Thirsty inkjet printer

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marpada

476 posts

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#231908 19-Mar-2018 22:27

Hi there,

My Brother MFC-J5320DW printer is demanding two new colour cartridges despite being hardly used in the last months, just printing the odd page every few weeks.I'm using original ink, which is supposed to give 600 pages. Printer count is 521, and that's including the 'complimentary' cartridges. Is this kind of normal, dodgy printer or am I doing something wrong?

As a second question can anybody recommend alternative cartridges for this printer?

allan

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#1980201 19-Mar-2018 22:58

Had similar issue with an older Brother MFC (forgotten the actual model). Discovered it was the periodic cleaning cycle that was chewing through the ink. Bought a cheap b&w laser for everyday printing.

michaelmurfy

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#1980202 19-Mar-2018 23:04

The problem is every time you turn the printer on it'll squirt some ink out to clear the print heads (wasting ink in the process). You can sometimes get around this by leaving the printer turned on but in most cases this doesn't work. It also depends on page coverage etc as this printers claim of 550 pages is at 5% coverage.

Using dodgy cartridges can indeed damage the printer (been there - done that). The best purchase I ever made was a cheap Brother laser printer for B&W printing as I can get 2000 pages per toner and they're only $35ish to replace - page count is nearly up to 10,000 pages with 4 toner replacements in that time. Laser printers are especially good if your printer sits unused for quite some time.

I'd say stick with the genuine consumables - I've seen way too many printers get damaged by cheap replacements or else try Cartridge World who often provide good compatible cartridges. The other option is investing in a refillable ink cartridge kit which you can pick up cheap however just note these can indeed damage an inkjet printer.

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mattwnz

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#1980206 19-Mar-2018 23:31

I have used refills in mine, but t was essentially free after cashback, so no great loss. I have found that having it off and only switching it on when I am using it has reduced the amoun tof ink being used. The cleaning process and tests etc seem to drink ink. On my old HP, I purchased a new set of cartridges. After it did a clean and then head alignment etc, it was already down to 75%. The brother one I am now using seems a lot better in terms of the amount of ink it uses. The refill I get were off trademe, and are probably a chinese import. But still reasonably good. I did previously buy refills for my HP printer, but they also had the head built into the cartridge, and after a few prints, one of the colours would stop working. So I think it depends on the brand.

richms

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#1980209 19-Mar-2018 23:38

IME if they lose AC power, they assume they have been off for a long time and do a complete purge and clean on powerup, so leaving on makes them use much less ink, but they are still very wasteful machines prioritizing protecting the print head above all else, so will gladly pound thru 1/4 of an ink cartridge when they feel like it, but the meters dont change which is why they have so much left in an "empty" cart when they are not needing the cleans etc.

Idleness means that the ink in the nozzle dries, so they need the purge etc. They need to be used often to stop that happening. So used or left they waste ink. Just machines made to use up expensive ink in order to sell more ink.

Richard rich.ms

cadman

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#1980212 20-Mar-2018 00:14

Never had any such issue with my Brother MFC-6490CW.

mattwnz

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#1980213 20-Mar-2018 00:26

richms:

IME if they lose AC power, they assume they have been off for a long time and do a complete purge and clean on powerup, so leaving on makes them use much less ink, but they are still very wasteful machines prioritizing protecting the print head above all else, so will gladly pound thru 1/4 of an ink cartridge when they feel like it, but the meters dont change which is why they have so much left in an "empty" cart when they are not needing the cleans etc.

Idleness means that the ink in the nozzle dries, so they need the purge etc. They need to be used often to stop that happening. So used or left they waste ink. Just machines made to use up expensive ink in order to sell more ink.

That may depend on the brand. That doesn't occur with my brother printer, which I turn on and off whenever I want to use it. But I recall my HP one did all these tests after switching it on, and wasted so much ink. Maybe someone has written an article about this and which printers to avoid if you rarely use your printer.

1101

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#1980489 20-Mar-2018 13:44

mattwnz:

Maybe someone has written an article about this and which printers to avoid if you rarely use your printer.

Yep, NZ Consumer Magazine did a few years back. Still relevant today as not much changed in the new models.
It actually gave wastage as a % , the results were a horror story.
However a few printers wasted very little ink .

Some particular models of printers waste alot of ink.
Its worse when printing is intermittent and a few pages at a time.

I threw away my working 2 year old Canon Pixma for that very reason (my previous Pixma's werent as bad )
Its just the way it is .

They make their profits off the ink, not the printers, so draw your own conclusion.
And the 'complimentary' 'starter' ink carts often hold very little ink.

Dont get suckered into the 'aftermarket ink damage your printer' BS.
Your choice , $150+ for a genuine ink set, or $40 for aftermarket inks. On a $100-$200 printer , for a few years printing the math tells me
what to buy.
Printers are dirt cheap when on special or after cashbacks anyway, and its VERY unlikely aftermarket inkjet carts will damage your printer (ask for proof)

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kryptonjohn

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#1980508 20-Mar-2018 14:11

allan:

Had similar issue with an older Brother MFC (forgotten the actual model). Discovered it was the periodic cleaning cycle that was chewing through the ink. Bought a cheap b&w laser for everyday printing.

This.

My Brother MFC springs into life in the middle of the night doing a self clean.

This is where your ink is going:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycD4XkUtbIw

marpada

476 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1980675 20-Mar-2018 19:42

I think several people hit the nailed in the head, I power it off nightly and also scan a lot of documents so there must be a lot of head cleaning. I'll contact Brother to see what is their recommendation.

old3eyes

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#1980983 21-Mar-2018 13:03

I bought a new Canon TS9060 inkjet mainly for printing CDs and DVDs. It's not too bad on ink but if I was going to do a lot off color printing I'd consider an Epson inktank printer. They're not cheap but the ink bottles are.. Unfortunately the HP, Canon and Brother inktanks aren't available here in NZ so Epson has a monopoly and charges accordingly.

Regards,

Old3eyes