things happen in threes

[davidc4430]

so the saying goes

1. my car key stopped working

2. my TV stopped working

3. my printer stopped working

all in a 2 week window

[davewil1964]

I bought a Canon for $30 five and a half years ago. The colour cartridge ran out 4 years ago. Even though I only use black, the colour still gets 'used'. At which point I discovered that the scanner doesn't work unless there are 2 valid, non-empty, tanks in the machine.

Large colour cartridge was $60, same model printer was $39, so I bought another printer. I figured that, given the purchase price, the original printer was unlikely to last much longer anyway.

It's very difficult to source cartridges these days, and the original is still going after over 5 years, with a reasonable work-rate, so I can't complain about the quality.

I suspect I will end up with 1 new and 1 very used printer when I am forced by ink to buy a new one.

As said, the price of ink tends to be inversely proportional to the price of the printer.

[not_for_sale2025]

Completely agree, exactly the same thing has happened to me. They've got a monopoly over us that we can't refuse - buy a new printer every few years LOL.

[domino-710]

For Canon & Brother - I have been successful with generic ink.

HP - make it really difficult.

But still would only buy the multiple cartridge choice.

[wide-world-of-stamps]

Yes, same for us.

We bought a cheap HP printer, then found the cartridges were expensive.

When a similar HP printer came on sale at Officeworks for $25, we bought it.

Then we saw another similar HP printer on sale at Big W for $15, and bought 2 of them.

As we use the scanner more than the printer, the ink has lasted a while, although the cartridges block occasionally, and we have the sit them in hot water to fix them.

We still have 1 printer left, so hopefully the scanners will last for a while yet.

Edit -  it's annoying and absolutely ridiculous that it's cheaper to throw out a whole printer rather than replace the ink, but we do have to live within our budget.

[davewil1964]

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@wide-world-of-stamps wrote:

Yes, same for us.

We bought a cheap HP printer, then found the cartridges were expensive.

When a similar HP printer came on sale at Officeworks for $25, we bought it.

Then we saw another similar HP printer on sale at Big W for $15, and bought 2 of them.

As we use the scanner more than the printer, the ink has lasted a while, although the cartridges block occasionally, and we have the sit them in hot water to fix them.

We still have 1 printer left, so hopefully the scanners will last for a while yet.

Edit -  it's annoying and absolutely ridiculous that it's cheaper to throw out a whole printer rather than replace the ink, but we do have to live within our budget.

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Shows how eco-friendly some of these corporations are. And most are Japanese, so not even the usual culprit.