Inkjet printer...black only.
Community Forums/General Help/Inkjet printer...black only.
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| Hi, does anyone make a printer that only uses black cartridges. Or, is there a colour printer that will still run without the colour cartridge installed or with it empty. |
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| Have you tried setting your printer output to B&W/monochrome? On most printers that will force it to use black ink only. However, as much as I'm aware not many printers will allow you to print anything when there are no color inks available. [edit] My Epson SX105 doesn't - I just tried. If all else fails you could get a cheap monochrome laser printer. They're almost as cheap as color inkjets now. |
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| Thanks GfK, I don't have a printer at the moment and just want something cheap...very cheap =) I can't find a black only but so far an HP D1660 looks the best bet at £25. I print 1 page maybe every 2 months or so. |
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| D1660 seems OK. It does have a tri-color cartridge though, so if one color runs out, you end up wasting the other two colors. That aside, provided you specifically tell it to print in monochrome, replacing any of the color ones should be a non-issue. |
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| That entire "we won't print without a color cartridge present even though you only want to print black" is really annoying, especially when it happens in a multi-function device that you use exclusively as a fax machine, and therefore never print color on at all... Eventually the color cartridge will 'expire' and it'll refuse to print incoming faxes because there is no valid color color cartridge available. :-? |
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| Most printers seem to use a little ink on each head every time you switch them on, possibly for cleaning the head? Because of this you find the ink levels go down and you end up having to replace the colour cartridges even when you haven't actually printed anything in colour =/ |
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| Hey, if you rarely print, you should pick up a real laser/toner cartridge printer. There are now very affordable printers of this type, and, the toner carts last a lot longer than those silly over expensive ink-jet carts. They will not dry up, clog, or any those other silly problems. They are faster, quiter, and replacement ink is a whole lot cheaper per unit/page. You can even now get really afforable multi-function devices for under 100 bucks. Depends on the quality your looking for, of course. I'm still using a brother dcp-1000 multi-function device and it's over 7 years old. It still works like a champ. I've never had to replace the drum, just the toner cart. (Drums will last almost forever if you take care of your unit.) I also have a Xerox high performance laser printer that is over 10 years old and it still works just fine as well. (It has over 5000 page output capacity on the toner-cart, but of course back then it wasn't cheap.) Trust me, if you want something that is going to be reliable, last you a long time, and just work, get a true laster-printer with toner cart support. :D |
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| Because of this you find the ink levels go down and you end up having to replace the colour cartridges even when you haven't actually printed anything in color =/ Worse than that, many cartridges now are 'smart' and have an will disable themselves a set time after manufacturing or initial use, regardless of how much ink is still present in them. Still, it shouldn't matter whether or not you have any color ink *unless you actually want to print color*... But most printers nowadays will refuse to print black as well unless you have a functional color cartridge present in the system. Just another way the manufacturer can pressure you to go and buy a replacement cartridge sooner than you may have otherwise. |
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| I would go with a laser printer too. £60 new is the cheapest i can find after a very quick search, from ebuyer. But the toner cartridges last a long long time! |
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| Don't those super-cheap laser printers come with a small capacity toner cartridge? You soon have to buy a real cartridge that costs about as much as the printer. It's been years since I bought a printer, but that's the impression I've gotten. |
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| Most printers (not just laser) come with smaller-than-normal cartridges in the box. I was looking at a Canon LBP-1310 earlier which cost something like £70. The toner cartridges for it are around £40 (half that if you get a 'compatible' one), but then they're good for around 1500 pages. |
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| I don't think you can buy them anymore however you can buy a cheap bw laser printer for less than a good colorjet now. It is not worth buying cheap inkjet printers anyway, b&w or not. Also as gfk said, you can set up 2 "add printer"s for your inkjet one set to bw and one color. |
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| use a laserprinter |
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| I'm fed up with Canon/Epson/HP deliberately attempting to force me into using their ink and paper. |
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