Is there a solution to this printer issue that I have missed?

[BlackAmericanoNoSugar]

There are two types of people in the world, those like DH who wait until the petrol tank light comes on before filling it and those like me who fill it when it goes below half full. (OK, so there is actually a spectrum of when people fill their tank, but that doesn't suit my point.)

Same applies to the printer in our study. It's on DH's desk facing towards a wall (DH's desk faces outwards) so I can't see the display. DH does about 98% of all the printing and photocopying in the family so I would look at the display when I use it but that's generally only every six-eight weeks or so. The thing is that DH won't order ink for it. He waits until it goes low, then he waits a bit longer until things are not coming out the right colour because there's none at all left of one of the colours, then he waits a bit longer until sheets are coming out with blank bits. That's when he orders ink, which takes three or four days to arrive. And then he gets all frantic because he needs to photocopy something important or print out a boarding card or something. He can be a bit of a scrooge about some inconsequential things, so I think this pattern of usage is to do with feeling that ink is a rip-off (which it is), whatever the cause is he's not going to change, don't think I haven't tried.

Most of my printing is quilt patterns, so not at all urgent, and I have been going to the local copy shop and having them printed there. It costs quite a bit, over €13 for 37 pages last time, but the quality is lovely and when there is a picture of a blue piece of fabric being sewn to a peach piece of fabric they are actually blue and peach not two shades of lavender. It's a bit of a pain though because the shop is out of my way and even though I email it to them first they never have it ready and I have to hang around for it.

The real issue is when the DC need something printed out for school. They invariably need to print in colour, after the time the copy shop has closed and need to hand it in the next day. It's also usually when DH is out for the evening, like today, so I bear the brunt of their frustration.

So my choices as far as I can see them are

1. to have my own printer and not let DH use it (because otherwise he will run out of ink on his and then use mine until it runs out of ink too), but that seems a bit over the top when I probably print a total of 100 pages a year at the very most.
2. order spare ink but not tell him that I have it so that I can change the ink if necessary when the DC or I need to print something, but that's also a pain because I will need to change back to the old ink afterwards so that Scrooge McPrinty can use up every last drop before throwing it away. It also turns me into his office manager who will be blamed if he runs out of ink because it has become my job.

Any simple, obvious solution that I've overlooked?

With milk and eggs, we used to have hens so no BB dates and we stacked them in the fridge so you used them from the outside of the door inwards - would that work? Not an answer to the ink issue though. I do the juice thing but with tea so less horrifying.

I’m currently running a Canon TS5050 which is an AIO. When looking at printers our #1 priority is that generic ink is available. Why else do the manufacturers sell the printer for pretty much the same price as a full set of their genuine ink? They obviously intend to rip you off time after time.

In c. 15 years we’ve used the AIO Canons with no problem at all. On our third one now. They wear out eventually and repair is just not feasible economically. The ridiculously low cost of generic ink means you can keep at least one full set in stock. We get through about one set per year. The scanning is also a very important function for us.

I just paid £14.20 for TWO FULL SETS of chipped ink carts. 5 carts per set.

Your idea of putting ink in and removing it part way is probably not going to work well, as some manufacturers ‘track the chip’ on the cartridge and don’t accept the earlier cartridge back in. That’s to stop the refill shops helping you. Nice people aren’t they? Money money money…

Luckily OH and I are in sync over stock rotation, kitchen and office. I’d have left many years ago otherwise.😁

Overall though, I think you have an OH problem, not a printer problem.

On the milk and eggs thing, it got a lot better during lockdown as we were using more eggs so got through them faster and they were less likely to go out of date. Also DH has been doing all the shopping (he said because I have an underlying health issue, but really he enjoys doing it, weirdo) so I've no idea what's happening with the milk. I'm lactose intolerant so my only interaction with milk was to check the fridge to see if we needed it, and also put it back into the fridge from the kitchen table several times a day because apparently it becomes invisible to teenagers immediately after use.

He did introduce a DH-ism around butter, because like every other family DD was baking out of boredom and using the only butter we buy, Kerrygold. He felt it was too expensive and you can't taste the difference in baking anyway so he bought Dunnes cheap butter in very similar packaging 'for baking'. He gave up after a short while as DD never remembered that she was supposed to use the cheap stuff and occasionally someone would put the cheap stuff in the butter dish and then I would put it on my toast, recoil in horror and throw out the toast and the butter in the dish.

An update on the printer situation - I ordered replacement ink and went with branded because it isn't a huge price difference. The ink arrived and I kept it in my desk drawer because I didn't need to print anything. In the meantime the printer updated its software and then refused to recognise DH's generic ink cartridges. I didn't know as he didn't say anything. He also didn't order branded ink, he just went into the office more frequently instead and used the printer/copier there. He's away somewhere, Frankfurt maybe, and DD needed to print something for school, which is when I realised that the generic cartridges weren't working at all. So I changed the cartridges and it's printing beautifully, correct colours and everything. I have ordered another set of branded ink.

Excellent!

Update on the update. DH came back from Frankfurt. Saw the used cartridges and said "Not all of them were empty, you didn't need to change all of them". So I explained about the 'not communicating with cartridges' error message even though he must sure have seen the message himself at some stage. I said I'd put branded cartridges in because DD needed to print stuff for school. He said that I didn't need to buy any because he had (generic) spares (gestured vaguely towards a storage unit beside his desk which is so cluttered that my chances of finding anything in it are less than my chances of going insane while looking). I mentioned again about the error message, and he said "you just need to know how to make it work".

I'm quite proud that I took the high ground and just said "well, it's working fine now" and didn't talk about how it has been printing varying degrees of wrong colours for the entire time we've had it up until now.

So, the solution to my problem, if anyone wants to learn from my experience, is to let him have his own way for as long as nobody except him needs to print, but have branded cartridges in reserve and change them out while he's not around if anyone other than him needs to print. A further hot tip would be to put the used cartridges into the main bin, not the study bin, that way you won't even need to have a conversation about it because he won't know.

Well done on the pragmatic solution and agreed on hiding the evidence...

We switched out dad's shampoo for years and just hid the evidence. He used to complain about the shampoo if he knew and thought it was fine if he didn't!

Just to illustrate the difference. In the attached photo the left hand quilt pattern was printed at a print shop (at 35c per page plus an up front charge so fairly expensive), it's quite densely pigmented, you can feel the ink on the page. The middle pattern was printed on the home printer with generic ink, nothing is true to colour and the blues are more lilac than they appear in the photo. The right hand pattern was printed last night with the branded ink, it's a bit fainter than the copy shop version but all the colours are true to what I see on the screen.

Are those colours in the middle picture supposed to be the oranges and blues like in the outer two images? If so, yes indeed, you need proper cartridges that are all working. Especially for this sort of thing - colour matters, it’s not just the heading of a PowerPoint looking a bit funny. I like your solution.

Yes, the whole quilt is peach and blue and it’s not helpful when the instructions say ‘attach the peach triangle to the harbour square’ but the diagram is pink and purple. 😁

Love the designs sorry not helpful

Yes, she's a really amazing quilt designer. All of her quilts are very complicated though with lots of tiny pieces, so this is only the second one of hers that I'm doing. I have to do at least couple of easy-peasy ones after one of hers.