The power supply went haywire. It was effectively junk. Upon stripping, I noted the print engine was nothing wonderful - a moderate printer and cheap scanner would have been just as good at a quarter the price. I salvaged the scanner neons, a couple of motors, bottom felts and junked the rest. I did not bother to keep the ink carts as they were not user friendly types.)

Printer Use: All - in - one good :)
The upside is that you can simply place the fax in the scanner and press a computer button to send it, then scan it into a compressed image file for archiving on the hard drive and CD.
They take up less room.
You can also send a picture of your buttocks scanned into the internet or by email when you hand in your notice to quit.

Printer Use: All - in - one bad :(
You are committed to all your eggs in one basket. If the software is trashed by a virus, then you have lost the lot:
With many staff, the multi purpose does not look so clever, as Pat may want to use the printer, Sam to use the scanner and Fred to use the fax. So with separate items, productivity can be far higher.
If you want to use the scanner, and send a fax, and still want to print off hundreds of documents in the background while all this is going on, then separate items begin to look much more sensible and a lot safer in the long run.
They take up more room.

It is always a case of choosing 'Horses for Courses'.

Printer Use: Other considerations.

TIP: If you deliberately buy a disposable printer, then look at the power supply, they are usually 12 to 30 volts DC. I use an old printer power supply which charges up my rechargeable drill when the drills' power supply failed. 30 volt power supplies are great for recharging 24 volt rechargeable drills whose charger has failed.
Some 14 volt power supplies make good car or motorcycle battery trickle chargers.

A personal viewpoint and a few examples.

June 2008. - Every time I update this webpage, the printer game is always changing.
At present, the game as I see it is thus:
The ideal printer would have affordable ink cartridges, be physically compact and be able to print photo quality.
Such a printer does not exist. The budget HP 'bread bin' types are the closest - cheap and print really well and are easy to refill. Look for number 21 and 22 cartridges, which are fairly new design, based on older designs, so will be around for a few years, refillable, and being common, are always available as recycled for about half the price.

For decent 6x4 inch prints for domestic use, I would personally prefer the high street photo print services rather than waste money on any expensive printer. Just pop along with your memory card or USB dongle and get instant or wait an hour for even lower costs. They also make excellent postcards when on holiday.

A disposable 19 quid Lexmark and a seven quid ink refill kit will offer a couple of years of absolutely minimal cost domestic printing and ideal for general use. If you buy new ink cartridges, then you've probably lost. If you refill the ink cartridges, then you have a basic but incredibly affordable printer.

If wanting photo capability at low cost, possibly HP are well worth looking at, even the cheaper versions but neither budget models print on CD's. There is also the option of a third HP optional photo high quality cartridge which has less black but includes pale cyan and pale magenta for very fine photos. When the print heads die after many refills, I'd simply buy a new printer, NOT the cartridges. This is because the printer costs about the same as replacement cartridges, but you get a brand new, shiny printer with brand new print heads, updated capabilities and drivers, and a clean nappy without imminent reset ink counter problems!

If you don't want to refill, then always use an Epson printer, but buy the cheaper cartridges first, then check the printer fits the bill.

The costs are of course, in the manufacturers profits of the ink replacement cartridges.
Even if you only manage three or four home refills of ANY printer, you are often still 'up on the deal' and ahead of the accountants. I might even buy another identical HP but it would probably be updated by then. Only if in the future, the manufacturers have made refilling difficult in their later models would I consider a new set of ink cartridges for an older model.

So unless you want to print CD's or high photo quality at home, then almost any such 'cheapo' printer with reasonable print quality is a good choice if it has refillable cartridges. You can print reasonable photos and general work at almost minimal costs, saving your pennies for the high street print services which will always be as good as is possible.

Much later, when problems eventually occur, such as a death timer, or streaky prints, or nasty crunchy noises or crumpled paper, then simply consider throwing away the printer, especially when repair or replacing a pair of ink cartridges is almost as expensive as a new printer.

(The canon 4200 pixma is now CHEAPER than its set of replacement ink cartridges. No, I will not buy another pixma just to get these full replacement cartridges. I can spend my money far more wisely.)

So beware - these and many similar printers are just another classic case of 'Buy - Refill- Die'.
(or if you are a daft high street consumer, 'Buy - Get fleeced Die' type of printer.)
The worst option is like me, an appalling printer which is not even fit to print.

At the better end of the photo printing market, Epson with cheap aftermarket cartridges is eventually disposable.
You may wish to consider a HP for a very long life if you can refill it yourself.
I do not recommend modern canon printers.

Although I have just advised dumping a printer when the costs of a new cartridge matches or outweighs the hassle or costs, I still wish to impress upon the reader that they can often be repaired, or at least attempted to be repaired. You have nothing to loose. For almost free printing, see later.

Before entering the shops.

Perhaps you have decided to buy a cheapo printer which is easily refillable at home for constant daily use and get your glossy photos printed much cheaper and reliably at the high street or internet photo services.

Perhaps you are prepared to buy a really good quality photo printer and have checked the nappy codes and cartridge pricing.

Perhaps you have decided to buy both, to use the expensive one just occasionally, by printing high quality photos in batches to keep overall running costs down and the cheap refillable printer as a daily hack of all trades.
Perhaps like many, you have decided to keep your old printer and also buy a special printer !
Many people have two printers connected to their computers. One for letters and general chores and one for photos.

Time to pootle off to the computer shop, or to surf that internet - web thingie, whatever that may be.

Do your research.
For instance, I really wanted a canon, as my other canons were superb. The pixma 4200 cartridges were very expensive, but then, I had no intention to buy any ink cartridges, as I had downloaded the manual from the web and noted that they could be overridden, so I would refill these original cartridges as often as I like. And a good job too, as at that time the fifty percent ink wasting disgrace was still unknown to the public.
But even I make mistakes. I have dumped my pixma before it had used up the inks - it really is that bad.

I took my own advice, - if the inks are too expensive - dump the printer - and that includes dumping a BRAND NEW canon !!!

If an Epson and wishing to refill yourself, then download the latest Epson override software from www.ssclg.com/epsone.shtml, then check the list of the supported printers.

If an expensive printer and intending to keep it for many, many years, then search the internet for the reset codes for canon, HP and lexmark printers. Make a list of the supported printers.

Check List.
Check if you have parallel or USB connectors on your computer.
If using two printers, then the old printer may use the parallel cable and the new one a USB port.

Check the room where the printer is to be positioned. Width and also the DEPTH to the back wall and HEIGHT, as some printers are really deep and some are rather tall. Use a tape measure if things look really cramped. Will a HP fit where no other printer can ?
It is for such reasons that I like HP 'bread bin' printers, as they feed from the front and exit the paper at the front. - You can literally put them just about anywhere.

Check the inks are cheap to buy OR that the inks tanks are refillable. So first - go to the inks display rack and check the ink pricings.

TIP: If in doubt, simply buy a common inkjet refill kit first and check the desired printer is on the list inside the refill kit. If not, then at least you have that all important refill compatibility list for checking the next likely printer for you to inspect for suitability.

Check the internet for the most popular printers and the cost range you want. You can often buy at the same price in the big local warehouses.

Optional check if intending to print high quality photos:
TIP: Load a 'test print' into your camera memory card, usually with a face for skin tones and some landscape scenery with water, trees and sky. Then take the memory card or on a USB device or camera and any 'pictbridge cable', so you can control the printer from the camera or just the memory card. If the printer does not work with your camera, then it is probably not worth .

If in ANY doubt, leave before opening your purse: - Go to the local cafe to ponder your options.

In the shop.

If you have an older computer without a USB port, then look for printers with parallel and USB connections, or consider adding a PCI card with USB ports in your computer. A PCI card with six USB ports sells for 9 pounds. See also 'using older printers', below.

You may well be suckered into a USB cable for 12 pounds or more. Mine cost under two pounds new and has worked faultlessly for three years.

When in the shops, lift the lids of the various chosen printers to see if you can discern the ink cartridge positions. You are looking for either two cartridges, a black and a colour, or possibly four or even six slots for ink cartridges. Check you are the right printer, not one which has more inks than you want.
You may well be happy with four individual colours for separate ink cartridges for a fixed print head printer, or to look for two ink carts which have integral print heads.
ALWAYS read the side of the packaging to check the printer uses the ink carts you have chosen.

While there, lift a few HP and Brother lids to see the remote versions of cartridges as this may be the future of printing you can already buy conversion kits to modify many printers to this system for about 35 pounds !

Checking the ink cartridges.
When in the shop, check those ink cartridges. They are often packed away from the display printers and are in vacuum sealed packs. So any display printers will not give you an insight as to the ability to refill the cartridges unless they are working display printers.
You will have to note the model, then go to the ink rack and compare any pictures on the cartons. If this fails and you want to refill at home, then buy a refill kit first, then pootle off to the cafe to check which printers are supported on the list.
If this fails, look for similarly shaped cartridges as the technology does not change much. For example, most of the standard HP cartridges look similar and are easy to refill in the same manner. For refilling Epson's at home, you must check the override software beforehand for the supported printers and take the list in the shop with you, or otherwise look for cheap compatible cartridges, then buy some while they are still available.

If in doubt, choose Lexmark for a cheap refillable printer or a standard HP for a high quality refillable printer.

Even the cheaper 'compatible' cartridges in the high street shops are overpriced.
So also check out mail order ink carts which are half the price of the compatibles - especially if you have done your homework and bought a fairly common printer for which everyone and their pet dog makes replacement carts for.

A seven ink cart set for an Epson should be about 40 pounds genuine, or 20 pounds for a compatible set in the high street, and about 12 pounds if you shop around and 7 pounds via mail order. Yes these are actual examples of ink cart prices I can get in January 2007 for a seven ink cart Epson.

The sales staff will tell you that the genuine ones are best and indeed they are, - but by the time you have gone through six sets of cheaper inks, you will probably have saved the cost of the printer and thus all else is pure profit. And if the printer dies, (they last much longer than this) then you simply buy another spanking new printer !

Before leaving the shop.

I assume you left the shop WITHOUT any extra warranty, as you already have a 12 month standard warranty and any printer beyond this is probably cheaper to replace or repair yourself, than to get serviced.
(I'm still trying to get a refund on my appalling canon pixma. Canon suck.)

You should ONLY consider an extended warranty if the printer is really expensive and you expect to use it often and for many years. MAKE SURE the warranty covers ink overflow cleaning and resetting and new print heads, - if not, then there is probably no point in paying for an extended warranty.

For most makes, especially Epson: ALWAYS choose from the selection those which have affordable ink reservoirs. It is the ink which will keep costs sensible. When you buy the printer, also buy compatible ink refills. - No cheap compatible refills no sale.

TO REPEAT: NEVER buy a printer by initial cost,- buy something that will do the job well.

Check the machine prints high enough quality pictures and uses affordable inks.
If using a digital camera, check out the latest options for direct printing.

Some printers have been sold for the same cost as the replacement ink cartridges, so be wary about what this is this saying about the ink vs profit margins for manufacturers. The cartridges that come with the printer may only be partially filled, but can often be refilled at home.

Examples of .
Budget 'Jack of all trades', master of some. - A cheap Lexmark with single cartridge, plus a set of refill inks - 20 for printer, plus 7 pounds for ink refill kit.
Good all rounder for occasional general use - A HP 'breadbin' printer. 30 quid depending upon where you buy.
Good all rounder for daily photo use - An Epson with compatible set of inks. 40 to 70 quid depending upon model.
Good all rounder for many years of occasional photo use - A HP plus four colour ink refill kit. 50 to 70 pounds.
Free - Almost any Older Canon.

Buying Ink refills.

Have a fright, - look at the cost of ink cartridges in your local high street shop.
Now look at ink prices in computer magazines, of the ink cartridge warehouses. There is a great difference, often a quarter the cost and they still make good profits.
(I have seen standard invoices for Epson and canon 'compatible' ink cartridge importers and they are often pennies. Yes pennies. The 'mark up' is phenomenal and always at the expense of the high street shopper.)

Typical of the 2006 generation of photo quality printers is the Epson R300 series, for which a set of six ink cartridges cost 56 pounds for the genuine article. Third party manufacturers can sell the set for 16 pounds, or three full sets of six for 45 pounds. This is much cheaper, but is still not cheap, so the reader must decide just what they want their printer for. I have seen them for as low as seven pounds for a set of five Epson carts, and that is after the shop has added its profit margin. Fill them yourself and reset, then it costs even less.

Canon Bad: My five separate Pixma cartridges are 12 pounds each and after wastage, is far worse than my BJC200. Bad news all round. (The pixma is now being sold for LESS than the replacement ink cartridges - Just say no.)
Canon Good: My Cannon bjc 2000 printer cartridges cost 199 pence for black, and 249 pence for 3 colour. I have seen the trade receipts but tell how much a shop gets to pay for them, (but they are well under 50 pence !) As they refill easily, I don't even pay this much for my ink - I get many refills from an ink refill kit.

I recently found '2 for 1' on ink refill kits, so I'll leave you to guess just how little it costs me to print out lots of A4 pictures :))

The nicest solution is a four ink printer, so you can refill the inks yourself.
If wanting a six ink printer, then make sure you can refill the black, cyan, magenta and yellow, then only buy the few other uncommon colour cartridges, although pale magenta and pale cyan are now also available as refill inks.

Ink cartridge design can help or hinder, nice or horrible.
A nice piece of design is that some of the latest tanks are transparent, so you can easily see when they need replacement, rather than rely on a highly dubious integrated chip, or to wait until the print is missing a colour. With most printers you just lift the lid and the printer automatically moves the print head to the middle for ink level inspection and replacement or filling as required. I resorted to lifting the lid of my thirsty pixma 4200 and injecting ink direct into the cartridges without removing them, glug, glug, glug, I'd hate to consider the genuine replacement ink costs. I just hope our government don't use these, as our taxes can't take much more of a rip off.
Some Epson cartridges are a nightmare, - see later.

To repeat - when buying your printer, check those ink costs.
Make sure it's not chipped if you want to do your own refilling, or check the cost of chipped ink replacements.
If the ink cartridges are chipped, but more than two quid each (3 Dollars) then look for reset programme before buying. There is nothing more annoying than the computer saying the yellow ink tank is empty, yet you can patently see that it is still a quarter full. - Ahhhg !

If the cartridge costs 10 to 26 quid, (usually with an integral print head) but can be refilled easily, then it is usually cost effective, as you will be buying a home refill kit. - Then when the print head dies after a year or so, simply buy a new cartridge or even a new printer.

If Epson win their court case in 2006 against globally cheap replacement inks, then you must seriously look to ink tanks which can be refilled by hand. If Epson win, the market place will simply be divided between those who pay through the nose for inks, or those who can refill their own tanks. There may also be a burgeoning replacement ink tank refill / recycle service, using a swap of genuine tanks refilled by local shops. Many people will certainly offer this service if Epson wins, as it's money for old rope.

Not all manufacturers are consistent. So always check those ink cartridges.
The classic HP and Lexmark cartridges with integral print heads are easy to refill, apart unknown aspects of the latest 360 cartridges with rounded casings for the HP 8250 which use a fixed print head. A self fill product was advertised from after market suppliers, but has since disappeared, so it can be done but may need software modifications. Unlike the rest of its HP cousins, this unusual design may be far more economical on ink than similar fixed head designs. It is early days for this, so until more info is available, stick to the classic designs with integral print head for easy and affordable filling if you want a good HP printer for general and photo use for many years.

For those who want to print plenty of high quality photos regularly, then Epson actually seem to be playing a smarter game. Although they were the first to use the awful chipped cartridges, their printers at least do not waste the inks too badly. So if you can get cheap replacement cartridges, or your printer is on the epsoneone list (see below) to allow you to refill, then this looks the best route for a mid to top range printer.

I know of no printer without some scam, hassle or bugbear.

I tend to like Epsons, as the free Ruskie over-ride control programme ensures this remains a hard working, yet cheap to run piece of high quality engineering, as nearly all modern printers are. But cleaning Epson fixed print heads is not easy and more often than not, I have to throw otherwise good Epsons away.
The old style canon print head shown here is separate to the ink cartridges and so easily cleaned or replaceable, but costs almost as much as a new printer. But at least this easily removable print head allows any owner to give it a good cleaning and get it working again, rather than dispose of this printer before its time for the big recycle bin in the sky. Most canons have easily removable print heads, so when they eventually fail or get cruddy, at least you can remove it easily and have the chance to try and clean it fully. Nice one Canon. Removing Epson print heads is a right pain and is described in detail later.

'Chipped' ink cartridges.

Mainly Epsons. Don't dispair if you have such a device. You may wish to steer clear of ink cartridges with chips built in, as these may be easy to refill, but the printer can prevent them from working afterwards. If you unfortunately have a printer using chipped cartridges, then it is best to look for cheap pattern replacement cartridges which are usually half to a third of high street prices.
Alternatively, they may be able to be refilled, but you will need a chip setting tool or some software to override the manufacturers software, see the excellent Ruskies at www.ssclg.com/epsone.shtml can also help override the chip state, as they know the merit of good value and good printers.

There are two ways of overriding the chips, either by resetting the chip, or if the chip be written to, then it is 'frozen' and does not count down further. If the latest chips need freezing, then you should do this immediately upon fitting a new cartridge, as you cannot reset a fully empty cartridge chip.
Because of these annoying chips, the printer sometimes says the ink cartridge needs replacing, even when the genuine ink tank obviously has ink remaining ! - The answer is obvious - download the over ride software.

Many people refill and although it can be a bit messy, it is extremely cheap and you always have plenty of spare ink on hand, day or night !
A local shop was recently selling 'two for one' on colour ink refill kits - I was in consumer heaven and enjoy a good giggle when passing those high street ink cartridge display racks :))

You cannot refill using ordinary ink, as the ink you use in your pen is not the same. A lady friend tried using everybody's favourite school ink, 'Quink' but it ran out the bottom. We saved the cartridge and flushed before refilling correctly. Some may giggle, but at least she made the attempt which is more than many people.

The correct printer refilling ink is commonly available in packs, usually a black set or a three colour set for under ten quid which includes instructions and a syringe.
The ink comes in various forms, the most popular is a pack of three bottles of black or three bottles, one of each colour, plus with a medical syringe and needle, and cost about three pounds. Buy them when they are discounted or 2-for-1 offers. There is also solo ink which comse in a plastic concertina bottle with a steel needle on the top for a pound each.
The ink comes with various rubber bungs for cartridges and bits and pieces. Each kit cost a pound for about 25cc of ink which was enough to fill a domestic cartridge about three or four times. (Or fill a massive HPC1823D once). So a cartridge costing anything from 2 pounds to seven pounds could be filled for about 30 pence, which is about one tenth to one twentieth the running cost. There are also larger bottles of ink where 125 and 250cc of inks can work out even more cheaper.

If you listen to official sources, then the ink cartridges with integral print heads can be refilled, but the heads tend to fail after a few refills. From personal experience, cartridges are often good for up to twenty refills. But even if you only get three refills from one cart, then you are still well ahead of the game. I have managed many more than this and my older canons have been filled almost a hundred times. (I do miss those older cannons : (

Just because you are saving money, doesn't mean you can't get further ahead: Look out for free, empty cartridges or from discarded printers: Some of my cartridges came 'complete' with an unwanted printer. Ask your local charity shop and friends in offices. Always give the charity shop a reasonable value of the item. The more you give, the more the needy receive. Then you can have a spare cartridge which can be refilled ready for instant use and of course, extend the working life of the printer.
I personally recommend NOT having a spare ink cartridge, as filling them may be great, but they can often leak before it is time to replace them, so just use one ink cartridge and keep any empty ones in a sealed crisps packet with a little meths or alcohol, for when the present one eventually becomes useless.
I have a perfect spare HP22, but it leaks if filled, so I simply keep it in a sealed crisps (potato chips) packet with some paper tissue soaked in methylated spirits.
Keep the packing of the original cartridge as it can be used to seal and help protect the head of any replacements. It is also possible to buy the highly recommended special HP and (early BC02/5) canon storage cartridge cases, which have a rubber print head seal and thus keep stored cartridges in good condition for a year or more.

There are no real problems with printer inks being incompatible with most printers, as the ink technology is far finer than any nozzles. I have filled a cartridge with integral print head over twenty times before it died, and I was told that five times is about the maximum. Yes it was an old Cannon, a BC03 cart.
My old canon 2000 with the separate ink tanks had been refilled with ink over fifty times and showed no intention of being less than perfect until the electronics failed. So in reality, it's not the differences between original inks or aftermarket inks, but the way the printer is used and maintained.

The only differences in inks is the dyes or pigments, some of which are not waterproof.
The more expensive, pigment based black inks are used for archiving, where degradation from sunlight or many decades of retrieval is important. Some printers now use two blacks, one for archiving and one for photos, so you may wish to get this piniky in your choice of a new printer. But for most people this is simply irrelevant and only experts will note any difference. Only where making posters for bright sunny shop windows should decent inks be used, and then only if needed for six months or more in direct sunlight. In such cases, use the original inks if the manufacturer supplies any special inks. For all other uses, the refill kits are just as good as any. Most people don't care if their documents remain perfect for more than a year in bright sunlight.

Read the refill instructions for your cartridge, as the typical refill kits have magnificent lists of over a hundred makes and models.

How to refill.

The plastic ink cartridge is a plastic container with an exit hole to the print head and usually contains a foam core.
There are two main forms of cartridges, this with and those without the print head.
Those without the print head are removed for the first time, and a small hole made in the top, usually where the vent is. Before filling, it is recommended to place some vinyl tape over the bottom hole, so the ink does not leak out. The tape is removed a few minutes after filling, so the internal pressure relaxes and the tape also prevent unwanted drops of ink staining the table or old newspaper.
The tape also allows the ink to settle in the cartridge for a while before inserting into the printer, or if used for long term storage of spare filled cartridges. As the vinyl tape has to be removed before use, simply place a longer strip of tape, so that it is obvious that it must be removed, by even the silliest of office staff.

Some Epson cartridges have an easily pierced piece of tape over the bottom feed hole, and this is best cleaned, then covered in thin selotape(tm) or parcel tape, as this can be easily pierced on the Epson print head spikes. The tape can be stuck up the sides of the cartridge for extra security.

Cartridges with an integral print head will also leak at the bottom when being filled, but not so much as bare cartridges. Nevertheless, the ink may often leak, so place a little paper tissue under the print head nozzle to prevent unwanted ink drips.

The basic routine is to remove the cartridge, use a small screw supplied with the kit to make a hole in the appropriate place, of which the better refill kits have an accompanying guide.

Older HP cartridges: On some colour cartridges, you may have to remove the top cover such as the green HP and grey BJ21 shown here. The large capacity BLACK HP cartridges DO NOT have the top removed.
Insert a small pocket knife blade and prise the green top off, as it is held in place with a little glue. The tops are replaced after filling, simply secured with a piece of sticky tape.

The grey BJ21 easily shows the three colour holes for filling and has the piece of tape to keep the lid on after filling.

Where the colour cartridge contains three colours, then three holes are made. These holes are often a case of simply enlarging the vent holes.

If you do not have the filler guide, then explore in the following manner:
First make a small hole where you think the top of the ink reservoir is. If a three colour cartridge, then make one exploratory hole at a time.
If a common cartridge, such as Epson's and later HPs and Lexmarks, there may well be a piece of plastic film and under this a serpentine vent channel, At the hidden end of the vent channel is the best place to probe with the hole.
Dip in the clean needle or a cocktail stick and test for any ink colour.
(If no ink is found and it's a colour HP with a big green or grey cap, then you may need to remove the cap. So first make a bigger hole and look inside for an empty space. If so, then remove the cap.)

With the first hole made, now check the colour of the ink. You may find resistance part way into the cartridge, which is the foam to prevent sloshing, so sharpen the injection needle by scraping on fine abrasive paper or nail file until it has an angled sharp point or use a cocktail stick.
Probe for other colours as needed. DO NOT REMOVE THE LID AS SHOWN HERE !
The lid has been removed for illustration purposes only, although it does make refilling easier, but he ink will overflow into the other chambers and contaminate them. So never remove any covers, unless you intend to seal the joins between the various colours. - this cartridge was reassembled with some glue between the chambers and the lid held with some tape for good measure.
If you should, by accident put the wrong ink in a chamber, then open it up, remove the foam, wash under a tap and wash out the chamber, then dry fully and put a little meths cleaner in the bottom of the chamber and print a few pages of solid colour until the chamber runs clean. Then reassemble and refill.

Mark the holes appropriately with their colours. I scratch C Y or M beside the appropriate holes on colour carts or mark the positions inside the printer cover.

This is a picture of the HP No.22 colour cartridge; note the simple holes in the lid. Consider if this is rocket science. The answer is of course, NO.
I used a Swiss army knife to perform the lobotomy and a piece of masking tape to effect a successful rebuild. (I really must get around to gluing the lid back on.)

Under the foam is a little piece of filter paper over the hole down to the nozzles and that's all. The real technology is in the incredible nozzle area, but the user is only required to keep filling the foam filled chamber with the correct ink.
Where the foam is compressed or dense, then a sharp needle is best, so the ink can be injected HALF way down in the foam, without damaging anything delicate on the base of the ink chamber, or causing ink to flow out the top rather than sink into the foam.

Eventually the nozzles will indeed fail, as do all things.
But unless you let the cartridge run dry and if unlucky, should 'cook' the nozzles, then you can fill happily and so easily. There are NO booby traps here. You know that when it eventually does fail, so if a HP22 cart, you only need pay another ten quid and have no other hassle. No chip setting nor counter crap and no cleaning of printer heads.
If I cannot find the printer reset codes then the answer is simple - I look for another cheap HP printer using the 21/22 cartridges and carry on as before, using my old carts, with a spare set remaining in their boxes. As such printers cost about the cost of a pair of carts, then I am simply ahead of the game.
It is for such cartridges as this that I have moved to HP.
(Note : The 'rebadged?' budget Canon 2200, has almost identical print engine and suspiciously similar ink cartridges to the HP21/22, but at twice the cost.)

If your ink tank is not clear or not on the refill kit list, then buy just one cheap replacement tank and when it empties, probe it or disassemble. In the worst case, you may need to wash it in water to see how it is constructed internally so you can fill any subsequent ones safely, easily and of course, fully.
Usually an ink cartridge does NOT need to be taken apart, just a probe with a cocktail stick to see which sections contain which colour inks.
If you must disassemble but reuse, then wash in water, allow to dry, then fill with a little alcohol and run a print test of a full page with meths to clean the nozzles. Empty, then fill with a little ink, sit the nozzle on a piece of paper tissue to help wick out the ink, then fit into the printer, allow to stand for a few hours or overnight (or a couple of days if very fine nozzles) then test.

There is always one design which stands above the rest.
Without doubt, the easiest to refill are the Bother cartridges shown here - you don't even need to remove them and can refilled them in situ, - even while printing !
They really are very nice carts, with all the best attributes: They are clear so you can see when filling them, they are not in the print head so there is no need to slide the head across, and they are separate with high capacity. They have an upper black finger grip through which you can easily refill. Because they use remote pipes to the print head, then there is no need to prime or other hassles found with separate ink carts fitted directly to a print head.
They even have little internal floats to recognise the ink levels.
I really cannot find any fault with this design other than the printers are more expensive than the disposable budget designs now available. When the print head fails, its probably time to buy a new printer, whereas with integral print head designs, you only need to replace a print cartridge.
I am not sure, but have been told that these printers reverse flush the nozzles occasionally by pumping back up the ink to clear the nozzles and thereby greatly improve the sparing use of inks rather then piss the ink away to clean the nozzles, like other designs of print heads do. I still await a free Brother so I can play with it - unfortunately they are very reliable.

Filling.

WARNING: NEVER tape over the bases of three - colour ink cartridges which have integral print heads. The tape always causes the colours to bleed across to the other nozzles and so the blue can contaminate the yellow nozzles and cause excessive green colour for many pages. - Just let these print heads bleed freely onto a paper tissue or kitchen towel as you fill them.

TIP: If you have just cleaned a separate print head (e.g.Espon) then you may have a minor problem priming the print head. - Start by filling the (Epson) ink cartridge exit hole first, with a drop of ink or meths to fully fill the exit aperture to help prime the print head. Then carefully tape up the filled exit hole. Now you can fill the main ink tank reservoir. If you have cleaned the print head then this priming of the exit hole with ink and tape is often needed as the ink path down to the print nozzles may be dry and not contain any fluid to help prime the nozzles by capillary or wicking action.
By priming the exit holes of the cartridges then taping them, the ink in these exit holes is forced down to the nozzles when the cartridge is inserted. I have only had this minor annoyance with Epsons, as canons seem to use a self priming capillary action with a sponge head.

Injecting the ink.
Simply inject the black, cyan, magenta or yellow ink into the appropriate cartridge holes until it is about 80 percent full. Inject the ink slowly so the ink does not overflow and has a chance to soak though the internal foam.
Never force the ink into the cartridge, but only use slight pressure and allow it time to fill.

In some ink cartridges, you may feel the needle pushing into the foam core. Filling from low in the tank foam will ensure the ink fills neatly and fully through the foam core. If you insert the needle just a short way into the top of the tank, then the ink may take ages to settle its way down into the reservoir area.
Injecting deep into the foam allows a more fuller filling.
Do not push the needle all the way as you may damage the bottom paper filter near the print head.

With some, long thin, separate ink colour tanks, such as on the latest Epsons and Canons, the tank has two sections, one with the foam above the exit hole and a clear section containing just ink. The refill hole is in the ink, and not in the foam section. The filling hole will need a rubber seal or a piece of tape to prevent any slight chance of spilling as the print head flies left and right while printing.

TIP: If the print head drips ink while injecting, then the cartridge is being pressurised, so make a larger hole to allow the air to escape. Otherwise, push the needle into the cartridge, then suck out some air before injecting the ink, so the cartridge takes the ink, but otherwise remains mainly in a vacuum condition.

TIP: As pushing the blunt needle into the foam can crush the foam, it is better to sharpen the tip of the needle by making an angled sharp edge by rubbing it at an angle of 45 degrees on a piece of fine wet and dry paper or on a oilstone or simply dragging it along a piece of smooth concrete such as a floor. Your kitchen knife sharpener may also work.

TIP: Where the needle is inserted from the top (e.g. BC21 and Epson's) I usually fill with the needle three quarters into the reservoir area, and inject very slowly until there is a bubble around the hole, showing that the ink level is getting near the top.

TIP: Where the needle is inserted from the side (e.g. BC02), position the tank on its side, so the needle tip is near the base, so the ink can fill from the bottom up for a full, neat fill.

TIP: Unless the cartridge is transparent, tilt the cartridge at a slight angle so the filler hole allows the ink to over-spill, to prevent overfilling.

TIP: If intending to refill cartridges, then the refill kits with three inks usually supply just one needle and syringe. Always start with the yellow refill, then the red, the cyan, then the black, so any residual ink in the syringe is not going to darken the lighter inks.

TIP: The second and third times you buy refills, always get the full kits so you have a separate syringe for each ink, to save having to clean them.

TIP: If you can buy the inks in their own bottle with integral needle, then this saves the hassle of using a syringe, and you can simply inject the ink direct from the container. In some designs of printers, you can even get to inject the ink without removing the cartridges, which makes life very nice indeed.

TIP: If in a busy office, you get through a lot of black ink, then look for a printer with a large black ink tank and keep the spare ink, ready for use, in a direct injection bottle such as the upper one in this picture. Then you need only set the printer to the 'cartridge replace' position, - open the printer lid, - insert the needle directly into the black tank, - (reset any counters) - and be printing again in seconds.

TIP: If not a transparent ink cartridge, then note or guess the internal ink volume of the chamber, then use enough ink to refill to three quarters. The first time, the ink may overflow, or simply the internal pressure will cause bubbles beside the needle, and always a few drips from the nozzle, SO GO SLOWLY and take note for the next time you refill, you will know just how much to inject and it will become second nature. This is the advantage of using syringes, as they are clearly marked with the volume which is delivered and you can fill the syringe with a little less than the maximum capacity of the cartridge, so it will not over fill or cause unnecessary mess.

TIP: When filled, cartridges with integral print heads can be dabbed gently on to clean paper kitchen tissue to check the inks are wicking their way to the print head, and to clean any excess ink bleed, caused by injecting the ink.

TIP: When a refilled cartridge fails to print properly, especially those with integral print heads, then leave them in the printer overnight, as this usually allows the inks to settle and nearly always print happily on the morrow, (or after a few days if a very old and knackered print cartridge).

Filling is very simple.
Filling is VERY economical.
Filling gets very easy after a few times.

If the printer drinks ink, then dump the printer or buy inks by the larger bottle, 250cc or more. Glug, Glug, Glug.

If you get your fingers inky, then buy disposable plastic gloves, or go carefully. Always have a couple of kitchen paper towels to hand. One for any bleeding from the nozzles as they fill and one for general cleaning.

Gradually as you get proficient, you may get very confident. You may, like some of us, prefer not to remove the cartridge, but inject directly into the fitted cartridge, especially if the cartridge is transparent or drinks heavily.
I often do this using a filler bottle with a fitted needle in the lid, so that the hassle of a syringe is not needed.
I prefer to open the lid so the cartridges move to the replacement position, then pull the power plug, followed by a slow fill without the print head dripping over the bed of the printer.
Sometimes, (Epsons) a fast fill can slightly pressurise the print head and the nozzle weeping can mess the carriage slide, so sliding a folded kitchen towel underneath the print head is recommended but make sure the power plug is out.

In removed cartridges, it is best to let the ink settle into the foam for an hour before use. For a pixma, with transparent cartridges, this is not needed - I just slop that ink in - half of it is going to go down to the felt overflow anyway ! glug glug. - Stop wasting that ink - buy a decent printer.

My long suffering, gently ageing HP21 and 22 cartridges seem to work badly for the first hour after filling, but when left overnight (and occasionally a print head clean using the software), they work perfectly, even after many many refills.

An aside: Where there are some excellent cartridges such as the Brother.
There are also terrible examples. -
Horrible cartridge design - Delving into the sick minds of Epson cartridge designers:
A rather inelegant, indeed, ugly example of a modern ink cartridge.
(The majority of ink cartridges are either the canister with integral print head or the bare container, with perhaps a foam content chamber above the exit hole.)
The modern Epson is a rather different design. I am no expert in Epson technology, but even I must suspect that the Epson cartridges for the 82/84 series are an example of going over the top.
As can be seen from the picture, the cartridge looks appallingly complex, but after five minutes cleaning under a running tap and a few minutes study, it was not such a fright.
The only fright was that only a third of this cartridge actually contained ink.
There is a large round, passive diaphragm above the exit hole to the print head, and I suspect this is simply to contain the ink from spilling out after removal from the machine. It may work in its active axis when the cartridge is driven sideways and this may well act as an ink pump or primer. It may also help balance the pressure zone above the print head, but probably not, as no other designs use this concept.
Only the top part is an ink reservoir, as the sloping edge down to the vertical inlet to the diaphragm betrays.
Epson have a little trick in making the refill hole at the base, so that if anyone wants to refill in this way, they are prone to a complete base leakage of ink into the printer, - not a nice thought. I'd simply make a small filler hole in the top surface, which will not leak under gravity and be much simpler to refill.
For me, I'll simply inject the correct colour ink into an upper filler hole, past the dummy bulkhead, then seal it up afterwards with strong tape, then use the override codes and not worry about the finer details.
The summary of this cartridge is that it looks worse than it really is, and possibly designed to frighten those who wish to refill them. Even Epson have to fill the new cartridges on their production line easily, and so can you.

After slagging off Canon, here's the excellent ink cartridge from the appalling Pixma 4200 printer, which is a refreshing example of good design. (Cannon engineers are excellent.) It is clear, so you can see the proper place to inject your ink. It has a simple, large felt reservoir to balance the ink flow to the print head. It also has a secondary reservoir for filling with neat ink, which is positioned towards the user when the lid is opened, for very easy filling without removal from the machine.
The only crap idea is the inbuilt LED near the lever, which is there only to encourage the user to buy expensive ink cartridges. At least the felt will be a far better filter than the Epson cart. If only the printer itself was as good.

TIP: Customised Ink:
If you print a lot with just one colour, such as for legal purposes, where the ink must be tested for being a genuine print, and you have replaceable cartridges with integral print head, you may want to print using your very own, personalised tinted inks. With three colours, you can mix standard inks to your desired needs, then flush a single black cartridge before filling with your customised ink. This is similar to registrars using special ink for signing wedding and other legal documents, where closer confirmation may be required.

TIP: Old hacks. If using a one colour hack printer for 'fliers', and you have plenty of 'black only' ink cartridges with integral print head, then these cartridges can be flushed, then filled with the three other colours, so that three or four pass runs can supply full colour posters for absolute pennies. Most printers have very accurate paper handling, so the pages rarely suffer poor colour misalignment. The black cartridges will have to be opened, then foam fully cleaned and the cartridge flushed to ensure no black contamination of the lighter inks, especially yellow. Printing a thousands of sheets in the four colours using an old hack 'black only' printer, with three other old working cartridges flushed then filled with cyan, magenta and yellow, may cause you to feed the printer many times with the pages and need to run each print with special pages where the software has retained four separate, but identically aligned images of each of the four colours, but you will save a lot of money and save damage to a more delicate, modern printer.

TIP: When cleaning print heads, start by printing a quarter page of one solid colour to clean the offending nozzle (as this cleaning process will not be added to the death counter, where the cleaning process ink end up in the internal drainage foam of the printer base). It is better to put the ink onto an unwanted page of paper, than in the printer's nappy and thus the death timer counter will stay much further away.

Living with spare cartridges.

You may well have a spare or second hand HP or Lexmark cartridge or two, perfectly good but not have or want to pay for a storage box to protect the delicate nozzles in the integral print head, but not wanting to throw it away.

Single colour cartridges do not suffer from colour cross-bleed. So just some meths on a tissue taped over the print head will allow the cartridge to remain in good condition indefinitely. To prevent drying out, the cartridge is then sealed in an airtight plastic bag.

Colour cartridges:
The main problem of colour cartridges with a single print head is that they can bleed between the integral print head nozzles and cause the inks to all turn black, requiring a full flush and clean !
A little ink leakage is not a problem on 'one colour' cartridges such as black, but on multi colour cartridges, then they will bleed across and turn the ink into a inky black mess in just a week or two. The problem is preventing the colour inks from migrating at the print head areas by fully sealing the incredibly fine print head nozzles, which the three colours are also very close together.
New cartridges have the print head sealing strip applied before the ink is added, so there is a small air gap in the print head, so no leakage occurs. Unfortunately for second hand cartridges the ink has already learnt how to escape.
Despite trying many and various methods to easily seal the multi colour print heads with tape and such like, they have all failed so there are only three methods left :
Allow to sit freely in a moist atmosphere with the print head kept free. (Good for a few weeks.)
Cling film and pressure pad of firm foam held by tape. (Good for a few months.)
Fully flush the empty cartridge and leave soaked in meths in a sealed bag. (For indefinite periods.)

For those who only use their printer every month or so, then simply run a nozzle check or a print cycle one a week. -
Print a special page with full width blosk of cyan, magenta, yellow and black, to fill half a page of A4 to ensure the nozzles are working. - Do not run a cleaning cycle unless absolutely necessary, as this brings the death counter much closer. Any imperfectly printing colours can be filled then given a full page of solid colour print to force them and check they are working properly.

For irregular use with a multi colour cartridge with integral print head, then it is best to leave it with the print head alone or in a special cartridge holder. Then dab the print head every few months with a soft paper tissue to induce ink flow and thus keep it from crusting over.

Ideally the print head should be sealed with a piece of tape, but all tapes include a sticky adhesive, and this can damage the fine nozzles. So a non sticky seal is needed to keep the ink flow to a minimum, and prevent drying out. As new cartridges have a professional seal over the nozzles, then they are always best left intact until needed.
The best, if imperfect solution I have found to date, is to use top quality camping mat. This is a closed cell plastic foam as found in camping mats and on the base of good quality trainers. The cheapo camping mats 'sack' after a few weeks, whereas a good quality mat such as (Karrimat) will keep the print head carefully sealed without damage and no leakage for many months.

First wipe the print head clean with meths or alcohol wipes then immediately and firmly place some polythene over the nozzle area. Cut a SMALL piece of firm shoe or camping mat foam about the size of the print head and wrap masking tape around the cartridge, so the foam is firmly held in place to press the polythene snugly against the print head.
I have a good selection of working HP cartridges on long term 'storage test'. I discovered this approach when an early HP printer bled its contents out after being left in the loft for just two years. The print head cost a massive 20 quid to replace so I dumped this otherwise perfect printer.
Other methods to prevent leakage such as a pad of paper tissue wrapped around the heads used to leak after a week and although good for encouraging blocked nozzles to wick through, they made an awful mess.

For long term storage, some cross leakage will eventually occur, so allow the unfilled print head to drain on tissue, then seal it in a plastic bag with some tissue paper and alcohol so it does not get cruddy, to await its time to be used and then be properly filled.

For long term storage of keeping a perfectly good cartridge for a year or so until the others die, it may well be worth while to take a colour cartridge apart if such as the HP21 and HP22, so the cartridge is left just in a plastic bag and tissues soaked in meths, with the foam and lid sealed in with it, until it is needed, whereupon the cartridge can be reassembled.

For Epson, there is no other choice but to print a test page once a fortnight.
Fro canons with removable print heads, then short term storage for a few months is to remove the cartridges, then drip some meths into the print head. For long term storage of canons, simply to remove the print head and flush with meths, then store is a sealed plastic bag.
Long term storage of Brother printers with pipe driven inks from remote cartridge reservoirs, then they 'reverse flush' all by themselves and generally give few if any problems.

Modern HP carts.

These cartridges are excellent and offer high quality photo printing with little or no hassle.
When they are empty, they can easily be refilled, but for reliability, they should be filled BEFORE they run out of ink, as this may otherwise damage the delicate nozzles. So get to know your cartridge BEFORE you fit it, then keep ahead of the game.

Nevertheless, despite poor ownership, they are robust little devices and deserve a little extra effort to save lots of money.

First the costs.
I can buy the 21 and 22 cartridges from 22 down to 17 pounds new for the colour and a little less for the black. An exchange or reconditioned colour can cost 12 to 10 pounds.
This may seem wonderful, but I can but a new printer with two new cartridges for 19 pounds - I'd take the complete printer and simply refill the spanking new cartridges from the outset and have fewer death counter problems !!
But as an unemployed Brit with B.Ed and B.Sc, I don't even need to spend this exorbitant pittance, as the HP21, 22 and many others can usually be refilled.
(If you think I'm unlucky, I know of a British lady with a Ph.D. in physics who is a cleaner in a school and although a fine physicist, is by her own admission, not a very good cleaner. Many British scientists and engineers live on the bread line. Gizzajob - please. )

Refilling a typical HP22.

Peel off the top sticker and poke a cocktail stick in each hole to ascertain the colours of each chamber.
Inject about 5cc (5ml) of the appropriate colour ink in each chamber. You will feel pressure from the internal foam reservoir, - so go slowly and allow the ink to settle gently. With the reservoir tilted, excess ink will bubble out of the other vent hole, and also allow you to suck back a little of any excess ink.
Place some sticky tape over the top and let the cartridge stand for an hour or three.
Place a little piece of kitchen paper towel or toilet paper under the nozzle to check the three colours are flowing.
Place in the printer and run a nozzle check by printing a quarter page of each colour, - and if needed, a nozzle clean or prime as deemed necessary.

After many times, or a hard life, the cartridge may be deemed beyond redemption. Perhaps the lines are streaky even after full nozzle clean.
If all is lost, then have one last try - you have nothing to loose.
Prize off the top with a screwdriver, along the obvious join which is ideal for a flat blade screwdriver.
Take out the three foam cores.
The bare cartridge can be turned upside down to drain excess ink and then some paper tissues to mop out the insides. The cartridge can now be filled to a shallow depth with methylated spirits. (Meths is denatured pure alcohol - denatured means given a purple tint and a terrible taste, to prevent being used for drink abuse.)
The methylated spirits will allow the print head to be placed on some paper tissue, to soak down though the nozzles and help clean them out. Placing the head for a few hours will deliver enough meths to clean out most nozzles. Look for the tell tale three colours on the paper tissue.
If you wish, the foams can be cleaned out under a tap to remove any imperfection, such as putting the wrong ink in a chamber.
Dry thoroughly and leave to dry for three hours, usually while the meths soaks through the print head. DO NOT attempt to wash out the cartridge with water.

When cleaned, the meths is drained off and dried, leaving just the print head with meths.
Reassembly is straight forward, but a little priming is recommended, as printing meths for a while is not much fun. So print a quarter sheet of each colour.
It can be seen in the picture that the feed to the print heads has a little piece of filter paper over it, so filling each cleaned chamber with neat ink to just cover the print head will allow pure ink to flow, without needing to refit the foam cores.
If all is well with a test printing, then reassemble.

Note that these ink cartridges may contain, according to myth, anything from 5cc (ml) to 25cc of ink.
The black will take more than three times that of the colour chambers.
When I had the chance to inspect a pristine cartridge, it had a foam core which had NEVER become stained on the top, showing in a Holmesian tradition, two things: One, it had only been partially filled, Second, the ink was introduced first, before the foam and cover were fitted.

At this stage, you are now in the position to find a little truth about how much each cartridge chamber can truly take.

Assuming the foam is mostly holes, then the chambers can be happily filled about half way, which by my reckoning is about 7cc of ink of each colour, with the opportunity to fill a modified cartridge with perhaps 10cc of each ink. (The black takes about 25 to 30cc of ink. Other cartridges should be filled according to their own internal capacities.)

Before filling and testing, it may be worth while to make a few modifications. -
The foam is a little oversize and makes filling difficult, so to make life easier, I have drilled three small holes in the corners of the lid, so the needle can slide down the side, enabling the inks to fill from the bottom up, for a more controlled, fuller fill. When I subsequently refill at an angle, the ink spills out before it is over-filled.
An important modification before replacing the top is to apply a little glue or silicone sealant between the three chambers, so that when filling, any upper spillage will not contaminate the other chambers, HP have not done a nice job of sealing the chambers from one another and this is a terribly important step for those wishing to refill many times. Probably deliberate so unwary refillers of HP carts will end up with mixed, 'dirty' colours.

Introduce about a quarter fill of ink to each chamber and insert the foams.
Apply some glue or sealant between each chambers and place the top back on, secured with some masking tape, or some plastic model kit glue. Do not use too much plastic glue as you may wish to disassemble again one day. I use rubber style glue and masking tape.
The cartridge is left to stand for a few hours, or the head pressed lightly onto paper tissue to allow the meths to dissipate and allow the ink to flow.
The cartridge is now tested in the printer and if all is well, it can be filled fully. If it does not print well, then leave the cartridge to settle overnight and test later, along with a nozzle test onto paper, then perhaps a clean via the printer software.
If, like many, the ageing cartridge is nearly close to being useful, then print a full page of yellow, then a full page of magenta, then cyan. This will clear any residual meths and wake up any sleeping print head nozzles This should then give a good indication of whether it is beyond hope, or good for a few more months of hard work and hopefully many more refills.

Summary:

An Apollo printer given free as part of a 'high street package' was junked after the original ink cartridge ran out.
I have no room for any Dell or Compaq badged device and would not take them out of the package unless it's for the power supply, printer cable or to strip for felts or motors.

Most Epson printers I've been given were simply not worth repairing, simply because their print heads are too hard to clean after they eventually clog. About one in four Epsons survive to print again, so if you can pick them up and don't mind a little work, then you may occasionally find a fine printer with low running costs.

HP printers are bomb proof. But the cartridges with integral print heads cost money and are not too easy to find, as there are far too many similar, but incompatible free cartridges. If HP made a smaller range of cartridges, then many more of these otherwise superb HP printers would still be banging away at their intended job. HP cartridges are capable of many refills and always worth searching out a spare for your printer, in charity shops and offices or worth trying a clean and flush session with meths to try to revive any clogged heads.

Older Canons are bullet proof and easy to restore to health.

By now you have probably bought a new printer, or perhaps you have found an older high spec printer, or even recycled a couple of old printers.

With a little common sense and effort, your print costs should be at least a quarter that of most ordinary high street owners, probably a lot less.
Or
Perhaps you have picked up an old HP or canon hack for free for general work, and perhaps bought a nice HP or Epson specifically for photo work.
Or
Perhaps you have simply bought a general (fillable and eventually disposable) printer, such as a perfectly acceptable budget colour Lexmark while opting for the high street digital print services for your occasional numbers of high quality holiday and wedding photos. This is also an eminently sensible solution.

I hope this web site has done its job :)

J.P.

Now with all the money you have saved, you can take your digital camera for a nice walk in the country with the kids and parents.

Below lies some more, hopefully useful advice.

I have installed a few printers over the years and modern installations are much much easier. If you think your present install is hard, then you have no idea what it used to be like, so be grateful to all those forgotten software writers.

Always read the instructions first, as some USB peripherals need the CD to be installed first, while others need the hardware to be plugged in first !
For easy Linux install, simply fit all peripherals before installing, and Linux will often recognise it all and install the needed software. See above.

Installing the printer, scanner or camera should be straightforward, which also include their own software programmes. The operating system should recognise any new hardware and prompt you to install the software. If not, then simply insert the accompanying CD and wait for it to run. If it does not run automatically, then search the CD to run the 'set-up' programme. You may have to choose between the different folders on the CD for Vista, XP, ME or 98SE etc.

TIP: Not all those programmes supplied with printers may be needed. - Many separate graphics packages have their own print or associated software, so adding more software may fill up a small hard drive, perhaps even confuse the system and require you to understand yet another piece of perhaps unnecessary software.
I use only two paint packages, and neither need the printer software, just the basic printer drivers.
I hate any excess crap on my machines.

Always be very selective about what you add.

Programmes can always be added later if needed. If adding a paint programme and a with a printer or scanner, then you will probably have a choice of a new paint programme. Do you need to learn another programme ?

If you already have decent photo software, such as Paint Shop Pro7, then you may only need to install the basic printer software, so that you can simply use your favourite paint programme, such as Paintshop Pro or Corel, which have integral scanner and photo manipulation capabilities. In such cases, look for any 'custom' install.

If the printer also prints on blank CD's, then look for any specific programmes with the printer to make this easier.

When installing software, always choose the 'custom', so you ONLY have what YOU need and nothing is going to upset any of the programme settings you actually want to use.

If you wish to use the bells and whistles, but want your system to use your preferred settings, then install the preferred programme last, as it often overrides the other programmes settings. For example, if you want *.pcx files to be associated with Corel when you double click on the file, then install Corel last, after Nero and PSP or whatever.
If this does not work, then you will have to sort out the association settings by hand, via the various control panels.

A computer is just a tool:
You should not need to learn more than one programme for many uses.
Having lots of different similar programmes is a waste of your time and simply clutters up, and often confuses the computer and users. Paintshop pro is a classic example, with photo editing and scanner and a photo catalogue browser and lots of other excellent uses, all in a single programme. With this, you can just install the scanner and printer drivers, without their own bundled programmes, and the computer will be far easier to live with, as you will only need one programme, not a mess of many programmes.

I still use very old software written for windows 3.0 in 1980, such as the impeccably written Lotus Ami Pro 3 word processor. Under 98Se and XP they print perfectly well with all the latest printers, even with the minimum HP drivers. Well done Lotus. It's a pity that modern printers do not work with earlier windows operating systems.

Printer Drivers.
Printers need very important little pieces of software called 'drivers'.
Drivers are small pieces of software code which interface between the programmes and the printer. They remain hidden in the background and pass on the information needed. Each printer, scanner and such like has different internals and motor controls etc., so will have a dedicated printer driver for itself and the operating system, such as Windows 98, Xp, Linux etc.
If, like most people, you don't want all the crap that HP and others 'bundle' with their printers, then just install the printer drivers and your preferred paint package will then seamlessly interact with the new printer, scanner etc.
This is the route I prefer and thereby my computer has almost no crap clogging up the system.
Drivers tell the computer which printer it is and allow the correct printing. They are installed as part of the printer CD set up programme.
(A driver will recognise what you want printing for each page, no matter what programme you are running, and turn it into a map of which tells the printer where to print each individual drop of ink. You do not need the other printer software, bloatware or crapware.)

Since windows 3.1, most operating systems have a large selection of printer drivers, so the computer may be able to recognise your printer without problems.

Windows has a large selection of popular printers on the install CD, so you can install the printer drivers using the windows CD. If the printer is very new, then use the printer CD, as the printer drivers will be the latest versions and less prone to problems.

If the required printer driver is not available, then you can usually download it from the manufacturers website. If this is not available, then see 'using older printers', below.

If new to installing software, you will often find a minimum, standard, custom or full install.

Minimum install is for those who do not need extra software.
This allows a small installation, which is ideal for older machines with limited hard drive capacity. It can also be a little faster as few overheads are included. You can add any other bits at a later date if needed.
Minimum install hopefully does not install all the included 'lite' or lame photo and indexing programmes, which can upset the settings and associations and which you probably don't need, especially if you have much better programmes such as Paint Shop Pro or Corel.

Standard or typical is the safe bet for most people.
This usually takes a generalised safe approach, with the most appropriate software included.

Full install may seem great, especially if a nice new, large capacity hard drive is fitted.
I never do this as the extra programmes often cause more hassles than they are worth.

Custom install is a pick and mix.
If you know your needs then always consider taking this route. I do. I prefer to not install anything, other than any 'tools', so just the drivers get installed.

Note: Some HP software is atrociously large, consuming massive amounts of hard drive space, so check first.
TIP: For example, a recent HP had atrocious amount of software to be installed to run the printer, then stopped installing because I did not have a moderately modern version of Windows Internet Explorer the web browser. So it stopped, as if this would prevent the printer from working ! HP are sometimes just idiots. I had to rummage around for a recent free internet access disk from an Internet Service Provider and install a later version of IE 5.5. Totally unacceptable. After installation, the software was crap, and I naturally decided to uninstall all of it, (after keeping the files in windows and system which were dated for that installation). After removal, I went into 'install printer' and 'search for printers', and lo and behold, it found just the remaining printer drivers for the HP printer, and all was well. - No crap, no hassle and plenty more space on the hard drive.
Yes HP software is appallingly massive and never worth the bother. Superb printers though !

Getting organised.
Now make some directories or folders to store your files and work.
'Temp' for general or temporary storage and use.
'Downloads' for storing your downloaded software which should then be backed up onto CD should the computer fail, such as a firewall, latest printer drivers, graphics updates etc.

'Mywork' directory or folder for obvious reasons and to allow you to copy the whole directory to a CD for daily, weekly or monthly backup. DO IT !!!!

'Webbits' for bits from the internet, should you wish to retain them later.
For more clever directory design, see my general web page on computing - software.

Most printers, graphics cards and other stuff are supported by Linux.
For the latest free printer drivers, use www.linuxprinting.org/printer_list.cgi?make-anyone
For scanners use www.sane-project.org/sane-mfgs.html
The Linux community has fortunately created a vast library of drivers for almost all peripherals and 'Sourceforge' is a good place to look.
Unlike windows, older and the latest printers often work happily under all the wonderful flavours of Linux.

For Epson printer drivers also check out www.avasys.jp/english/linux_e/index.html.

Printers are considered disposable by far too many people. We live in Blair's mucked-up Britain with very rich and very poor, where some have more money than sense and simply throw away perfectly good printers just because they are inconvenient to maintain. This makes life very easy for the thousands of unemployed science and engineering graduates like me who have no real prospects today. We may have degrees, but are reduced to scavenging, or worse, joining the likes of freemasons to find a decent job. I prefer to remain honest.

I never underrate older printers, as they are free, less flimsy and do very good, solid work.
Unless you want the best photo quality, then I wish you happy hunting for free printers. Even an old black only printer can be an excellent office tool, especially if banging out thousands of letters and flyers.
TIP: If a solo hack printer for 'fliers', and you have plenty of ink cartridges with integral print head, then some can be flushed, then filled with the three other colours, so that three or four pass runs can supply full colour posters for pennies.

Older Printer Drivers.
Printers need very important little pieces of software called 'drivers', which tell the computer which printer it is and allow the correct printing. Since the beginning of time, the operating systems, including windows and Linux have a large selection of printer and other peripheral drivers, so the computer may still be able to recognise your printer without problems.

It is common for older or second hand computers to have an accompanying old printer and scanner and what-not. Check for any INF and DLL files for the printer. If lucky, then the operating system may be able to recognise your old printer and use its own drivers which are on the operating system CD (or floppy discs).
If there are no printer drivers on the operating system floppy or CD, then you will have to search the internet for driver software, first stop being the manufacturers website for a download. Look on the website for support or downloads. Yes, you will see a lot of support for 98SE and other operating systems.

TIP: If all else fails, then try the nearest printer available on the operating system CD, as printer manufacturers do not always change the internals, and some may work better than others.

Background: Colour photos are usually encoded using the levels of cyan, magenta and yellow plus the black levels. This can therefore be easily applied to most colour printers and as such, most manufacturers don't really have to change much, apart from the way the print head is controlled. As many 'year models' share the same print heads and control mechanisms, then the owner can often get away with fairly close model printer drivers.

Knowing the printers' family tree and development history helps. The printers are often in families with minor differences, so make a best guess and try a few before throwing away a perfectly good printer or scanner. If lucky, your printer may be identical to another model, but perhaps nothing more exciting than a later shape or feed tray or larger sheet capacity.
I've had rather good success using close relations of excellent printers with many years of life left in them. The drivers for similar cartridges are often a good guide.

Similar drivers may also have an advantage: I've discovered by chance that using Epson 820 printer drivers for the 830 will allow the ink timers to be bypassed ! The ink screen shows them to be empty, but the printer still continues to work, so I am quite happy to use this rather fine and free printer by simply filling the old ink tanks without the usual hassle.

I had a very old, free, ancient HP black only printer which simply refused to die and was only dumped because the overworked ink cart cost to much to replace. Upon 'autopsy', it showed very little wear on the mechanicals and ink reservoir. As an engineer, I hated to dump such a fine piece of engineering. The power supply now recharge my 24 volt drills, also discarded by consumers.

Unless exceptional, printers over five years old are usually not worth bothering about, as there are plenty of better ones available for free or for pennies, and even the cheapest new printers are often available for low prices.

Even a two year old printer may be considered past its use by fate, rather than date. Only inbuilt obsolescence such as ink tank resets will cause a perfectly good printer to be discarded.

The only fault you can normally repair is to clean the nozzle heads, although if you can find a good printer with just a damaged switch or cover, then grab it, but most other broken parts are not worth the hassle. If the other bits go wrong, such as circuit board, or electric motor, then it is most unlikely to repair, unless you have a similar printer to cross breed the parts.

Some printers just ain't worth the effort -

Canon printers.
I have happily used canon printers for twenty years. My BJC240 is still in backup use since 1980 ! yes it still worked in 2006.

The BJC 2000 was thrown out from a shop a few years ago has eventually died electronically. I simply cannot fault them for reliability, absolutely easy use and never have faults, not even a paper feed problem. They refill well and NEVER complain. Even the old BC02 cart which is supposed to be only refillable five times, managed 20 refills before a few nozzles died.
Older Cannon print heads are far more robust, as they use a different technology to Epson nozzles and tend to be easier to clean, but the latest versions are very fine, and not always guaranteed to be cleaned after many years, but they generally clean out perfectly well.
The old canon print head test was so good, you could inspect the output of each individual nozzle ! Modern tests are very lame examples of the earlier cannon nozzle tests.
I would always try to clean a pre - pixma canon print head, if only because the print head is so easy to remove. Even the internal mechanisms are very easy to remove and surely designed by those who knew the value of easy, sensible servicing procedures.

HP and Lexmark
These printers use replaceable print heads, so they do not suffer from such problems and if you fill them yourself, then they are essentially trouble free from any need to repair them. When the print head is eventually beyond repair, you can simply buy and insert a new cartridge with print head. When any other internal components fail, then the printer is often so old that it is worth replacing.
Older HP print heads are bomb proof and always worth attempting to flush clean (meths) then refill with a little ink to run a half page photo, then a nozzle test.

If you mainly use internal office documents, then use draft.

If you have a printer which uses too much or expensive ink, then aim to replace the printer. In the meantime look for a 'low ink use' or 'economy' mode which prints almost as well, but uses far less ink.

If you mainly use presentation text, then use high quality print.

If you mainly use photos, then ALWAYS play around with the photo settings and different paper types to get the best - then make a special reserved setting which can be recalled when needed for different papers and needs. (I find that the best photo print settings for ordinary paper are very different to photo quality on the various different types of specialist photo papers and thefore I have many custom photo settings.) Then make specialist settings to suit your most popular modes, such as for your digital camera or different aspects of your work.
If you do not need photo quality prints, then you can get very good results on ordinary paper using low quality print settings which use far less ink. This is ideal if wanting A4 photo prints without the exorbitant high quality or excess ink use. I make a lot of A4 prints, but all use the least ink as possible without degrading the print quality - skies are a light pale blue wash, not a solid dark blue, and grass is light and delicate, not a heavy dark green mass. This also reduces print distortion and buckling due to too much ink on the paper.

If you simply print out homework with a few small pictures, then the normal setting will usually suffice.

If you work in government offices, then think about the taxpayers first and don't waste so much of our taxes.

Set your printer up for your needs.
If you change your needs regularly between documents, then you may want to add printer settings to the start menu for faster access.

If the paper passes through in more than one sheet at a time, then fan out the paper and flick it to separate the sheets before carefully placing into the inlet hopper or tray so it will never get jammed.
If it gets jammed or skewed to give a damaged print, then the next sheet or preferably an old unwanted sheet should be folded, creased then fed through a few times before printing again, to help clean the rollers.

Make sure the printed paper will slide out easily and not get caught on the table. Where A4 or foolscap sheet photos are made, it is often preferable to allow the paper to dry, then let it lie flat before the edges curl.
If working in a damp environment, always keep the paper in a bag and not in the top feeder slot of a printer where it can curl or distort. The better quality HP printers with their lower and enclosed paper feeder trays are ideal. If you must work in a damp environment, always stick the paper on the hopper, then carefully cover with a clear plastic bag to prevent damp damaging the paper before use. Done properly, this can be taped down to fully protect the paper and print.

Batch printing. Pixma users take note.
If you have a modern printer which uses half the ink for cleaning the nozzles, then you MUST consider batch printing. This keeps the modern printer from wasting too much ink on the start up and shut down sequences, and may make the printer almost cost effective.
Do not shut off the printer if it is to be used again during the same day - I know this is yet more waste of electricity in a world where global warming another interglacial period is creeping upon us, but the power use is low and the inks are far too expensive to squirt into oblivion.
Always check those ink costs compared to buying a different printer, as you could well save lots of money in the long run.

TIP: A few tactics: Many people print out many of the best holiday photos, and this can be many dozen. Therefore it is best to get organised before wasting too much costly ink or expensive paper. -
Print off part of a test page to set up the colour, as you do not want to print out many pages before getting the photo print levels correct.
If making many photo prints, then the first one should be one which will give good feedback for the others. Only the first print may need adjustment and all the others can then follow safely.
If the photos are a mixture of dark pictures and light pictures, then start with the light ones, and gradually adjust the picture colour levels as the batch of photos are gradually printed from light to dark pictures, so you can keep control of the print quality as the brightnesses change.

Batch printing. II
Many people print out small books or multi page fliers.
TIP: Always print out one compete print first, to check the pages line up correctly. You do not want page 5 next to page 7 when it is folded up and stapled. Also check the way you print on both sides, as the same problem can occur and the page may also be upside down.
Always make at least one test run before committing to many hundreds of pages.

If you are mainly printing in black, with just a few colour pictures, then you may prefer to print just the black print as a large run on an old hack printer which is very cheap to run, then switch over to the colour printer afterwards to add the smaller colour bits. To keep formating perfect, you need only turn the text colour on the page to white, so only the colour pictures or other borders and highlighting are then printed.
If the black print is to cover print the colour, such as a background stamp, watermark or general light texture of pale photos, then it may be preferable to print the colour runs first, then allow time for it to dry, to prevent the black ink bleeding into it.
If the colour is associated with the print, such as illuminated scripts, then the colour and black print need to be done at the same print pass, as the alignment between most domestic printers is not so accurate as a professional 'digital printing press'.

Photo printing tips.

For some, photo printing means accurate colour reproduction with fine detail carefully scrutinised for imperfections. Remember that unless your computer and screen have been carefully matched to a colour accuracy suitable for photo quality, then any adjustments you make such as lightening a dark picture to bring out the hidden detail, or darkening an over exposed picture, then printing will always be less than perfect.

It is always worth setting up your camera, computer, screen and printer such that you see on the screen is you get on the paper.
The first thing to do is to look for a reference photo in your software libraries, - it is usually a face set beside a picture of an outdoor scene to give flesh tones, plus sky, shadow of trees, and some water and grass. These give a broad spectrum of not only colours. But also look for the darkness and lightnesses often found and which give problems in some photos.
If you cannot find such a photo, then choose a pair of your best virgin photos taken by your camera with no manipulation. - Your best mug shot with dark shadows with details, plus your best outdoor scene with bright blue cloudy sky, trees with shadow, some water and lush green grass. Cut and paste the pair into a single split photo and save it as reference.
Now check the screen colours are as you remember them or adjust the screen or graphics card settings to be accurate to life of the original photo. (Not to you want after any manipulation).
Now print the reference photo at a quarter page to check the printer matches the original scenes as you remember them. With luck, the print should be good skin tones with most of the shadow detail discernible and the sky and grass looking correct.
Put your arm or face or a mirror in SIMILAR lighting to check. Skin tones and scenery will always change with lightning and other conditions, so preferably check in identical conditions. If stuck for suitable situations, simply take a temporary photo of your foot and a plant pot now and print the same photo now to check.

If you mainly do outdoor scenes, then always have a wide selection of situations.
If using an indoor studio then this should be a lot easier to control.

NEVER adjust the pictures to match a poorly set up screen. Always adjust the graphics card setting to give a true screen to a true photo.
Specialists can buy a screen colour analyser, but for most people a reference photo, such as from a magazine which is held against the screen and compared across a wide range of digital photos, will allow you to compare and adjust the screen settings to an extremely close colour and brightness match.
Skin tones and grass in various scenes on a magazine photo should look the same as your photos taken in similar scenes. Skin tones on a sunny beach should be compared with the same, likewise, skin tones in a party should also be compared with like.
NEVER adjust the graphics card settings so that the printer prints as needed. - Once the screen is correct, then always set up the printer software settings to get the correct prints. If you should later change your printer, then all your photos will still remain perfect, even after manipulation.

When a photo is ready for manipulation, take a few tips:
Make sure the scene is accurately representing the actual photo,- see above.
Always keep the original pictures as reference and always make a copy, then work on the copy. This way, you can mess up the picture as badly as you like and always start again the with the maximum of original data in the picture. Store all original photos untouched on a CD and store them safely.
To save getting lost, always name photos accordingly. I often keep the original with suffix A, then modified photos with b c d etc.

When trying to tease detail and overall balance from a poorly dark flash shot, then look to see your software can do. Always look for variable brightness curves or histograms in decent photo software, which can greatly adjust the dark sections, but hardly adjust the light sections of the photo. This way the hidden detail is teased out without damaging the better parts. If you simply brighten the whole picture, then you will loose detail somewhere else, so always look for a histogram adjuster, which allows the ends of the spectrum to be manipulated without damaging the whole picture.

When touching up a scan or photo of an old picture, with scratches and tears, then always work on a full size copy. Never crop or reduce size before retouching, as any detail will be lost. When the full original copy is cleaned and repaired, then, you can manipulate a copy of the cleaned copy. Store the cleaned copy on CD. The working copy (not the original) can now be manipulated for brightness, tones, colour etc.

All photos gobble up space. If short of space, then always save as JPEG's as these are lossless up to 50 percent compression (compression by size - never compress to 50 percent sizeso start with 20 percent compression value to get about half the file size.) You will find they are incredibly smaller with no real loss of detail. If making a web page or sending pictures across emails then always JPEG them even smaller !
If wanting to compress a picture smaller in data storage size, then check your photo manipulation software and compare detail in the original to a JPEG which has been compressed beyond 60 percent, to the point where it remains acceptable but is much smaller in data size for the web or emails. A 2 meg photo should compress down to 400 kb with insignificant detail loss, and down to 150 kb (One twelfth the file size) with no great loss in quality for the web.

Crunchy paper.

Yes, you can customise a printer.

Customising printers may seem a daft idea at first, but you may be living with your home or office printer for many years, especially if you choose a really good one !
There are many things you can do to make your printer more amenable to your needs or lifestyle.

Printers have a lifespan of about two to four years for most people. During this time, a printer may be used a few hundred to a few thousand times. Therefore it is worth while making it very convenient to live with.
If you intend to make the most of your printer, perhaps a top of the range design and using it professionally with many hundreds of photo quality prints a day, then you should seriously consider modifying it, (unless you dispose of the printer every six months). The effort put in now, will pay dividends of convenience over the years.

A very hard working printer should be convenient, so adapt it to meet your needs, not those of the printer manufacturers. A good printer will need regular refilling, and if you have the resets, then making an easy access case design will allow refilling easier.
If you use one of the modern ink pissers, then you may even wish to make your own larger ink reservoir, or even adapt the base to take disposable paper towels rather than waste time cleaning the felts. See later for a design assessment of Epson and canon felts.

Shape and style.
The office laser is usually a rectangular box with excellent paper handling and even a small magnetic trough to hold paper clips. The home ink jet printer has a lot to learn about such convenience. Sticking a piece of magnetic strip to the casing may be useful.
The manufacturers seem to want to sell interesting, if not practical domestic shapes. Luckily, printers are not rocket science.

If you work in an office and use paper clips, then cut out a small cup or trough from a plastic package of a small item, then stick it to the printer and include a small magnet under the plastic cup or trough. Discarded refrigerator door seal strips are excellent sources of small magnetic strips. Using blue office putty also makes this very easy.

Many people find the shape of a printer a pain, especially top loading designs, where the printer takes up far too much office or desktop room. It would be much nicer if the printer was working with, rather than fighting for desk space.
The nicest printers to live with are HP, as they usually have front loading paper trays, and just above this an excellent output tray, with none of the hassles of top loading. Therefore these and similar printers can be slid away, hidden under a short shelf. Then can even be made into a shelf by using blue tacky tape to stick a piece of suitably thick plywood or strong cardboard onto their tops. Yes, HP are usually very easy to live with. I find the hexagonal cell sandwich cardboard from the heavier office deliveries are particularly good for lightweight printer shelving.

Where a top loading printer is often used, then the input stack can be given a small wall around the top surface, so that plenty of office bits and pieces will not slip inside. -
Dirt or dust MUST be protected against, - even just a piece of card will suffice, which is shaped to fit in the feed slot or over the paper stack. It also helps keep out buttons, paperclips, fingernails and coffee.

If your printer is sitting on a shelf, away from the computer and the paper falls out onto the floor, then simply get a couple of wire coat hangers, then shape them into a cardboard paper tray which is tucked under the base of the printer, held by blue tacky office putty to guide the paper into a small wire tray or hopper.
It you get really clever, it could guide the paper like a small roller coaster onto the desk using an old piece of card, plastic or alloy U channel. You may even deserve a Blue Peter badge.

As some printers are noisy, so may wish to mount the mechanism on foam rubber pads.
You may even wish to add some dampening felts to the unused areas inside the lid or casing.

If a separate power supply unit is included, then make sure there is adequate air for heat removal if the power supply gets overly warm. I always mount power supplies vertical, using blue office putty so it stands on a thin side, so it gets the maximum airflow across the wide faces throughout the day.
Most power supplies are modular and sealed, but if the power supply section is open, then always make sure it is protected and will not allow hamsters or little fingers to get near mains electricity.

The back of the printer may have a switch, but is easily replaced by an on/off switch at the front. Or use a big red felt tip pen to mark its position on the cover for the temporary staff or apprentice to switch off before leaving.

Leaning over a table to switch on or reset a common office printer can be a pain. Any switches can be easily moved or replaced and a small plywood bracket used to position them more easily, albeit out of the way of general hand movements. It will need some extra wire and preferably solder, but makes life much easier. If you have a 'remote' printer, then their switches can be soldered to a long wire and secured close to the computer screen for 'remote' printer control :)
As many computers now have a sleep mode, in which they waste a small amount of electricity for 24-7, all year round, then add a power button so it actually shuts down, rather than dreams.
As inks are fairly compact, these may be retained in nooks and crannies near the printer. Small airtight sealable food boxes are particularly recommended.

For most people, just a plywood box will be more than adequate to house a printer near a computer and allow cups of coffee, office supplies or a scanner to be placed on top. This may also need to include small furry toys and piccies of the kids, so you know why you are having to suffer this terrible office malarkey.
With a printer to suit your needs, perfectly hidden or positioned for the next three years, you can paint it to match the woodwork of the desk, or plastic covering of the self adhesive vinyl's, which although have had a bad image for many years, are now getting much better and certainly make life easier. But as it is a printer, you can print out any covering you wish. Use a digital camera or scan and adapt the office wallpaper and stretch the picture to match the sides of the box. Then a total 'make over' or the office logo or corporate image is also just a few dabs of glue away.

If you really want the best, take your printer to your local carpenter and ask him to craft you something to your needs, perhaps to match your Georgian office furniture. Adding some damping panels and mounting the printer mechanism on rubber will also improve the design. If going to this length, then always add a little extra internal space, so that a newer printer can be fitted in ones' house in a few years time.

Customising: Maintenance and ink refilling.
This is mainly techie customising, and has a long way to go.
The ink carts from new can be modified for easier filling, but best left for used cartridges unless you get through bucket loads of ink or still want a pixma. The plastic vacuum strips which are removed off the top can also allow you to make your screw holes for injecting ink, but first time, I'd recommend you use an old cartridge. Only in an office should you wish to purchase a second cartridge with integral print head, and then only if you need to swap the black inks daily or weekly. The spare ink cartridge can then be stored in the manufacturers storage container, which although hard to find, are superb. If none is available, then the ink cartridge should be filled, and the print head pushed onto a solid piece of rubber, and the top used to hold it in place, so the ink does not drain. A simple small tray made from a plastic box, secured to the plywood box and a simple wedge is used to keep the cartridge will do quite well, as it does not have to be anything clever, just a means to hold the print head firmly onto a piece of solid rubber, such as a section of unwanted bicycle inner tube. If this is too much of a problem, simply use just one cartridge, but keep a brand new one should the old one eventually fail after many refills.

I hope to get hold of the new HP printers which have the ink cartridges at the front and which are supposed to be very economical. If these ink carts are not chipped, then I will not replace them, but hack the software and then attack them with extra plastic and epoxy resin, with the intention to turn the ink cartridges into transparent ink reservoirs. These would be easily seen and easily filled. With the excellent HP paper handling, these could make the worlds best printers.

Modified or adapted well, you may never notice your printer, but simply have a well organised computer desk or office, where the paper appears as and when needed, without the slightest of hassles.

Serious customising.

What could be better than a superbly engineered canon or Epson, but using aftermarket printer drivers and unlimited ink tanks. It is now possible. Welcome to Happy Valley.

The customising systems consist of a set of slightly modified ink cartridges, with a separate small bore silicone rubber ink pipes to each colour. These run beside the print head ribbon, and are fed by an external bank of large ink tanks, which can be topped up at any time, independent of the machine, even while printing thousands of sheets all night on the night shift when the boss is away.
This is the stuff that home publishers use and is eminently practical for offices and those with high ink usage.
For under forty quid, (60 in the high street) you get about twenty quids worth of ink, and all the components and software needed.
The fitment is straightforward. As can be seen from the picture, it contains the ink cartridges, with small bore pipes to each cartridge and an external ink reservoir bank. It is not rocket science.

The best way to prevent problems is to stop them occurring first !
No spoons in the paper feed slot please.

Ensure the users take responsibility for their actions and have sufficient knowledge when installing software or surfing the internet and e-mailing. Always check for viruses and keep the virus checker up to date for finding the latest nasties.

If anyone tries to print without bothering to notice that an ink tank is empty, so expect the heads to die sooner. Simply never print without spare ink.

If your kids install loads of crap, then expect software conflicts. Try to use only what software you need, so that possible problems are greatly reduced and you will more easily detect which programme is causing a problem.

If your printer has an open slot in the top, always cover it with a piece of card to prevent unwanted items from entering.

TIP: NEVER leave a printer to be unused for more than a few months. If you do, then you may soon have a dead print head. I have recently thrown away an almost new Epson C82 which had literally printed only the one test page, then left for six months. I could not revive the print head of this otherwise unused printer. If the owner had used it occasionally, it would given many years of reliability. Left alone, it was doomed to die. This is because print heads clog up as the solvent evaporates and the inks become like a glue in the very fine print head nozzles. That said, my hack Epson 830 and C42 have gone three months without use and have printed perfectly with their first ink nozzle checks.

TIP: If you do very little printing, or not very often, then almost any printer may clog up if not used for a few months. So ALWAYS give the printer one sheet once a month, which uses all the colours, such as a special page with blocks of print in each colour of black, cyan, magenta and yellow.

If your heads tend to clog up, choose a printer using an ink tank with integral print head, such as lexmark or HP. It is then possible to buy special HP cartridge cases which have a rubber print head seal and thus keep stored cartridges in better condition for long periods. My HP cartridges have survived in such cases for over a year without hassle.
If it clogs up, then at least you have the choice of trying to clean, or simply replacing just the cartridge with its print head, rather than dumping the printer.

Always clean out any temporary printer files from the hard drive if your printer software is playing up. Sometimes when they fail to print correctly, they leave a temp file on the hard drive. These can build up and waste storage space. Search for *.tmp files.

The printer may instantly stop working. -

Perhaps the internal electronics have got hot or confused. Unplug for ten minutes then try again.

Some problems for instant stoppage are software failure, so simply reinstall from the CD and try again. If this fails then fully uninstall and reinstall.

Perhaps the power supply has died. - sniff for burning and check any fuses. Only a fool or pixma user leaves the printer powered on when not needed. If it does not have a power switch, then you may wish to put one in the power lead or fit a simple mains power lead on / off switch into an unused part the front panel for a very easy life. I use a simple mains switch with an integral light, available anywhere for under a quid.

Perhaps your hamster chewed through the data or power lead, as many electrical faults are 'purely mechanical'.

Perhaps a coffee spoon, drawing pin, paperclip, pencil, fluffy toy, or any of a thousand things has fallen down inside the printer. You would be surprised how much junk a printer can contain before stoppages occur. (Now you know why the paper clip trough is magnetised.)
Perhaps there is simply too much dirt and dust inside, clogging up a gear or optical sensor and in need of a little gentle dusting. A spoon in the paper feed may not stop the printer working, whereas a small piece of dust can !

Perhaps you have eventually suffered the dreaded 'ink tank full error'.

Or perhaps the printer has just died and is beyond hope, possibly a dead micro chip, or moisture damage, or perhaps it has fallen off the table once too often, or many other problems which are usually not worth the effort of repairing.

The printer may slowly stop working.
Perhaps the internal mechanisms are simply knackered, noisy or sloppy and ready for the big junk yard in the sky.

Most common problems are simply out of ink.
Print head failure is usually a few non working nozzles, so do a print head clean, then a nozzle test.
With time, the printer heads will often eventually clog or fail. Perhaps just a few print nozzles work, as probably the print heads have worn out or need cleaning or replacing.

The best nozzle test print is a small bar grid, with each nozzle shown as a stepped line. This can be inspected by eye and if about five percent are blocked, then you may not notice the problem. Older Canons have a superb nozzle print test.
(The latest printers prefer to print a solid blocks of colour, so you cannot inspect each individual nozzle.)

I always recommend a nozzle test every six months to see if the printer is in need of cleaning before it is due, as I clean when a few nozzles get clogged. First a simple nozzle clean, and if that does not work, then print a big square of the offending nozzle colours to wake them up.

Epson have horrible nozzle print tests of a full blocks of each colour, whereas Canons, especially the non pixma versions have a nozzle grid print test which allows you to check each individual nozzle !

Simple Cleaning.
If the nozzle test shows a few print head nozzles are still not working after a cleaning cycle, then it is time to buy some methylated spirit which is denatured alcohol, then to gently clean the heads.
At the same time, a little 'house cleaning' inside does no harm around the rollers and paper feed areas: A good time to get rid of that accumulated dust.
While having a good clean out, also dissolve the accumulated crud in the head storage area, but MAKE SURE you do not damage or loose the little rubber print head seal. So always go carefully when cleaning the area where the print heads are parked.

Mop out any excess ink and clean out further with meths and paper kitchen towel. Then run a few scrap sheets of unwanted paper through to check general cleanliness and then the nozzle check.
To help clean the rollers, fold an A4 sheet in half, then again, to make creases parallel to the rollers, then flatten out slightly and run a couple of paper feeds with it using both sides.

'Print head cleaner' is simply methylated spirits - denatured pure alcohol, available from many ordinary shops, used for lighting barbecues, (model liquid fuel rockets when mixed with oxygen), or for cleaning car windscreens and other mundane purposes.

If you have integral print heads, and it's badly clogged, then try to remove as much if the internal ink as possible using the refill syringe. Then fill with a little cleaner and run many full pages of solid colours to try to clean the nozzles. A couple of full pages of one hundred percent black or red or whatever colour as required. Then syringe out the cleaner and refill with the proper ink and run another half page of full colour. If this does not work, then it is time to buy a new ink cartridge with print head, or perhaps to dump the printer.

If the printer has separate ink tanks to the print head, then you can simply use an OLD empty ink tank, partially fill it with cleaner, then run a few pages of full intensity meths printing until clean. One cartridge of cleaner can clean each colour in turn. If this does not work, then consider trying to remove the print head or some other way to soak it in cleaner overnight.
If you have a canon printer, simply flip the lever to remove the print head and soak in cleaner, with a little VERY gentle dabbing wiping around to the nozzles and a good soak overnight. Then gently clean the head and test.

With most Epsons, you remove the ink cartridge, then inject some cleaner into the exit hole, then tape it closed, then inject some cleaner into the cartridge reservoir. This allows the print head to be forcibly primed, a common problem with re using Epson ink cartridges. I use selotape or parcel tape as it's thin and strong, but is easily pierced by the tang on the print head connection.
If your Epson has the spike ink connectors, then fit a snug fitting piece of plastic pipe over it, (as used for car screen washers) , then dribble in some meths and gently blow into the pipe.

At worst, a few blocked nozzles may do no appreciable harm to general print quality.

If it works well, then do a full service - see also ink tank cleaning and resets.

Where the print cartridge has integral print head and has been refilled too many times, it will want to die and join Kyryten in silicone heaven.

Some printers have instructions moulded into the covers, so keep your eyes open. If lucky, the printer may NOT need the computer to be connected to be able to run the print, print head and cleaning tests; play around with holding down another button while using the off-on button. If just one button, try holding it down to see if it bleeps while switching on. Once again, older Canons were brilliant, as they could be tested without the need for connection to a computer.
Most pre pixma canons allow different bleeps (keep the button down during switch on) to signify different in built operations. Excellent design. (This is how I can easily test that my 1980 canon BJ240 still works perfectly. Plug it in to the mains, press the buttons until the four bleeps and watch the nozzle check print out all by itself.)

Printer Disassembly.

Canon and especially Epson may need stripping. This is because the print heads can clog, or the ink reservoir needs cleaning, but the printer is otherwise perfect.

You do not always need to dissemble the printer to remove some Epson print heads.
Cannons usually have very easily removable print heads.

This picture is of the superb piece of engineering of my two month old new pixma. As an engineer and scientist, I consider it excellent in so many ways; the precision engineering of the mechanism, then ease of servicing and overall high build quality of a printer that is nothing short of a worthless piece of shit. BUT: If it does not print, then all the finest engineering in the world is nothing more than useless.

At some time, you may need to get inside the printer.
This will be to give a good cleaning of a blocked print head, or to clean out the ink overflow tank (nappy - diaper).
Printers are mass produced and as such, demand low cost assembly which means simple retaining designs. This is nowadays the simple plastic moulded clip. Manufacturers have two approaches to the positioning of assembly lugs, - to hide them from the enquiring customer, or to identify them. HP seem to hide them, while canon seem to use little triangular tell tale marks for a much easier life. Epson hide some retaining points and show others.

Always get the printer to move the cartridges to the replacement position, then remove the power cable. If you try to move the print head when parked it can be locked and the devil to solve. So always move the print head to the middle and quickly pull the cable.

Most printers are made from injection moulded plastic and the outer plastic casings are clipped together, so when disassembling, look for the places where the clips are prised apart without damage. - I use a simple flat blade screwdriver or sharpened lollipop stick for the lugs.
Start by prising the obvious places, but do this gently, noting where the plastic does not flex, where there is possibly a hidden retaining lug. Most printers are easily dissembled after a little judicious prodding and prising. Don't forget to look under any desk mounting pads. If a couple of lugs break off, then remember that this is a printer, not something which must be perfect to work.

Always flex any difficult part to see where it is still fixed, such as a hidden screw inside the cover or front flap.

Carefully disassemble just enough of the outer casings for easy removal. Remove the upper casing.
Look out for any loose parts and replace them or remember where they go upon reassembly.
Place the base on the table and remove the screw(s) holding the mechanism to the base. You do not need to disconnect the internal wires, but it may help.

Once opened, take careful note of all the bits and pieces. Do not remove anything unless absolutely necessary. Mark anything you may need to remove so it can be replaced correctly later.

Don't poke at the internal bits, just do what is needed. - Dust with a stiff artist brush, wipe clean with paper towels and methylated spirits. Leave any grease on the gears or smear it back into position.
Clean out the ink overflow tank felt as mentioned earlier.

Most printers are easy to disassemble, as the service engineer has to do it and they are not all geniuses.

Once cleaned, reassemble and test the bare printer. If all does not work well, then check until it does, - before replacing the outer casing.
Note: Some outer casings contain a paper feed or lid sensor switch or lever to make the printer work correctly, so manually operate any offending switch or lever as deemed necessary.

Some examples of dissembling popular canon and Epson printers is given later.

Ink overflow tank / Waste ink reservoirs.

Nappies. (Diapers.)
The biggest problem for printer designers is the problem associated with having to clean the latest ultra fine nozzles. The modern fixed head printer, including the Pixma, wastes half the ink cleaning the nozzles. Although very fast drying and ultra fine nozzles, this leads to nozzle problems which must be solved at present through rather basic and crude methods.
Because half the ink is wasted, then it must have to end up somewhere.

This means that over the lifetime of a printer, perhaps a pint or more of extremely expensive ink must remain inside the printer. This is a horrible thought, not just the waste of money, but also the thought of the modern printer becoming more like a babies nappy.

Therefore the printer must have a large ink dump area, where it can be allowed to dry out and remain safely wasted.
Canons and others are forced to using peristaltic pumps to suck the wasted ink from the parking areas, through pipes to the large felt reservoirs.
Epson also use a different method and rather elegant one too, as it has a large, open cell foam cleaning zone below the running area of the print heads, where the ink would normally reach the paper. Without paper, the Epson can spray its cleaning cycle between sheets into this much larger drainage area. It still needs the parking head cleaning areas too, as some cleaning is done during the print of a full sheet photo, but it greatly helps spread the ink through the limited reservoir area and I suspect that Epson's will have a longer time between reservoir reset counter death timers.
Many modern printers have a secondary dump hole on the other end of the slider to allow cleaning to inject ink direct into the nappy reservoir. This is now a major design limitation as they will cause the ink resets counters to stop the printer from working even sooner before it overflows.

Yes folks, the modern fixed head printer has now effectively become more closely akin to a disposable nappy. Even if it still works perfectly you may prefer to throw it away and buy another one.
If it costs almost the same as anew printer to replace the nappies, then there is no point in calling a service engineer. At least you get a spanking new printer, new ink carts and perfect new print head.

All inkjets clean their nozzles on a regular basis, and this ink must end up somewhere.
It is injected into the inkjet parking block, which allows this ink to drain down into a 'sump'. This is the ink overflow reservoir and it is mainly just a very large piece of felt. Over the years, it will not get full, but the inky end will get clogged up as the ink accumulated and dries into a horrible sludge. Therefore it may eventually be unable to keep the bottom of the printer from wetting its nappies and leaking out, although many old printers I have disassembled have not been too worrying, even in their worst state.

If cleaning out the overflow tank, then always reset the 'ink tank overflow reset' first, otherwise there is no point in cleaning it out in the first place. Carefully follow the ink tank reset directions as mentioned at the end of this web page and on many places on the internet, such as the nice folks at
http://www.fixyourownprinter.com/forums/inkjet/

In the base of the printer is a large felt pad or pads. This takes the unwanted ink when the printer clears the nozzles at the start and finish of a run.
Getting to the felt will need the covers to be removed, usually simple clips and lugs fond in all modern mass produced plastic devices, then a few screws to remove the internal print mechanism from the base, whereupon the felts can be removed for cleaning. If the service engineer can do it, so can you.

Carefully remove and wash the felt in water, to remove most of the crud, then in methylated spirits to dissolve and remove the remaining congealed ink. Take your time, allow the ink to dissolve and use a stiff brush to help massage the felt clean. Do not force this felt, as it can be easily damaged. I use a stipple action with a small stiff brush to clean the felt. Either rinse in meths or water and very gently squeeze out excess, then allow to dry in a warm place overnight or until dry.
If possible, then rearrange the felt so that sections of clean felt are repositioned where the heaviest drain enters this area. As the printer is not subject to heavy movement, such felt will remain in place. If on an unstable ship, then use some masking tape or dabs of glue to hold any rearranged felt or kitchen tissues in place.

When I dissemble printers, (usually for the motors for school projects and power supplies), most of the felt reservoir is pristine and white, free of ink. Therefore the old cruddy ink can simply be washed down into the pristine areas, to allow many more years of use without disassembly. In some cases I can cut and rearrange the pristine felt to swap with the cruddy areas for another 'lifetime's' use.

Also clean the nozzle receptor that keeps the print head from drying out while parked. This is just a small but vitally important rubber seal often with a small central felt pad, which is easily washed in meths. It is often easily displaced, so be very careful. Also make sure the drain hole down to the felt is clear.
On some printers, there is a small flexible pipe down to the felt which could also do with a squirt of cleaner, just to be safe.
If a modern printer, then it may have a pump in the pipeline to the felt, such as many canons, esp. pixmas, but nevertheless, a good dousing with meths will help de-crud this section. I would then de crud the other end of the pipe if needed, but leave the pump alone, as it is merely a peristaltic, roller squeeze device and any cleaner entering the upper part of the pipe will be reliably pumped through.

Replace felt and then the printer mechanism into the base, clean the rollers, remove dust and fluff, and check the mechanism for basic cleaning.
Then test the printer.
If the printer works, run a test page to work the nozzles, then a print nozzle test which will show which nozzles are blocked, if any. If the print is less than perfect, now is the time to clean the nozzles or print head. You can then decide if it's worth keeping or dumping. See also cleaning heads.
Resemble the upper cover.
If needed, run a print head alignment programme.

You have just saved 35 quid and a long wait for the service engineer.

Bodge : If you don't like disassembly.
Please don't do this unless you really must, as it's rather naughty.
If you do not want to disassemble the printer, but the ink felt is suspect as you have had to do a reservoir reset, then you may be able to flush the main cruddy ink area of the felt with meths or other solvents to migrate the main pool of the ink further into the felt. The canons and HP etc have a single ink cleaning area, but the superior Epsons have a long section of foam for easier cleaning, indeed it is as easy as it possibly could be, just don't swamp the area with meths, just enough to allow the crud to flow further into the felt below and leave room for another six months of inky abuse.

Get the print head to the 'replace the ink cartridges' position, then remove the power cord. This allows the nozzle cleaning area to be accessed for washing.
Now place the printer at about 45 degrees, so the ink nozzle park is at the top, with the print head well away, so you can access it. Now you can squirt or pour methylated spirits (denatured alcohol) into the print head parking socket, such that it flushes the used ink crud, down into the unused part of the felt. This dissolves the crud and the flush of meths will gradually disperse the old ink downwards, away from the injection point.
Do not rush this, but always allow plenty of time, perhaps a few hours for the meths to do its job and to evaporate. (You don't want inflammable meths inside a printer with an old sparky motor.) This will allow the meths to wash the old ink down and allows more room for another few years of use. If you use too much meths, then it can overflow and you may find old ink dribbling out the bottom, - so go slowly and allow the meths to evaporate after it has washed the old ink away from the top.
End of Bodge.

The simple head park flush does not always work on all printers, as some do not drain down by gravity. The Canon i350 and pixma 4200 and the Epson C84 and 830 for example have peristaltic pumps connected to the print head park pads, where the excess ink is pumped from the pads, though small silicone pipes to the pump, then down to the ink felt. This is probably because there is no room for the felt directly below the pads. This is increasingly common and adds extra complexity.
The Epson 830 for example has two places for ink, one in the standard parking pads, which flows down through a pipe to the felt, and a mid travel nozzle cleaning areas, which squirts directly down to the other end of the felt, which is a much better design. So be wary, and check your printer print head drain pads are connected to a pipe which goes to the felt, and not to any pump.

The Canon i350 I recently disassembled had a very large felt and I suspect this printer had been used a lot, then discarded. I have never seen a felt so full and am worried about how such a printer felt managed to get so full. Even if it had a full run to the death counter, I would not have expected such a full felt, so am beginning to suspect Canon printers as being wasteful of ink and may be using too much ink when being switched on and off, as this is when they are mostly cleaning the nozzles. Perhaps the peristaltic pump places a slight vacuum over the print head when it is parked, and help remove any air bubbles trapped in the print head which can cause clogging. I will have to look into canon printers a little more closely.
The pixma series are probably even more wasteful in their ink and I am not looking forward to the eventual disassembly my pixma 4200 for fear of finding 'very dirty nappies'.

(A peristaltic pump is simply a means of wrapping the silicone pipe around a drum which has a roller and thus squashes the pipe as the roller rotates and pumps the ink from one place to another. The best example is in the kidney dialysis machine.)

When all is well, finally give a wipe-over with domestic plastic cleaner polish. I use domestic spray polish which cleans up the outside of printers to a very nice, clean finish.

Remember, if you are going to scrap it, - then always have a try first. You will often be pleasantly surprised.
Even if you don't get it working, at least you will be more prepared to fix the next free printer that comes your way.

Well done, not only have you saved a trip down to the shops for a new printer, but you have also saved money and proven you are not just another useless consumer, ready to be fleeced of cash.

Most printers are discarded, even though they can work perfectly well, so please don't send them to the scrap bin too early.
You may even find that your new printer is not such a wonder as you had hoped and your old printer has a lot more going for it than you realised. I did.

Epson print head cleaning.

This is based on many printers, but the Epson C82 and 830 models in particular.
Because the 'Epson repair man' (service engineer) may need to replace the head, then it must be fairly easy to do, and if your printer is ready for the great recycling bin in the sky, then you have nothing to loose.
I only need to use a flat blade screwdriver and a small Phillips screwdriver and a ball point pen cap.
All printers use essentially the same mechanisms and applies to many ink jet printers, should you wish to delve this far. I apply this section to Epsons because canon, HP and lexmark do not suffer these problems, but some models may have various resemblances.

Nearly all inkjet printers consist of a print head sliding across a smooth bar, while reading a fresnel strip to know its position itself relative to the paper, so the ink jets can be triggered appropriately. A small simple bi directional motor and belt drives the head with its ink tanks, with a ribbon cable operating the nozzles relative to the position across the paper. As each pass is done, the paper is advanced for the next line by pinch rollers under control of a stepper motor.
A stepper motor accurately positions the other paper direction movement from top to bottom.

There will also be a head parking area, which covers the nozzles so they are not allowed to dry out in normal use. But this is not always a completely sealed compartment, and the nozzles will eventually dry out with time. So always print a small section of solid black and colour each month to prevent them becoming blocked.
In some printers, the parking area is often the place where the nozzles are cleaned, so is where the wasted inks drain down to the reservoir felt, then dry out to a yukky inky crud.
Some printers also have a secondary hole in the nozzle path, where they can squirt straight down to the felt area, which helps spread the waste 'nozzle cleaning' ink more evenly into the felt.

Unfortunately, Epsons have a fixed print head. Unlike Lexmark and HP, which have replaceable print heads as part of their expensive ink cartridges, and unlike canon with easily removable print heads, the Epson print head is not easy to clean.

If brave or foolish, or usually with nothing to loose, then you can attempt to clean the print head.
The process starts by bringing the print head to the ink tank replacement position, then pulling out the power cord.
Remove the ink cartridges one at a time and firmly seal the exit holes with vinyl tape which pulls on the hole firmly and wraps strongly up the sides of the cartridge to ensure a decent seal.

If you need to remove the printers' upper cover, then use the slots underneath to allow a flat blade screwdriver to un prise the lugs, and probably a couple of screws also and there is a clip inside the C82 printer on the bottom left. With a little prising, teasing and pushing, the outer cover can be removed. Make sure that any button control panel is carefully placed close, so the leads need not be disconnected. In many cases, the button panel can be easily unclipped or unscrewed. You now have access to the large screws holding the metal frame to the base should you wish to lift it to clean the reservoir felt.

You do not always need to remove the main plastic cover to service the print head.

The print head is not removed first, but a syringe of cleaner to GENTLY coax methylated spirits through the nozzle area. I slide the print head on an absorbent piece of cotton such as a sock, then force the syringe into each of the upper ink cartridge holes which allows a tight pressure seal, but allows the exit of the nozzles to leak, perchance to clean. The Epson ink enters the at the small hole in the top of the plastic spikes.
For a better seal between the syringe tip and the print head, use a small piece of rubber pipe which slips over the spikes, so filling is easier over the ink entrance to the print head and allows a syringe to gently force cleaner through the nozzles.

If this does not work, then remove the print head.
If room permits, then unclip and lift off the curved plastic ribbon cable holder plate, which holds the moving end of the cable and folds this ribbon down to meet the print head.
On the 830, with two tanks, a five colour tank and a separate black, there is a small white cover where the ribbon cables enter the print head. Prise this off gently, using the finger of a ball point pen cap as a lever hidden behind the back of the print head to help remove the white cover. It is a little crammed, but fairly straight forward. The two screws holding the print head can now be removed and the print head withdrawn and the ribbon cables pulled out of the head.
The C82 print head is a metal plate held by two screws which can be removed, along with the metal spring clips holding the five separate ink tanks.
The print head can now be lifted out with its ribbon cables attached. You will note that the retaining plate has sliding screw holes, so the print head can be pushed back against the carriage in an accurate position upon reassembly. The print head can now be lifted out and cleaned as mentioned below.

If the ribbon cable allows enough room to work, then it can often be left attached to the print head if you prefer.

The print head itself can be finally disassembled to allow a syringe of cleaner to GENTLY coax methylated spirits through the nozzle area. I place the print head on an absorbent piece of cotton or paper kitchen towel, then force the syringe into each of the upper ink cartridge holes which allows a tight pressure seal, but allows the exit of the nozzles to leak, perchance to clean.
Allow plenty of time for the cleaner to soak out any encrudded nozzles. An hour at least, and preferably overnight.

If cleaning looks successful, then the nozzles should allow you to inject a drops of ink into each appropriate hole so that it can drain through the head to the paper towel. Examine the nozzle exit holes onto a clean piece of absorbent kitchen towel to check each set of colour nozzles prior to assembly. If ink tanks are used, then it could take ages for the inks to work their way down through the head. So a direct squirt of ink from a refill kit syringe is more appropriate and also helps to prime the head assembly.

On most Epsons, the print head is often difficult to prime, so always turn the ink carts upside down, then drip ink onto each hole until its full, then apply thin sticky tape over them. If I have no pale blue or pale red, then I simply use standard blue and standard red inks or meths. This allows the heads to be primed far more easily.

If the cleaning is (hopefully) successful, then reassemble in a reverse order. Replace the ink tanks and reset their counters if needed. Print a full page to push the nozzles to their limits, run any head alignment and finally a nozzle test. You can then decide if it's worth replacing any upper cover, or to just keep the ink tanks for a new printer.

It is very rare to repair the mechanical components such as the paper feed mechanisms, as it either works or is knackered. You can take this opportunity to clean the rollers if needed and to spread any grease around the gear cogs and generally remove any dirt.

My last C82 was still unsuccessful after this ! -
So I reassembled the print head and built up the ink tank area with blue tacky office putty, filled it with meths, then allowed the nozzles to soak into an old cotton sock overnight. After this, the nozzles were superbly clean. I suspect the absorbent nature of the cotton sock was strong enough to draw the cleaner slowly but steadily through the microfine nozzles without harm, in a slow but steady manner and is a possible option to clean all modern micro fine print heads.

When cleaning, print head cleaner is methylated spirits, a form of denatured alcohol, (denatured to a horrible taste, to prevent drinking). Allow to soak into the nozzle areas and never rub the print head, as this can simply push crud into the nozzles. Only a gentle dabbing to massage the old ink in the nozzles to soften the hardened crud.

As taking an Epson printer apart is a pain, I certainly recommend leaving the print head in a poly bag to soak overnight. This may mean leaving the printer looking a mess and needing to support the loose print head, but you only want to do this once and anyway, the printer may often be a hopeless case, so go for gold. During the hours of soaking, give the head a gentle dabbing with your finger, and keep your fingers crossed afterwards.

Although pure speculation on my part, I believe it is important not to put too much pressure through the nozzles, but allow a wicking effect of absorbent materials to draw cleaner through the print nozzles and would also protect the electronics.

I therefore recommend the following sequence to repair an expensive Epson:
First Attempt.
Park the head in the ink tank removal area. Remove the power lead. Place a cotton sock dampened with meths under the printer head. Then slide the print head over the sock, making sure the damp sock touches the print nozzles for the wicking effect.
Leave the ink tanks in place so that ink can wick its way down to the pad. If you have removed them, then build up a small reservoir using blue office tacky putty and fill with meths to soak overnight, or use pipes or old ink tanks flushed of old ink, and filled with cleaner may also suffice.
Replace the ink tanks, after priming the holes with ink and applying tape over the holes, then allow ten minutes for the ink to work its way down to the nozzles into the sock. Remove the sock and test.
Second attempt.
Remove the print head and gently force meths through the print head using a syringe into the ink entrance holes.
If this is unsuccessful, and if a very expensive printer, try to get a new print head fitted.
Finally recycle the printer at your local scrap yard. You may wish to keep the various pieces such as motors and switches. You may also wish to try cleaning the overflow felts, so you are prepared should your next printer last many many years.
If successful always run a print head alignment process and possibly the cartridges may need resetting if you have filled them but not modified the ink cart chips.

If you have gone through this process many times, you will have realised that Epsons are usually not worth repairing, as their fine print heads which give excellent printing, are also their downfall. Nevertheless, it is still worth doing this, if only for practice, should just one be actually worth the effort.
If the heads were part of the ink tanks like lexmark and HP, then this would not be a problem, as standard (expensive) ink cartridge replacement is the solution. If buying an expensive canon, then print head replacement is a doddle.
If Epsons were repairable by the owners, perhaps replacement print heads would be cheap and worth such an awful malarkey, but Epsons probably would not sell so many printers.

To be quite frank, the cost of most decent printers is about 40 to 100 pounds, so are not worth repairing by replacing with a new print head, as it's probably out of date and perhaps the rest of the printer is looking a bit wonky. So only attempt any repair without spending any money.
Unless an exceptional or VERY costly Epson printer, I simply dump them if they don't revive after the overnight soak and trying to squirt methylated spirits down the standard ink tank mounting holes.

The Epson reservoir felts are nice and large, so I think that resetting the ink reservoir resets does little harm, although a few large squirts of meths down the nozzle cleaning holes into the felt can help spread out the old crudy ink more evenly around the felt.

I like to be able to repair my tools, so prefer canons and HP to Epsons, but I use their very nice felts in my older canons.
When scrapped, I would use the power supply, motor and belt for various school technology projects and the fresnel strip as a minor diffraction grating, if I ever get a job as a technology teacher.
Gizzajob please. - I'd make a great school technician with my B.Ed and B.Sc. !
I'm sure I could even keep the school printer costs low.

Cleaning an Epson stylus C84 print head.
I recently stripped a C84 and it was not so easy, being a Pandora's box, so here's the easier way.
Tools: Long thin screwdriver. Phillips #2 cross point screwdriver.
Blue tack to keep the screws on the driver during replacement.

Plug in the power lead, then pull it out when the print head moves to the centre. This releases it from the parking lock.
The silver side panels pop off, but you need to pull down the lugs hidden inside at the top, the other clips being visible from the outside.
The grey central section with the buttons pops off easily.
Pull down the plastic plate holding the ribbon cable entry to the print head.
Either side near the main rail are two lugs which must be gently pulled out, while pushing in the central lug at the front of the head base. The head unit will then slide out part way and allow the head to be removed from the slide rail, but the fresnel strip must be released from its right end.
The fresnel strip is the thin, clear plastic strip with the printed fine lines.
The print head cannot be slid out from the slider unit until you remove the ribbon cable - but you can flush and purge repair the print head without removing the print head from the cables.
The print head is now removed and can be stripped for cleaning.

My print head had a badly clogged yellow nozzle section, and I had to pressurise the inlet holes with meths, but it still did not purge, whereas the black, blue and red did bleed as required.
The print head was left to soak overnight in neat meths, and after many hours, showed signs of purging with pressure onto the yellow nozzle, but not as easily as the other colours. although this did not purge as I would have liked, I left it for another ten hours, pressure purged and then reassembled into the bare printer and tested.
It did not print the yellow fully, and had streaks, so the printer was dumped after stripping for components for school projects. Motors, power supply, belts and such like.
DO NOT try to remove the C84 printer mechanism from the base, as its a nightmare for those new to this.

Only if competent, the whole mechanism can be removed from the base and the felts cleaned, but they looked surprisingly clean.
Whatever you do, do not remove the gears to the pump on the end of the paper feeder unless you have problems with the hidden central screw, which only holds the power supply in place, so is not needed to be removed, as it causes problems with the gears beside the peristaltic pump.
When removing the base, look out for the hidden clips at the left end, under the plastic block, and the many hidden screws. The pipe to the print head parking unit can be pulled off at the print head end, allowing the main mechanism to be removed as a whole.
If you do remove the base and the gears fall out, then you will have to undo the print had parking area, retained by a lug, for easier assembly, and then insert the plastic pipe after the paper feed roller are replaced properly.

The Epson C84 felts are rather large and well designed, so I recommend the user simply flush the ends of the pipe with meths to move the crud along, and otherwise leave it alone. Just give the cruddy areas a clean gentle through. When replacing the head, always make sure the fresnel strip is absolutely clean and unscratched.

The Epson 830 and C84 use the same print head, with just the position of the ribbon cables into the nozzle assembly. The questions is then - why do Epson make so many different models using the same print engine. It is not as if they have CD printing or fancy HP style duplex printing abilities. The ink cartridges are simpler on the 830, with more capacity, whereas the C84 has fancy cartridges with less capacity. I will try using the C830 and C84 print drivers to see how they behave. I suspect it may come down to the paper control and cheapness of manufacture, or perhaps just a need to keep a global market happy with lots of new models which are essentially all the same underneath their clothing or perhaps nothing more sinister than selling more ink cartridges before the copiers catch up with the latest models.

The Epson uses just two motors, one standard DC motor controlled by the fresnel strip and the other a stepper motor for the paper feed. This is in contrast with the canon pixmas which use four motors. All the canons are easier to strip, but the Epsons when they can be repaired and using the SSC utility, enable a better working printer than a pixma, (but are never as good as a pre pixma canon.)

A bad example: The Canon Pixma.

I use the word 'were', because they have fallen off their top notch.
It is not because they printed any better than the rather delicate but excellent Epsons, or took a good hammering like the unbreakable HP's. It's simply because canon were always good at printing and taking the daily knocks, and never, never gave any problems.
They were also very easy to fill, and the few I had to reset the ink counters after very many years, they were always easy to open and clean.
This is what all canon printers were - very easy to live with, cheap to run and giving consistently fine prints for thrice the lifetime of any other printer.
My first canon was a bjc240 and it still works perfectly, although its now decommissioned.
I was given a junked bjc2000 and although very cruddy, it cleaned up well and was working perfectly within the hour, with all nozzles clean and perky.
In 2008, I have very easily repaired a free S400.
I could not fault canon printers.
Until I bought a pixma 4200.

On paper, the pixma could be easily refilled at home. It had a separate print head so could be easily cleaned like all canons for many years of hard work. It was large, but had the paper handling of HP and could print CD's. What more could I ask for?

I could ask for decent working software - at least ONE print of a full A4 page.
I could ask for reasonable ink usage.
I could ask for refillable ink cartridges.
I could ask for photo quality printing on glossy paper.
I could ask for sensible start-up and shut down times.
I got none of these.
I got a beautifully crafted piece of shit with a canon badge.

Horror of horrors, Canon has started using chipped ink cartridges ! At least they have not gone nasty like Epson. Canon have decided to use ink cartridge counters but which can be easily overridden. If you read the instructions you will note that pressing the reset button for five seconds will allow you to override the ink carts empty warning and then fill them yourself.
Canon printers make note of this and your warranty is presumably void.
In reality, it is not that easy, as you first get a computer screen pop-up saying the cartridge needs replacing - do you wish to continue. Later, you get a warning saying the ink is empty, and you must stop to replace it. Then it will only work if you press the reset button for five seconds to override, and the canon memory will record you as a naughty boy or girl. This must be done for each print cartridges as they run empty, or until you replace with a new canon ink cartridge.

The five Canon cartridges, two black and three colour have counters and awful LED's which flash slowly when close to being empty and flash fast when empty - not that you can see them under the plastic cover. What the heck, at least it becomes affordable to use if you can refill them.
If ANY machine does not like you refilling with after-market inks, then dump it, as it costs too much to run. If like the pixma, the printer cost has fallen to 50 pounds and genuine inks cost 50 pounds, then go ahead and refill, you have absolutely bog-all to loose. At least I thought so.

The ink cartridges are transparent, large and with a foam section and a separate pure ink section, an elegant design, so filling is easy. It has to be. - In the first week, I was contemplating filling without cartridge removal, as the pixma drinks like a fish !

The canon professes fast printing with equally fast drying ink, so I would recommend you look for a slower printer with appropriately slower drying ink, which would presumably not clog so fast and therefore need less print head cleaning.
I would dearly like to have seen a slow speed print option, perhaps about half or two thirds speed. The canon print speed may be phenomenal - but it takes absolutely bloody ages to get ready by wasting the ink in cleaning. So you should keep them switched on all day, or far more preferably, do all your printing in batches.

Update after two weeks with a Pixma 4200.
I do not believe I'm writing this, but such is life and we all learn by our mistakes. -
I have used most types of printers for thirty years, from ZX thermals up to massive lasers for drawing offices and most things in between, including the monster office units, but mainly the small personal printers of all makes and flavours and I have never, ever considered any of them as useless. Indeed, the last colour printer I considered abominable was a 24 pin dot matrix with a four colour ribbon, so I'm going a long way back in time and giving a lot of leeway.
After just two weeks with a pixma 4200, I'm not at all impressed. I truly think my pixma is a piece of shit.

Pressing the reset button for five seconds is supposed to allow you to override the ink carts empty warning, but it does not always work. Inks are certainly going to cost a bomb and unless I can solve this, then the Pixma is best 'serviced' immediately by dumping straight into the nearest trash can.
The Pixma also takes an awfully long time to get ready and simply not worth using for occasional use. The warm up time is an appalling ten times longer than my old Canon BJC2000 printer and I suspect this is where ink is being wasted - into 'cleaning' the nozzles. A preening pixma.
So I consider it only fit for office use and then only if you are prepared to keep it switched on all day, or only do batch printing, or can afford to replace the expensive cartridges regularly. It also takes ages to shut down.
You have been warned.

Insofar as the terrible cost of buying inks is concerned, the Pixma series has gone straight to the bottom of the list and I simply cannot recommend them. Even if you are daft enough to afford the ink cartridges, the use of ink is prodigious and make all others look frugal. I truly believe that the Pixma printers squirt half their ink into the nozzle cleaning felt ! There is no other possibility, mine certainly does. I will take this printer apart immediately it is out of warranty and taking a very close look, then making some close measurements of the dry ink mass. - More in a years time, as I don't think I will be keeping the pixma for more than a year.

I have only printed 20 pages and one ink tank is already almost empty - simply not acceptable. I have yet to be able to print one full, A4 photo page. Sheer crap.

As to photo quality prints: While I own a Pixma 4200, I will prefer to use the discarded Epson or my High Street Fuji Minlab printers rather than use a pixma - which has yet to successfully print a full A4 page photo.
I have replaced the USB cable added more memory up to 512 megs.
I have even installed a clean copy of XP just for the pixma, and it is still totally crap at printing.
I have tried canon software, and borrowed all the popular and major print programmes, and still it is crap.
I have tried all settings on matt and glossy paper and all the pixma photo prints have been appalling - and I'm not fussy, even the old BJC 2000 can do better.
It really is not worth wasting perfectly good photo paper in a pixma.

The Epson is easier to live with and new cartridges are far cheaper, the top paper feed is always aligned, unlike the bad pixma design, and Epson the warm up time is about a third of the pixma.

So you may seriously wish to stay clear of Pixma printers. - I genuinely cannot recommend them, something I would never have considered until now, as old canons were impeccable.
I am beginning to get a few pre - pixma printers through my various sources, and the pre - pixma series are looking like the best and last decent printers that were ever made for good quality common use.

I have contacted Canon many times by email and letter, but they do not reply. They are ignorant.
(Cannon, if you are reading this, please be so kind as to contact me. Email me at jhpart@btinternet.com and I will be only too happy to give more details of how I have been ripped off and how you can become a popular printer manufacturer again.) I am trying to get into contact with the well known high street shop from which I bought this piece of junk, but their returns department is incredibly difficult to contact, although they send out a lot of spam emails. I suspect they have no intention of being responsible for their sales. Perhaps they know the pixma series is a piece of shit, have been getting too many returns and don't want to get stung further. They have dropped the price of pixmas too, so perhaps getting rid of such junk is a problem.

Of course, this ink fiasco leads to yet another problem - will the ink overflow tank fill up faster and need 'resetting' far earlier. I expect to see recycle centres full of unwanted Pixmas far sooner than expected. This waste of perfectly good ink is a really bad, compounding problem and one which we all should do well to steer clear of.
I will update this page as to the size and condition of the felt pixma ink overflow reservoir once it becomes worthless, probably within a year ? (Actually it was within four months.)
Update after just four months with the pixma.

With VERY careful consideration of my words, - It's a piece of shit.

The canon is shit is probably not just my opinion, as the pixma is so bad, it's now being sold for less than the cost of the ink cartridges supplied with it !
These are fully filled cartridges, so it is cheaper to buy a pixma and dump the machine every time you want to buy cartridges, but I won't, as I want value for money. Canon really have lost the plot 'big time' for home printing.

So why is the pixma such a bummer ?
First - No replies from canon - ignorant b******s and no refunds. Not exactly a customer focused company.
I now realise canon had sold me a piece of shit. I had no recourse but to take it on the chin, (British warranties and 'fit for use' law being based only on how much you can grease a lawyer.)

I have now bought a very cheap HP printer and it is excellent, although the finer photo print is not the very best, it at least prints a full and very nice page of print.

Alien Canon Autopsy.

I could find no documented notes about feed for cardboard from the rear, as possible with earlier canons - a sorely missed opportunity for Canon.
The print head nozzles are in two sections, one wide pigmented black for printing black text really quickly. This wide nozzle will give excellent and fast black only printing, due to the double width nozzle array. (This is not dissimilar to the Epson 830 and C84.)
The cannon six nozzle colour evidently has two redundant nozzles and it only has four other colours. Black, Magenta, yellow and cyan. Perhaps this head is also used on the five colour with extra light cyan and light magenta.
(Once again, I see a family of 'print engines', where one basic mechanism is used across a wide range of machines. This generic family approach applies not only to cannon, but to all manufacturers, who may only have three basic print engines, but incorporated into as many as thirty or more models. This particular print head is capable of being put into a basic four colour machine, right up to the high specification 6 or 7 professional colour photo printers. The fact that some of the nozzles are not being used in the ip4200, shows that it may either a massive batch run of print heads for cost effectiveness, or if there are failures in the micro fine engineering, then those which do not manage the six nozzle standards, could be down graded to the lower, 4 colour machines.)

Under the print head lies the peristaltic pumps, one for the colours and one for the pigmented black. This little circular plastic casing of the peristaltic pump, (shown opposite) draws the 'wasted' inks across to just one central slot in the felt and this then drains across the plastic base, to spread across the felt sump.
I would have designed either a central ridge to divert the wasted ink more evenly, or have two separate pipes to separate sections of the felts for a couple more pennies. If it printed, I would have done this, but this pixma is not worth the effort.
Like the Epsons, the pixma has also positioned a long, open cell foam section under the run of the colour nozzles, where the colour nozzles can piss the ink across the foam and this open cell foam design allows the inks to drain down to another section of the lower felts. This not for the black pigment, as the nozzle is too wide.
Like the casing, the base removal was easy and after the removal of four easy screws, the mechanism is easily lifted off the plastic base. This allows excellent servicing by the approved service engineers and easy for the public too.
With the base off, I found the ink reservoir felts in the usual place, and there is indeed a lot of felt. Someone is expecting to waste of lot of ink.
From a designers and engineers point of view, (I'm a draughtsman, designer and engineer) Canon must have a problem with their modern printers. They waste half the ink, possibly more, and this leads to serious 'nappy' problems.
Looking at the mess from just one set of ink cartridges, I suspect the ink reset counter may appear after about forty cartridges before the felts start to get close to felt danger. (I would normally expect a hundred or more ink cartridge replacements before any resets raise their ugly heads.) At least the felts are easy to get to.
If the pixma could print, and even with the prodigious waste of inks, I would easily customise this printer by fitting a splayed ridge using a small piece of epoxy resin, and add a small pipe to the nozzle drain areas to allow meths to flush the inks further into the felts, then the felts would last four times longer and make the pixma more reliable. I would also have added remote ink tanks, as the potential of these print mechanisms is superb.

Typical Cannon - Superb engineering: The pixma uses no less than four motors, twice that of most printers, of which three are normal motors I can use in DIY school projects.
The print engine is incredibly accurate, as not only does it have a lateral fresnel alignment control strip, but there is also a feed roller fresnel alignment disc ! This should give exceptional accuracy of the print head over the paper. A very fine piece of engineering. No fault here.
The electronics is like many printers, reduced to one main dedicated chip and has plenty of ferrite beads over the wiring. No signs of damage or potential overheating. No trapped or damaged wires. Superb design.

The paper feed mechanism also looks superb and probably canon are quietly proud of being up with the best of HP standards, with dual sided (duplex) and CD printing too.
I can find no fault with the hardware, apart from the fact it is controlled very badly, (and also the overall size, which is far too big, but such complexity cannot be easily made much smaller, so I cannot complain of this.)

My personal diagnosis.

It is how canon have employed their 'FINE' (Full lithographic nozzle engineering) nozzle technology which has ruined a potentially fine printer. - (More details via EU patent 609860)
Where the problems begin - Canon have decided to opt for fast drying inks for fast print speeds (if you can ignore the atrociously slow start and stop times. - Two steps forward and two steps back !)
These fast inks cause clogging of the nozzles and thus the need to waste half the ink in 'preening' the heads.
This is turn needs a larger base felt reservoir and possibly shorter times between the need to call out the engineer or to clean and reset yourself, or to scrap the pixma. I recommend the latter.
The software is inconstant and probably poorly written or tested. The machine takes far too many resets to work correctly under windows 98 and XP. (I'm sure the linux community can write a far better job, unless the fault lies in canon's electronics, which I doubt.)
Perhaps the ultra fine nozzles and ultra fine fresnel control needs far more data and more prone to data corruption or is simply more data flow than many computers can handle.

After trying many times and ways, reinstalling windows, doubling my memory, a new USB cable, - yet three of the ink cartridges are already empty and I have yet to print out just one A4 picture using the canon software, even when using simple, small memory pictures and trying all the popular photo paint programmes. Simply NOT acceptable.

This is a shame as canon used to make the best printers possible, but canon have lost the plot big time. -
They have written crap software and gone for fast printing, but at the expense of fast drying inks which need far too much cleaning and an appalling waste of ink. The driver software is simply appalling and needs a compete re-write, preferably user friendly. Preferably with some slower printing speed settings, and optional nozzle cleaning settings, the main problems could be ameliorated.

IF.
IF canon drop the race for ultra fast print speeds, and join the real world, then many problems will be solved.
IF canon drop the chipped cartridges and just use a screen pop-up, then users will be tempted to continue using their pixnas and about half will buy genuine cartridges, or canon can lease the cartridge design to third parties.
IF, and I mean IF, canon can write decent pixma driver and support software which actually controls the print engine properly and consistently, then the pixma could possibly be a wonderful printer. This is a second generation pixma and the software should have been solved a couple of years ago.

IF canon are reading this, you have a potentially fine printer in very desperate need of finishing off.

I recommend cannon do the following.
Add optional slower printing inks and speeds which will reduce the need for nozzle cleaning excesses, and keep the high speed malarkey stuff for the expensive end of the market. Make the Pixma 4200 and series printers with standard inks and speeds. Use slightly less fast drying inks.
Use HP type paper exit handling to keep the pages separate as long as possible. This will allow the nozzles to have a decent chance to work without excessive cleaning or ink loss.
Offer a free print head exchange service if problems occur, and although only a few percent of owners would need this, it would keep print problems to a minimum and give you proper feedback as to the actual future of your FINE print head technology.
Get rid of the excess software, especially the chipped cartridge crap, so that loyal canon users can either have cheap cartridges, or continue to refill the printers themselves.
Because pixmas drink ink, then don't blame the users for wanting to refill these printers themselves. If the cartridges lasted sensible times, then canon would sell more genuine cartridges.
The lack of any warning of being close to needing refilling, usually only costs the average user one or perhaps two sheets of paper. An annoying 'check cartridges' pop up could be used, but is all that's needed and most users could live with it, and perhaps encourage them to buy genuine cartridges.
Modify the felt drains slightly so the felts will last longer before needing a reset.

If the pixma can use the inks without the daft need to warn of ink levels, AND allow the user to realise this like all printers until recently AND if the pixma had a sensible degree of nozzle cleaning, adjustable by the user, from sensible to minimal, according to personal use, AND if the pixma was reliable, AND if it printed a full page, - then it would rank very high in my opinion.
Unfortunately the pixma is built like a top athlete, given a very fattening diet and told to run on one badly damaged leg.
It is a fine piece of engineering totally turned into a piece of shit - of no genuine use to man or dog.
Blame the management for wanting super fast printing.
Blame the software writers for crap software.
But don't blame the engineers who have built yet another superb piece of engineering.

Canon should keep the engineers - but sack their accountants and throw those software writers into a bottomless pit.

After just a few months of trying all I know, my pixma is still just a piece of junk.
I have removed the print head and cartridges and placed the printer into storage, should an updated printer driver should appear on the canon website, and if the ink cartridges drop in price.
If cannon do not get their act together, the superbly engineered pixma will end up as simply new felts for my old canon, and as a power supply, and electric motors and gears for school projects.

That's all the pixma's fit for.

Technology is always a Faustian pact. This is not to say the print quality is bad, but presumably aimed towards faster drying. Therefore such a printer needs regular nozzle cleaning, to the point where it is simply not worth buying endless ink if the pixma wastes half its ink cleaning the print heads.
The score is: Technology 1, Customer 0.
If you are stuck with a pixma, then scrap it. I have.

My new HP is far nicer, cheap to run and easy to live with just like my bomb-proof old Canon BJC 2000 !

If you have problems with your pixma, email me at jhpart@btinternet.com and perhaps we can build a pixma group and lobby canon to give us our money back.

What really pisses me off is that this Canon is a very fine piece of engineering. I can forgive excessive ink wastage if it can be easily refilled. I can even forgive the awful chipped cartridges if they could be overridden. I can even forgive the awful warm up and shut down times. But I simply cannot forgive any printer that prints appallingly on photo paper and does not print adequately to any acceptable degree. No, I never did get an A4 photo printed out ! As an engineer and long term canon fan, it really, really pisses me off. I will now buy HP and currently use a discard Epson.

Many thanks to 'PC Pro magazine' in their March 2006 edition, who did an excellent expose on the ink problem and confirmed many of my fears.

And so, back to happier printers.

If there was such a thing as a computer museum, then old Canon or HP printers may be the only ones which still work.

Always place a good working printer into storage for a possible future occasion, such as when your new printer goes belly up and you are otherwise stuck without a printer when you need it most.

If you decide to scrap the printer, then place any ink tanks with integral print heads in a poly bag and pass them onto the charity or computer shops. You may wish to strip the printer to keep the internal motor for other uses and the power supply for projects.

If you decide to decommission or 'mothball' the printer for a backup device, then prepare the print head.

Integral print heads.
If the print heads are in the cartridge, such as HP and Lexmark, then remove them and place a drop of meths over the print head nozzles, dab clean then cover the print head with a little piece of closed cell plastic foam. Do not use sticky tape, as the adhesive could clog the fine nozzles. The sealing foam helps prevent drying out and prevents the adhesive of the tape from damaging the heads. The tape places a slight pressure seal around the print head and hopefully seals the head from leaking if it is stored with the print head down most.
I have learnt this the hard way, after some HP cartridges have failed to survive for many years, having gradually leaked their inks from the reservoirs as the solvent breathes through the plastic bag. So it is imperative to seal the print head of such a cartridge. You must also seal the breather holes with fine adhesive tape, which may be hidden under the lid of such cartridges. See refilling.
'Double seal' the ink cartridges in a polythene bag. I prefer crisp packets (potato chips) which have the aluminised internal surface for sealing cartridges and print heads. I also add some meths and store them upright, because if well sealed, the tape will prevent leakage.
Because you cannot create the vacuum of the original packaging, simply fold well and use tape on the outside of the bag to pack it tightly to exclude most of the air from the bag. Mark the bag 'top'.

Fixed print head - Epson.
If the print head is in the machine, (Epson's) leave it all in place, but run a head clean before packing it up. Now move the ink cartridges to the replacement position and remove the power plug. Remove the ink cartridges and firmly cover their outlet holes with tape, then cover the cartridge air vents with tape.
If you have old cartridges or the cartridges are almost empty, then flush and fill with meths then fit these into position for storage. This is the best method of storage, as a set of cartridges filled with cleaner left in place, with a cloth under the print head will gradually clean the print head over time. If the full cartridges of meths has wicked away after a couple of years, then the printer has probably been in storage too long. If intending to store for more than a year, then the print head should be parked over a cloth for a day to help remove ink in the print head, then the head parked in the printer parking zone which is a good rubber sealing zone to prevent undue meths loss.

Before storage, quirt some cleaner into the print head ink cartridge spikes and allow it to soak through to a cotton cloth soaked in cleaner and placed under the print head. This removes any ink in the print head. This lower cotton pad will help draw any ink and cleaner through the print head. Leave this lower pad in place for a day.

If you do not have old cartridges filled with meths over the print head for storage, then stick some rubber pipe over these spikes as this allows the cleaner to wick down to the cloth under the print head and clean the head. Move the print head to the parking area and add more cleaner. This will not guarantee to keep the print head moist indefinitely, but at least it will remove most of the ink which can dry out and eventually turn to crud in the cloth pad. It also allows you to simply add more cleaner before re - commissioning the printer.

If you have any spare cartridges partly used, then both ink exit holes and vent holes should be sealed with tape.
the bottom hole of many ink cartridges are hard to seal, but vinyl tape will make a very good seal for many years. Even if it is empty, a sealed ink cartridge is still cheaper than a full one from a shop. Many cartridges are seven pounds apiece almost 30 quid to replace them (or in real terms, the cost of a brand new budget HP printer.)

If you can easily remove the Epson print head, such as the C42 and 830, then do so and soak it in cleaner. Then leave it wet, with a well soaked piece of paper tissue, and store it all in a polythene bag or preferably a cleaned crisps (potato chips) packet with an aluminised inner surface after removing as much air as possible. If you want to keep the ribbon cable attached, then seal it in the bag carefully.
While inside the printer, always add some cleaner into the head parking area. This will help move any inky crud down into the felt and leave it pristine for the next time it is needed. If a modern printer, then remove the cartridges and run the printer empty a couple of times to move the mechanism, so that any peristaltic pump can flush a dollop of cleaner down through the plumbing so this will not become clogged.

Removable print head. - Canon.
If lucky enough to have a printer with removable print head, such as canons, then remove and seal the ink tanks, using the plastic covers which came with them, or vinyl tape snugly over the holes. Clean the print head with methylated spirits to flush out any old ink, then seal it separately in a poly bag, with a little methylated spirits or ink jet head cleaner and a few paper tissues. Then a second polythene bag or aluminised crisps packet to prevent the solvent from breathing away. This is why cartridges are supplied with plastic nozzle protectors and aluminised plastic bags.

Clean the machine inside and out.
If enough room, tape the ink cartridges, driver software CD or floppies to the inside of the main flap and tape this closed. If an external power supply, then tape this to the machine wherever suitable. Place it all in a strong plastic bag and store in a dry attic or cellar.

Unless exceptional, then printers over five years old are usually not worth bothering about.
Many older printers can still remain as emergency backups or for cheaper running with basic printing needs.
Many people who use computers a lot have two printers connected, one for the higher cost photo prints and an older. more reliable printer for low cost basic text print outs such as homework, programme listings and letters.

You may never use the printer again.
But if decommissioned properly, the printer will always be there should you need it.

My old canon bjc240, used for eight years, then decommissioned for ten years, was recently tested and works as good as new, even with the original colour cartridge ! Eighteen years and still OK, yes, canon are indeed very good engineers. Pity the old Win3.1 software doesn't work with XP. (It works perfectly well under 98SE !)
Vista sucks !

Make a floppy disk or CD copy of the printer drivers for the common operating systems and store it with your operating system and other important software, should you have to do a complete reinstall.
You do not need to include the software included with the commercial product, just the drivers for win 98, ME, XP and Linux drivers etc.
If you have the reset codes, then ALWAYS print them out and also copy them to the CD or floppy disks and keep with the printer documentation. I also use a felt tip pen to write the reset codes inside the printer cover !!!

2008 - Update. A free Canon S400 printer.

But I have also discovered the joys of Canon again.
I was intending to go to the civic dump soon, to look out for a dumped canon or HP printer to recycle for when the HP dies. But I walking past my local discount computer shop and decided to browse, and there was a second hand Canon S400 printer, reduced from a fiver to FREE - my favourite price !
It even came with a nice printer cable.
Like many shops, they often simply don't know or don't bother to find out if a second hand printer is worth the effort of a little work.
I took it home and discovered the inks had drained, but was otherwise intact. The print head, like all Canons, flip out easily and I put it to soak in methylated spirits as described above. The ink carts, having slowly drained, help keep the print head from getting to heavily blocked.
The next day, I dabbed the print head gently on tissues to gently clean the softened crud away and allowed more cleaner to flow, as shown by the tell-tale black, yellow, cyan and magenta stains on the tissue.
The cartridges were slightly filled enough to check the ink flow into the tissues and the printer looked ready.
I downloaded the Canon printer drivers (98 and XP - 12megs - 45 mins on dial-up) and tested.

The colour print test was poor, so the cartridges were filled to a quarter full and 'deep clean' software facility was run a couple of times and all but the yellow worked well. (It always seems to be the yellow that is the main offender, be it Canon, HP or Epson). So I simply printed out two full A4 sheets of yellow and this did the trick. I then printed a full page of magenta and then blue and the black. The following nozzle test showed all the nozzles as working.
Canon nozzle tests are excellent, as they show up each individual nozzle for inspection.
The S400 printer is now 'mothballed': The cartridges removed and their holes sealed with a few snug turns of vinyl tape. The print head removed and paper tissues used to retain a nice dollop of methylated spirits on the print head and over the cartridge ink holes. The print head then sealed in an airtight plastic bag so it will not dry out. The printer drivers and reset codes are on a CD, and the whole shebang sealed in a plastic bag in the attic for when the HP eventually fails. I decided just for interest, to see how much the cartridges cost, the Canon cartridges are seven pounds each ! Luckily the ink cartridges are easy to refill and don't need any overrides otherwise I would have simply dumped this otherwise excellent printer.

Now I don't have to look for a cheap to run, having a pair of nice printers for a couple more years and the running costs will remain minimal. Tomorrow I may stumble upon an even better free printer, but for now, I have all the printing power I need for the next few years at almost zero cost.

It never rains but it pours.
The following month, I was given a HP 815C, a robust device aimed at office use. The ink cartridges are massive items, the largest I have seen outside of laser printers. The HP C1823D colour cartridge is more of a brick when compared to those found in lesser machines. I suspect the printer was dumped because these replacement ink cartridges are expensive. Unsurprisingly, the printer had run out of ink, with only the black making a feeble effort at a test print. The print heads were soaked and dabbed on tissues to 'de-crud' the print heads, and a little ink introduced into the cartridges. Because the reservoirs are so large, the ink was given 24 hours to find its way down to the print heads. The printer took just a couple of pages to preen itself and deemed ready for service. The HP, although not photo quality, is a sturdy piece of kit and will be given to anyone who needs a heavy duty hack.

I have plenty of printing power which does not need chipped cartridges or override codes. I can print 'till the cows come home' for absolute minimal costs. If anyone asks me to print out a thousand colour posters for free for charity, I'd not blink an eye.

The most important thing about computing that I have learnt over twenty years, is:

NEVER let yourself or the kids take computers for granted.
Computers are only a tool, not a lifestyle device to trap you from enjoying reality. Using the computer to look at books is not always the best way to enjoy reading.
The paperback is easy to carry, doesn't need batteries and can be read anywhere, - beside a babbling brook or the beach on a sunny day.
I always have a book, bottle of pop, towel and swim trunks ready to hand.

Take your digital camera for a walk. It helps you see and appreciate this wonderful planet.

The most important skill in using a computer is being able to turn it OFF.
This is a very important thing to do with a computer - switch it off. Then go for a nice stroll in the country with your kids and parents.

The Polynesian monkey trap:
Take an empty coconut, cut a small hole in one end, just big enough for a monkey to put it's hand inside. Tie it to a tree and put some rice inside the coconut. The monkey finds the rice, grabs it, but cannot get the fist full of rice out of the coconut. The monkey sees the hunter arrive and is free to escape, but becomes food for humans. If the monkey had let go of the rice, a happier life would ensue.
The trap is the computer. The monkey is you.

End.

Hope this has been useful.
Best wishes,
John Partridge. B.Ed. B.Sc.
Gizzajob.

Feedback appreciated.
Email jhpart@btinternet.com

Cannon Printer ink tank resetting and cleaning.

If your printer is not listed, then reset codes are given on many places on the internet, such as the good folks at
http://www.fixyourownprinter.com/forums/inkjet/, to whom many of us are eternally grateful.
You will notice some similarities in the methodology of the resets, so you may be lucky if you try similar routines on unlisted canon printers. You have nothing to loose if the printer is not working anyway.

Always ensure you take the printer apart to clean out the waste tank. But there is no point doing this unless you get the reset to work first ! - First set the resets, then clean the nappies.

Cleaning the ink reservoir.
This is based on servicing many and various canon and Epson printers.
If the reset has worked and all is well, then move the print head to the change cartridges position, then remove the power and data cables, as trying to move the print head from its parked position is difficult.
Turn the printer upside down, to look for the small triangular arrows. Use a small flat, blunt screwdriver to open up the upper casing from the lower. (I use a Swiss Army knife screwdriver, as this is not rocket science) Remove the upper casing.
Place the base on the table and remove the screw holding the mechanism to the base. You do not need to disconnect the internal wires, but may help.
In the base of the printer is a large felt pad or two felt pads. Carefully remove and wash in methylated spirits to dissolve and remove the congealed ink. Take your time and allow the ink to dissolve and use a stiff brush to help massage the felt clean. Do not force this felt, as it can be easily damaged. Either use methylated spirits or rinse in water and very gently squeeze out excess and allow to dry in a warm place overnight to until dry.

The nozzle receptor which keeps the print head from drying out while parked can also be cleaned. This is just a rubber seal with a small felt pad, which is easily washed in meths. Also make sure the drain hole down to the felt is clear.
In some cases, the parking area will be connected to the felt via a peristaltic pump consisting of a silicone pipe wrapped around a roller cam. This should be simply cleaned where possible, but not removed. The exit of the peristaltic pump pipe can be lifted from the felt for cleaning.

Replace felt and then screw the mechanism into base.
Clean the rollers and check the mechanism for basic cleaning, and test the printer.
When all is working well, resemble the upper cover.
You have just saved 35 quid and a wait for the engineer.

Check out the nice folks at http://www.fixyourownprinter.com/forums/inkjet/ for latest details.

As you may have now guessed, I now appreciate the pre pixma canons a lot more.
Please give old canons a nice retirement home.
I believe that the pre pixma canons are probably the best printers ever, and to keep them working, here are the most popular reset codes. If you find one, grab it ! as it will be a damn good friend.
The windows software drivers are available from the canon website.
Most versions of Linux automatically support these printers :)
There is no need to use the canon approved photo programmes. Programmes such as Paint Shop Pro 3/4/5/6/7 etc., The Gimp, Corel, and such like, work perfectly well for printing photos.

If you have a different printer, then you will realise that the overall approach of Canon to ink tank resets is very similar. Presumably Canon don't make differences for the sake of it. Therefore a few attempts with similar models should be able to reset the ink tank and return the printer back to working condition.
There is no point in cleaning or replacing a dirty ink tank unless you can reset the printer first. So have ago and I wish you many more happy years with some of the excellent Canon printers out there in the world, which would otherwise be dumped.

Canon BJC 1000 Series Waste Ink Counter Reset
1: Remove Cartridge
2: Unplug the AC Power Cord
3: Hold down the RESUME button
4: Release RESUME after plugging in the AC Power cord.
5: Press the RESUME once within 5 seconds and release the RESUME .
6: Press and HOLD RESUME for two seconds or more and release it.
7: Press and HOLD RESUME for two seconds or more and release it.
8: Unplug AC Power Cord to set data.

Canon BJC-2000 BJC-2100 Series Waste Ink Counter Reset
1: Remove the Cartridge
2: Unplug the AC Power Cord
3: Close Front access panel
3: Hold down the RESUME/RESET button and plug in the AC power cord
4: Release RESUME/RESET after plugging in the AC Power cord.
5: Press the RESUME/RESET once within 5 seconds and release the RESUME/RESET .
6: Press and HOLD RESUME/RESET for two seconds or more and release it.
7: Press and HOLD RESUME/RESET for two seconds or more and release it.
8: Unplug AC Power Cord to set data.

Canon BJC-210 BJC-240 BJC-250 BJC-255 BJC-265
Canon BJC-4100 BJC-4200 BJC-4300 BJC-4400 BJC-4550 BJC-4650
Unplug Power Cord
Hold POWER and RESUME buttons
Plug in Power Cord
Release buttons
Open front door of printer
Hold the CARTRIDGE and RESUME buttons
Press POWER
Release all buttons after the beeps
Press CARTRIDGE once
Press RESUME

Canon PIXMA iP1000 and iP1500
Waste Ink Counter Reset Manual for Service mode
1. Turn off the printer and disconnect the printer cable.
2. Press and hold the POWER button, turn on the printer.
3. The indicator (L.E.D.) should be green.
4. Press and release the RESUME button , the indicator (L.E.D.) should be orange.
5. Press and release the RESUME button again, the indicator (L.E.D.) should be green.
6. Release both buttons.

Canon i320, i255 Waste Ink Counter Reset.
Step 1 : Manual Temporary
1. Unplug power and USB.
2. Open door and hold power button.
3. Connect power.
4. Close door, then release power button.
or Step 1: Manual Temporary
1. Turn off the printer. And disconnect the printer cable.
2. Press and hold the POWER button, turn on the printer.
3. The indicator (L.E.D.) should be green.
4. Press and release the RESUME button , the indicator (L.E.D.) should be orange.
5. Press and release the RESUME button again, the indicator (L.E.D.) should be green.
6. Release both buttons.
step 2 : Software for Permanant
1. Reconnect the printer cable.
2.Open General Tools software and select (USB PORT)
3 .Choose (SET DESTINATION 1) And it should be reset.
Remark "After service mode Please use software for permanent reset"

Canon i850, i950, S600
Start with the printer OFF
1. Hold down RESUME and then hold down POWER
2. release RESUME
3. press RESUME twice, then release POWER
4. Let green light blink until printer is done futzing
Select function with RESUME press POWER to execute:
presses - light color - function
Number of presses - light color - function
0 presses - green - Test print (or exit service mode on i960)
1 press - orange - EEPROM info print (plus grid nozzle diagnostic on i960)
2 presses - green - EEPROM initialize
3 presses - orange - Reset waste ink counter

Canon S450 Printer
1: Power off printer
2: Hold Resume button then press and hold POWER, the beeper will sound once.
3: Hold POWER and release RESUME
4: Press RESUME twice
5. Release Power button
6: When the indicator lights steady, press RESUME three(3) times. The indicator should be orange.
7: Press Power to set data

Canon GENERIC "S" SERIES RESET CODE
Waste Ink Counter Reset.
(1) Turn off the printer.
(2) Press and hold the RESUME button, then press and hold the POWER button.
(3) Release the RESUME button, Next press and release the RESUME button two(2) more times in succession. Note: you are still holding the POWER button). The printer's carriage will "reset" or move momentarily. If the above was properly performed the printer will enter the "Service Mode".
(4) Press the RESUME button 4 times, this will select the clear waste ink counter function. The lamp will alternate (change) color with each key press.
1 press = Service/Factory test printout, including ink sensor check.
2 press = EEPROM - Info printout.
3 press = EEPROM - Initialization.
4 press = Reset the Waste ink counter.
5 press = Printer model setting. (More selections beyond this point However it is best leave them unaltered - You have been warned!)
After selecting the desired mode (eg 4), press the POWER button to "set" the change, and return to the top of the function selection menu. Press the POWER button again to restart the printer.

Canon BJC-5000
1: Power off printer
2: Press and hold RESUME then press POWER, The indicator will start blinking.
3: While the indicator is blinking , Press RESUME twice then Wait until the printer beeps to indicate service mode
5: When the indicator lights steady GREEN, press RESUME four(4)times. The indicator should be GREEN.
6: Press Power to set data
Service Test Print
1: Power off printer
2: Press and hold RESUME then press POWER, The indicator will start blinking.
3: While the indicator is blinking , Press RESUME twice then Wait until the printer beeps to indicate service mode
5: When the indicator lights steady GREEN, press RESUME two(2)times. The indicator should be GREEN.
6: Press Power to Print
Nozzle Print
1: Power off printer
2: Press and POWER, until the printer beeps and release.
Demonstration Print
1: While the printer in ON , , Press and hold RESUME until the printer plays a melody of beeps.

Canon BJC-5100
Self Test: Switch Printer off. Hold Power for 1 beep.
Waste Counter Reset
1: Power off printer
2: Press and hold RESUME then press POWER, The indicator will start blinking.
3: While the indicator is blinking, Press RESUME twice then Wait until the printer beeps to indicate service mode
5: When the indicator lights steady GREEN, press RESUME four(4)times. The indicator should be GREEN.
6: Press Power to set data
Service Test Print
1: Power off printer
2: Press and hold RESUME then press POWER, The indicator will start blinking.
3: While the indicator is blinking, Press RESUME twice then Wait until the printer beeps to indicate service mode
5: When the indicator lights steady GREEN, press RESUME two(2)times. The indicator should be GREEN.
6: Press Power to Print
Nozzle Print
1: Power off printer
2: Press and POWER, until the printer beeps and release.
Demonstration Print
1: While the printer in ON, Press and hold RESUME until the printer plays a melody of beeps.

Canon BJC-3000 BJC-6000 BJC-6100 BJC-6200 S400 S450 F300 F600 F620
Canon BJC-7000 BJC-7100 BJC-8000 BJ-F800 i6500
1: Power off printer
2: Hold Resume button then press and hold POWER, the beeper will sound once.
3: Hold POWER and release RESUME
4: Press RESUME twice
5: When the indicator lights steady, press RESUME three(3) times. The indicator should be orange.
6: Press Power to set data

Canon BJC-600 BJC-600e BJC-610 BJC-620
1: Unplug Power Cord
2: Hold POWER and FF and Print Mode buttons
3: Plug in Power Cord
4: Release after the beeps

Canon S9000, S300, S400, i550, i560, i850, i860, i865, i9100, i9950, PIXMA IP3000 above,
Ink tank reset.
1. Turn off printer.
2. Hold down Resume button and press Power button.
3. Keep holding down Power button and let Resume button go.
4. Press Resume button 2 times then let BOTH buttons go.
5. Green lights will flash and then stop blinking.
6. When green lights are solid, press the Resume button 4 times.
7. Press the Power button and the printer should turn off, if not, press the Power button once more.
8. Your printer should respond as normal.

Epson overides.

With the appropriate software, Epson carts can be overidden or frozen. For this you will have to search the internet and download the software.
There were also some after-market 'chip resetters' using a small plastic case and a battery, but these are now hard to find for the earlier Epson models.

Epson SSC supported printers as of 26.01.2006
Care of
www.ssclg.com

Full override of the following ink cartridge chips.

Stylus Color 400 Stylus Color 440 , Stylus Color 480 LPT , Stylus Color 480SXU / 580.
Stylus Color 600 , Stylus Color 640 , Stylus Color 660.
Stylus Color 670 , Stylus Color 680 / 777 , Stylus Color 740 , Stylus Color 760.
Stylus Color 800 / 850 , Stylus Color 860 , Stylus Color 880.
Stylus Color 900 / EM-900C , Stylus Color 980.
Stylus Color 1160 , Stylus Color 1520 , Stylus Color 3000.
Stylus C20 / C40 / CL-750 , Stylus C50 , Stylus C60 , PictureMate.
Stylus Photo , Stylus Photo EX , Stylus Photo 700 / IP-100.
Stylus Photo 750 / PM-770C , Stylus Photo 780 / 790 / PM-780C.
Stylus Photo 810 / 820 , Stylus Photo 825 / 915 , Stylus Photo 870 / PM-875DC.
Stylus Photo 890 , Stylus Photo PM-890C , Stylus Photo 895/ 785EPX.
Stylus Photo 1200 / PM-3000C , Stylus Photo 1270 / PM-3300C.
Stylus Photo 1280 / PM-3500C , Stylus Photo 1290.
Stylus Photo 2000P , Stylus Pro 5000 / PM-5000C.

The following cannot override the ink chips, so the ink chips cannot be reset. But the programme can 'Freeze' the chip settings, so they do not count down to empty. This allows you to fill them again and again, or even 'hot swap' any refilled cartridges without the printer giving hassle.

Stylus C41 / C42 / C43 / C44 / C45 / C46.
Stylus C61 / C62 , Stylus C63 / C64.
Stylus C65 / C66 and PE, Stylus C67 / C68 and PE.
Stylus C70, Stylus C80, Stylus C82 , Stylus C83 / C84.
Stylus C85 / C86 and PE, Stylus C87 / C88 / D88 and PE.
Stylus Photo RX420 / RX425, Stylus Photo RX500.
Stylus Photo RX520, Stylus Photo RX600, Stylus Photo RX620.
Stylus Photo RX700, Stylus CX3100 / CX3200, Stylus CX3500 / CX3600 / CX3650.
Stylus CX370, Stylus CX3800 / CX3810 / DX3800, Stylus CX4500, Stylus CX4600.
Stylus CX5100 / CX5200, Stylus CX5300 / CX5400, Stylus CX6400 / CX6600.
Stylus CX7800, Stylus CX4100.
Stylus Photo 830 / 830U, Stylus Photo 820.
Stylus Photo R200 / R210, Stylus Photo R220 / R230.
Stylus Photo R300 / R310, Stylus Photo R320.
Stylus Photo R800 / PX-G900 , Stylus Photo R1800, Stylus Photo R2400.
Stylus Photo PM-A700, Stylus Photo PM-G720.
Stylus Photo PM-970C, Stylus Photo 900, Stylus Photo 925 / 935.
Stylus Photo 950 / 960 / PM-950C.
Stylus Photo 2100, Stylus Photo 2200 / PM-4000EPX.

Another little tip I discovered by accident while repairing Epsons, is to use the 820 software drivers on the 830, which then ignores the readings from the ink cartridges. This may also work for similar printers which use the same 'print engine', but in a slightly different model.

__________________________________________________________

Consider looking on the internet for the following:
*** Highly recommended.

Adaware. Free. Searches out data miners and other programmes which spy upon your computer sending your personal information to God know who.
Avast. A free (60 day) virus scanner.
AVG A free antivirus software which needs minimal registration. www.grisoft.com ***
Bulletproof. Excellent FTP (File Transfer Programme). Demo available. For transferring files to and from your website.
Blender. Free. 3D animation and rendering programme. www.blender3d.org
Cute FTP. Another FTP programme.
CloneCD. For making perfect backups of your legitimate CD's.
      (also lists the most comprehensive drive abilties for reading all discs.)
Dupe. Checks for duplicate files. Fast and easy to use.
Easycleaner. Free. Cleans out the unwanted crud which builds up in the registry. www.saunalahti.fi/tonihele ***
Jet-audio. Free. CD player of CD, MP3 and other music forms. www.cowon.com

Firefox. The best and safest internet browser in the world. Free for Linux and Windows. ***
Open Office 2. A complete office suite. Free for Linux and windows. ***
The Gimp complete photo editing suite. Free for Linux and Windows.
NVu new view is an excellent free website builder. www.nvu.com

Tunespark. Turns .wav and other files to MP3.
PCHardware bible. Free. Excellent set of technical specs, especially the pin-outs of connectors. **
Gifcon. A simple, but good animated gif editor, ideal for making presentations and animations like this:
Isobuster. Can read damaged CDs to help recover important data. If you back up onto CD, then also have this to hand.
MadOnion. Free. Checks the graphics card for speed and also shows what it can really do.

Epson chipped printer cartridge over ride control. Free. www.ssclg.com/epsone.shtml ***

Ultraeditor. A good text processor with many advantages for writing your own HTML, C++ and other progs.
Winzip and also LHA. These programmes compress and uncompress files for smaller storage. For text, this can be reduced to below ten percent, making backup on floppy highly effective.

Zonealarm. Free. A free firewall which prevents unwanted connections from others when using the internet. www.zonelabs.com ***

My favourite DOS bits include; Fact.exe, Scan.exe, Colordir.exe, F.com, Lha.exe, Do.exe and Killdisk.

Keep your eyes open, not all of the world is after your money.

Not all software costs money.
I still use old versions of many programmes which were free off the front of magazines:-
I still use a free copy of Corel Draw 3, when the latest is on version 9. It does well enough for me.
Likewise Linux, Open office, Partition Magic, and loads of utilities and games demos for free.

There are still many very nice people in the world. May I take this opportunity to wish them all the best wishes in the world, especially the Linux community. Thank you all, very, very much.

Also check the websites for updated software. Especially the manufacturers websites of the graphics card, motherboard, scanner, printer, updates to antivirus software and such like.

Other sites of interest:
I can only recommend two websites, otherwise the list would be endless.

If you want a decent Britain then, like your parents and grandparents, fight for it. Visit the following, although there are many others.
http://www.no2id-petition.net/pthanks.html

www.acupofteaandperhapsabiscuit.com
(which many now be called a cupofteandperhapsasitdown.com)

Finally, if using Linux, look out for a small fluffy toy penguin to place on the top of your monitor.
You may wish to call him Tux.

Always use your vote to prevent big businesses and evil lawyers from screwing with politics to the detriment of OUR civil liberties and freedoms.

Please help make a far better and nicer world than the one Bush and his 'New Labour' flunkies have given us.
We deserve so much better.
We can do so much better.

Feel free to Email me at jhpart@btinternet.com

Some companion monographs by the author on this website.
A Builders Guide to Computer case design and building.
A Builders Guide to Computer water-cooling.
A tourist guide to Plymouth, Barbican and Hoe.
Domestic repair and maintenance.
A Builders Guide to Motorcycle Design.
A Builders Guide to Composite HPV Cycle Design.
A Builders Guide to Composite Motorcycle Design.
A Builders Guide to Trike Design.
A Builders Guide To Survival Knife Design.
A Builders Guide To Survival Kit Design.
A Builders Guide To Camper Van Design.
A Builders Guide To Basic Wind tunnel Design.
A Beginners Guide to Motorcycle and Trike Wiring.
A Beginners Guide to Motorcycle Mechanics Basics.
A Beginners Guide to Motorcycle Mechanics Intermediate.
A Beginners Guide to Motorcycle Mechanics Advanced.
And lots of other stuff.
Via my website at www.btinternet.com/~jhpart/index.htm

If you found this webpage downloaded fast, it's because I write it in an ancient text editor with a British spell checker. No fancy web page crap here - just plain web code, pure, simple, fast. Keep it clean, keep it fast, keep it free.

Other monographs which could be published include:
A lateral look at innovation. From Polynesian monkey traps to BV141.
An approach to preventing design stagnation in small businesses.
A history of motorcycle design, its roots and future. A draft thesis of 200,000 words.
Ergonomics and control possibilities for single track vehicles.
Building the Future: Development possibilities for single track vehicles. Compilation including examples of seven radical machines built and tested on the road.
Fundamental corporate design stagnation, and the rise of the car cup holder.
Social hurdles leading to the failure to find qualified staff. A few case histories.
Derrified: Hospital deaths by mismanagement including case examples of friends and relatives. And how to prepare yourself for your time in hospital.

Begging.
Begging is the bottom line of this work. Being just one of the many long term unemployed science graduates with a strong engineering background in nuclear, marine and other spheres, the author would like a job.

Most of the vast numbers of 'begging bowl innovators' have ideas, so please help. British venture capital is an oxymoron, a joke comparable with our railways and education system.
Being British, begging is the bottom line of this work. As just one of the thousands of long term unemployed British science graduates with a strong engineering background being wasted in Britain. Please consider this monograph a slightly blatant C.V.

Thanks,
John. Partridge. B.Ed. B.Sc. etc.
Gizzajob.

This page is just one of many on my website, wherein you can design, build, experiment and always keep your costs low. From printers to trikes, boats, yachts computers alternative energy, steam engines and home repair, the website has much to offer, so please visit the main page too at www.btinternet.copm/~jhpart/index.

Always try to improve society rather than just take from it. Until then, lawyer stuff. Copying, duplication or transmission of this material whole or in part is not permitted without the written permission of the author. The contents of this text are for illustrative purposes only. Do not act on this information. Errors and omissions excepted. Contents subject to change without notice. All material herein is subject to copyright, patent and other intellectual property rights. All rights reserved. All trademarks and suchlike acknowledged. Copyright (C) J.Partridge. 2003 2008. Have a nice day.