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!)

We had a won't print without of date cartridges HP. It's been sent packing. I had no idea cartridges go out of date. No one else's do it was a HP money making trick.

YANBU - you can smash my HP printer as well. I hate the bastard thing - it's always causing me trouble.

Thank you Eduardo and nomorequotes - both those clips made me laugh A LOT!

Seems like my pain is shared with loads of you. How can Epson continue to shaft us so spectacularly and get away with it?? It is very much like Ryan Air as someone up thread said. LadySybilLikesCake I will have to seek out that You Tube clip just to depress myself further!

I'm just waiting for someone to come on who will say reassuringly, come buy THIS printer, it is economical and reliable and will never let you down.

It's like looking for the f*ing Holy Grail.

I don't want to go to PC World and be bullshitted into buying another heap of shit. I JUST CAN'T DO IT!!!!

I use Epson with the smudge free Dura Brite inks for artwork, it is a cheapy one but like every epson I've had can be very tempraFUCKING MENTAL very often, especially picking up heavier paper. Sometimes it will, sometimes it won't, sometimes it will pick up every other sheet of paper...I have come very close to smashing it more than a few times..

However have printed thousands of greeting cards on Canon pixmas, especially the rear-loading ones, and they have been super reliable, and have accepted other inks without problem. If anyone needs good inks in the Chichester /Bognor area, please visit World of Inks in Bognor Regis, excellent service and value for money.Disclaimer not related or involved other than as satisfied buyer.

There is a warning not to upgrade printer systems when prompted as they then seem to then not recognise non standard inks.

I have an Epson RX500 that I swear is bigger than my car. It also won't print if ANY of the cartridges run out. I have given up on Epson branded inks and buy my cartridges from Wilkinson's.

I tried to get rid and bought a wireless printer. It couldn't "find" my laptop so that went back and the behemoth was unpacked and set up again. Bastard.

That is hilarious

My old Epson used to take other brand inks but this one won't . Bastarding thing.

Yy to the Epson cba to be wireless anymore. Wtf is that all about. I've had to stick the lead in to get printed, but it does take its merry time.

I had a HP before. I don't know how many times I kicked the bastard, it did have lots of shoes marks on it though.

Here, have

I get ink for my epson (stylus D92) from someone via amazon. last ones I got were about £4 for all four and they work fine

We ditched our printer because of this, also tried to use a non-standard ink cartridge and the stupid thing stopped working altogether.

Replaced it with a Samsung laser printer that only does black and white, the ink lasts forever.

I was only using the printer to print off colouring pages of cbeebies, the printer pissed me off for the last time.

Had a knock on the door asking if I had anything to donate. Send the bloke packing with a printer the wire and disk.

That was 3 years ago and not bought another one since.

I have a stylus D92 as well and I could stamp on the fucking thing. Its favourite trick is to refuse to recognise four new cartridges and sulk about loading the paper. I'm about to buy a mono laser printer instead.

Ours had the decency to commit suicide.

Out of paper warning, so I load it up. Whereupon the damn thing tries to suck in all 80 sheets of paper and bent the feed guides on the drum and jammed itself solid.

Couldn't have done a better job if I dropped it out of a window.

We got a HP now, its ace and we were an Epson family for 18 years.

All printer companies are in the business of selling ink not printers..... Hate mine as hp keeps updating softwear so can't use cheap ink. I'm sure that illegal. Hp I know what you doing and shortly that printer will be going out the window and any brand loyalty I have...

I have a laser. BWAHAHAHAHA!

DisgraceToTheYChromosome - how much did the lazer printer set you back if you don't mind me asking.

GaryTheTankEngine that clip is hysterical, I wonder if the guy got the sack??!!

All I need to do at the moment is create CVs, job applications and covering letters. And I'm wasting £££££s getting this printer to work for me. Call me old-fashioned but even though a lot of my applications are submitted online, I still love to have a hard copy to proof read and file away.

Can't wait till I get a job because at least I'll be able to use the printer at work - just hope it isn't ever a f**king Epson

It was about £300 new, but that was 7-8 years ago. I got it because the voluntary work I was doing meant print runs of 1000+ pages a month. I run it on generic toner cartridges, which last for ever.

Re: out of date inks, it's designed to stop you using cheaper recycled cartridges. But on my Canon you can override it, when I put the cartridge in it tells me it is OOD and I press and hold down the triangle button and it resets and allows me to use them, this trick also works when it tells you that the cartridge is running low. I swear I get more pages after they are supposed to have run out with no loss of print quality. I only bin now when the pages don't print properly and have saved a fortune.

Worth doing a search online and see if your printer does the same. I think Epson is the worst though and you can only use their cartridges and only when fresh.

Totally with you on the scamming cost of ink. I remember watching something on TV that worked out the cost of ink as something like £3000 per litre based on the cost of the bloody teaspoon full you get in the cartridges.

Can I join you? Scamming bastards. Won't print at all if one of the cartridges is low, if the ink is out of date, if I'm using a non-Epson brand, if there's an R in the month, if it doesn't feel like it...

There is something terribly wrong with the world when it works out cheaper to buy a new effing printer than to replace the cartridges a couple of times. I am scared to think how much I've spent on emergency trips to the nearby Sainsbury's to buy new Epson cartridges because I am printing something urgently and the bastard ink runs out although I only replaced it the week before ...

I pay svp.co.uk £4.80 (inc vat - free postage) for a set of 4 Epson Cartridges. Getting the ink cheap solves many of the other problems because at that price you can bin one rather than struggle with it.

I rarely have a problem these days, but I use my printer a lot. I think the nozzles tend to dry up if unused for some time.

Epson are not perfect, but I constantly hear about problems with other types and I seem to average less trouble than everyone else does.

The paper problems can sometimes depend on the paper quality. You should be able to use cheap paper, but if it's too thin all printers tend to struggle with feeding it in properly.

I've got a hp printer. Its £25 for the three colours and black ink or £7.50 for a single cartridge (£14 for a double size) and you can just use black ink. You do have to leave the empty colour cartridges in though.

I print loads of black and white documents but not many colour so I've only just run out of cyan ink after about 3 years. I've used about 8 black ink cartridges though but I've probably printed a couple thousand pages in black ink.

There was a report on watchdog last year about companies putting less ink in their cartridges than they did a few years ago which is part of the reason try don't last as long.

Printers don't like you using alternative (cheaper) ink cartridges. The printer companies sell the machines for not a lot, but the inks are not cheap, they also rig the printer not to accept alternative makes of ink (there's a micro chip at the front of the cartridges. If you're very careful you could try taking it off the expensive one and swapping it onto the cheaper one to see if that works). There's a well inside your printer, so most of the ink is wasted (I can't find the youtube clip but there are several about the ink well and how to syphon off the waste ink ).

My canon was under £50. It's wireless, the cartridges are cheap and it only needs 2. It's also a scanner and a photocopier.