OT, I Guess: Printer Ink Refills

[Paul Alciatore]

I have known for some time that printer companies do not make money on printers. Like movie theaters who make their money at the concession stand, printer companies will give the printers away if they can just trap you into buying the INK for absurd prices.

So I have a Brother three or four in one, large format printer/fax/copier/whatever that I LIKE. And the ink prices have been a lot better than my previous printer, but still too high. So I am looking into getting bulk ink and refilling the empty cartridges. And I spent about three hours looking on the web tonight. The number of choices is enormous.

My Brother model MFC-J6720-DW uses a pigment style black ink and dye style for the three colors. Go figure! Most of the kits have one or the other for all four colors, but not the mixture of types that Brother uses. I would like to stay with the OEM's scheme, if possible. I would also like to get a quality brand, if such even exists. I thought I had found one with the black pigment type and color dye types and I got to the checkout only to be confronted with a message that they didn't have a delivery option for my zip code. It was an Australian company that apparently does not deliver to the US.

So I am wondering if anyone has a bulk ink company, preferably in the US, that they use and would recommend? I am willing to consider complete kits, separate purchases of the different types, or even each color separately and the syringes and other implements as another separate purchase. I am just going nuts looking at one offer after another and the internet search engines are not much help. Any suggestions would be appreciated. GREATLY APPRECIATED!

[mikey553]

I do not use ink-style printers anymore, so I am not much help here. My choice - laser printers. I have a HP LaserJet P2015dn for about 10 years and have no complaints about it. Recently I had to replace a toner cartridge. A new after market 7000 pages cartridge from Amazon was $27.55 and it would hopefully last for at least 5 years and maybe much longer. Keep in mind - this is just black and white printer, no colors here.

The reason I like lasers - they require no maintenance and provide consistent print quality at a reasonable cost.

[Willy]

I do not use ink-style printers anymore, so I am not much help here. My choice - laser printers. I have a HP LaserJet P2015dn for about 10 years and have no complaints about it. Recently I had to replace a toner cartridge. A new after market 7000 pages cartridge from Amazon was $27.55 and it would hopefully last for at least 5 years and maybe much longer. Keep in mind - this is just black and white printer, no colors here.

The reason I like lasers - they require no maintenance and provide consistent print quality at a reasonable cost.

Yes, totally agree!
Sorry Paul I know this isn't the answer you are looking for but I have admitted to myself a long time ago that as much as I like color for my photography hobby I find it cheaper to source that job out. Besides the bulk of my printing chores mainly consist of text and simple graphics that don't require color.

Hopefully someone here can enlighten us to an answer you can live with.

[Rich Carlstedt]

Paul, Epson has BIG bottles of ink ( 4 colors ) in a package that makes it really cheap. ( like $60 for a set)
There are others even cheaper , but no idea of their quality

I do know that there is two types of ink, so some are not interchangeable, so you have to find out your type
probably relates to the type or kind of electrical charge needed for application ?
Rich

[gellfex]

Yes, totally agree!
Sorry Paul I know this isn't the answer you are looking for but I have admitted to myself a long time ago that as much as I like color for my photography hobby I find it cheaper to source that job out. Besides the bulk of my printing chores mainly consist of text and simple graphics that don't require color.

Hopefully someone here can enlighten us to an answer you can live with.

This exactly. Over 20 years ago I geeked out on home 'archival' printing, refilling carts with pigment not ink. Totally not worth it compared to cheap printing from Costco etc. A 16x20 is like $7! We now have only lasers, one a color HP I got a great deal on and buy aftermarket carts for. The B&W HP laser sitting on my desk is 2006 vintage and utterly dependable, unlike most inkjets.

[JRouche]

Im with others on the ink vs toner, I only print in B/W with the laser anymore.. But... In the 90's I was hip deep into dye sublimation printing for my photography hobby.. Talk about a money pit. Best day for me was to give up on it and give all the supplies I accumulated to a local school. They have deep pockets right JR

[gellfex]

For the other photo geeks here, it's stupid easy to make a DIY 'digital photo frame' with a cheap monitor and a $25 Amazon Firestick that streams your pics from one of your online accounts like Google or Outlook.live. My current build is a $60 24" monitor hanging in our kitchen, cycling random pics from a file of 1200 every 5 minutes. Beats the hell out of printing and framing them!

The monitor is powered by the same circuit as my undercabinet lights, so it goes on with them rather than being on 24/7. For the family pics, I ran the files through an app that date stamped them so we can tell exactly how old the kids were.

[JRouche]

For the other photo geeks here, it's stupid easy to make a DIY 'digital photo frame' with a cheap monitor and a $25 Amazon Firestick that streams your pics from one of your online accounts like Google or Outlook.live. My current build is a $60 24" monitor hanging in our kitchen, cycling random pics from a file of 1200 every 5 minutes. Beats the hell out of printing and framing them!

The monitor is powered by the same circuit as my undercabinet lights, so it goes on with them rather than being on 24/7. For the family pics, I ran the files through an app that date stamped them so we can tell exactly how old the kids were.

Love that idea. Much better than the tiny lil ones they are selling for much more and may not receive pics over the air. My parents would love it, for the pics and the tech (they are geeks). Thanks for the tip. JR

[Glug]

I get the outsourcing of color printing, but it was a sad day when Costco shutdown their in store print service.

[tom_d]

My Brother model MFC-J6720-DW uses a pigment style black ink and dye style for the three colors.

Had a similar setup with my printer years ago. Issue I had was I wasn't printing enough so the ink would dry out in the print head. Pigment was more troublesome than the dye so I converted to dye type for all colors. I'm doing mostly unimportant documents in the office so the quality was quite acceptable. Still had to rinse out the print head on a regular basis though. Eventually I got sick of the hassle, waste, and expense so I went with a B/W laser (Brother MFC-L2750DW) and take any color photo work I need done to the print department at Staples.

Yes, searching for ink online can definitely send you down the bunny hole. Tossed all the old ink so I'm afraid I don't recall the website I was purchasing from.

[Ohio Mike]

I bought an HP LaserJet MFP M281 at Costco a few years back, one of best purchases I ever made. Thousands of pages in and still going strong. I've bought one black toner and the colors are still 60% or better.

[gellfex]

I get the outsourcing of color printing, but it was a sad day when Costco shutdown their in store print service.

True that. Probably the demise of actual film processing made having all that equipment in every store less cost effective. If you centralize it and it's running 24/7 the profits undoubtedly go up. I haven't printed since, but I'd probably give Amazon's service a hard look.

[gellfex]

I bought an HP LaserJet MFP M281 at Costco a few years back, one of best purchases I ever made. Thousands of pages in and still going strong. I've bought one black toner and the colors are still 60% or better.

If mine was on my own desk instead of my wife's, I'd have the color disabled 95% of the time to save color toner. So rare to need color now that the kids are out of the house. But when they were, it was fantastic not to be messing with constantly clogging $3000 per gallon ink mostly going into the cleaning pad.

[Paul Alciatore]

Yes, I did need to figure out the type of ink. So I did.

My Brother model MFC-J6720-DW uses a pigment style black ink and dye style for the three colors.

It uses BOTH types; one for black and the other for colors. That is part of my problem: getting the right type for both.

From what I have been reading, the pigment style has small particles and can clog up the passageways intended for the dye types that do not. I guess the printer companies are tired of getting printers where the print heads intended for dye inks are clogged up.

Paul, Epson has BIG bottles of ink ( 4 colors ) in a package that makes it really cheap. ( like $60 for a set)
There are others even cheaper , but no idea of their quality

I do know that there is two types of ink, so some are not interchangeable, so you have to find out your type
probably relates to the type or kind of electrical charge needed for application ?
Rich

[Paul Alciatore]

Am I the only one with an ink jet printer?

Oh well. Thanks anyway.