AIBU to want to take a sledgehammer to my F**ing Epson Printer?

[onhereagain]

Stupid f**ing Epson Stylus SX235W printer. Just went out and bought a brand new black ink cartridge. Colour ones didn't need replacing. Printed 1, 15 page colour newsletter and the Cyan is out. Can I just print out in black and white? NO. There was a window to print out temporarily using black ink but that's gone and now it wants me to go out and purchase a Cyan cartridge before it can print ANYTHING else. A bit of online research reveals this statement from Epson:

“If ink is not in the tubes from the head to the cartridge, air will be sucked in and therefore cause damage to the print head. This is because the nozzles are in the print head and not in the cartridge. ”

So what they're saying is that they deliberately won't allow printing only using black ink because they've designed it in such a way that this would damage the print head. Bad design? Cash-making scam? Both?!

I am going to go out and buy a cyan cartridge for the LAST TIME and then sell this piece of junk on Gumtree (if anyone will have it) or perhaps skip it.

Can anyone recommend a printer that is economical to run and doesn't bankrupt you every few weeks in ink costs? Is there a printer out there that will let you have the option of printing only black and white whilst also having a colour print facility? This Epson has drunk up inks like a fish and I am never entirely sure that the cartridges are completely empty when it asks you to replace them.

I think the printer cost about £50 new and I must have spent 2 or 3 times as much as that on inks over the past year (I don't use it a huge amount either, not even once a week!). Grrrrrrrrrrr (and skint!)

Sorry for your printer troubles. I hate mine too. I hope you can pick one up on freecycle with better/cheaper ink possibilities.

If you're going to chuck it - please put it in the small electricals recycling container.

They are all bastard when it comes to this. Kodak are supposed to have 'reasonable' ink replacement prices.

I've got the sx425.... and we now buy cheap ink from Amazon rather than the offficial Fox or whatever. It was going smoothly then the blasted thing started to reject the cartridges.... the day before DS's party when I really needed it. My older DS hates printers with such a passion he will no longer buy one.

Dont smash this one up until you have a new one installed and working. I once smashed up my laminator as it has once again jammed. It was oh so satisfying

Epson is known for this, they make money on the cartridges. I have an HP deskjet that doesn't need the colour inks replacing if you are only printing in b&w but it is an old model so check reviews before you buy.

I have the SX130 and it does exactly the same thing and it drives me bonkers. When it finally dies I will never buy another Epson product again. Who ever thought up that brilliant design? Mine is nearly out of one of the colour cartridges - completely agree that it guzzles colour ink considering I hardly ever print in ink.

this vital

Epson sx125 here. Tis shit. The paper doesn't load properly and even though I bought new ink a couple of weeks ago it tells me it's run out!!

My printer needs careful nursemaiding through every print job or it gets paper tangled up all over the place. Yes it was very cheap to buy the printer, but the ink costs a fortune, to put it mildly. Printing at the library costs less per sheet, I find, than using up my own ink and paper at home. Mind you, the printer is now 10 years old and still going strong, it has never even been repaired, so there is some hope for us all yet.

I replaced mine with a canon, the epson drinks ink and it won't allow you to print if one colour is out Have you tried taking tipping the printer up slightly so the ink runs to the end? It may confuse the printer into thinking there's more ink in the cyan one then there is.

Only if you will smash up my HP printer. It's wireless, and for the first year worked great. However, the minute that year was up the issues started. The printer no longer recognises the order to print. So it just sits there being useless.
I have tried reinstalling the printer, tried all the trouble shooting etc to no avail.
FIL has the same printer, and whilst it does still print, it prints whatever it feels like. Printing a 6 page report out last month it printed page 1 5 times and page 6 once . On reprinting page by page to get the remaining pages we got duplicates and half pages missing.
I miss my old Epson printer that lasted 8 years, yes it was slow and basic, but my goodness it was better than these HP ones!

Epson are notorious for this. There are various internet threads where Epson owners describe the various ways they wish to destroy their printers. Defenestration is a favourite one.
I pensioned off my pricey Epson and went back to using a trusty HP which only needs a b/w cartridge and a colour one, not the four colours.

Well, the bloke who came to read the gas meter kindly broke mine for me by knocking it off its table! I think I'd only just replaced the bloody inks so I wasn't impressed.

the cat! the cat!

I have exactly the same issue as you, OP. I hate the bastard.

Budge up on the disgruntled ex-epsom users bench.

Problem with Epsom printers is that with most printers the nozzle is attached to the cartridge but with epsom it is attached to the mechanism to the printer. I didn't use the printer for about six months and had to chuck it as nothing would clean the heads. On most other printers you just need a new cartridge.

I too have a Canon, which isn't bad as printers go, but it does have it's Cat Moments.

Once in a while it just bends a sheet of paper faintly and refuses to believe it still has half a tray of fucking paper!

YANBU

I think Epsom work on the same business model as Ryan Air and the Aberdeen Angus Steak House model, that there are enough people in the world to rip off once so you have no need to worry about repeat custom.

Please smash mine as well. Paid extra for wireless and it decides it cba'd to be, and printing with it is always hit or miss and the paper jumps in the feed so ends up cockeyed. Hate my printer with a passion

Mine is an epsom office wireless one and I hate it, can only connect to it when the moon is in the right phase and the wind is blowing from the north at exactly 23.35 miles per hour.
Any recommendations for a reliable wireless printer/scanner?

How about re-fillable cartridges? I spent £20 on a set for an Epson XP-305 with 100ml of each colour ink and am currently over 1000 pages printed with no sign of it running out soon. This is where I ordered mine from.

What model is your printer?

YANBevenatinybitU.

Although I see your "refusing to print black when there's no cyan" Epsom and raise you my "refusing to scan or send a fax when the yellow is out of date" HP that wasn't even using the print function.

Epson printers (I've been told) are all fixed so if you try to use alternative cartridges and it tells you that it needs to update, the fucking thing will stop working, just to warn you.

There was a fab clip on youtube about how much ink they actually use vs how much ink they take from your cartridge and store inside. Per every cartridge, you use ? when you print and the rest is wasted. There's a thick sponge on the inside which soaks it all up.

Cyan put my husband over the edge he flipped pulled out the wires and bined the epsom we got a new printer 6 months ago had to replace black once the cyan is fine