I have spent more than 15 years in IT industry. I have been instrumental right from the purchase to handle the maintenance of IT hardware equipment. The printers have come a long way from dot-matrix to high-end plotters. In the recent years, Inkjet printers have seen an enormous change not only in price but its working technology. The inkjet printers run on inkjet cartridges and some printers need two cartridges (one black and one color cartridge) while some require a set of 4 cartridges that includes one black and 3 basic colors RGB (Red, Green, and Black). These cartridges used to hold a very small quantity of ink ranging from 5ml to 15 ml.
The ink cartridges are being replaced now by ink tanks that are fixed exterior to the printer, unlike conventional printers where cartridges are installed inside. Let me share my experience with these ink tank system (ITS) printers during my days as IT manager.
Customization of old Inkjet printers
Friends, my team was very excited when we first learned about ink tanks a few years back. The vendors told us the ink tanks, the ink quantity these tanks could handle and the cost-cutting in using these ink-jet printers. They offered us to install these tanks in our old inkjet printers.
So finally, we decided to get the ink tank installed in 3 printers. The results were really impressive with black print-outs touching nearly 1500 pages and color printouts around 500 per refill. It was quite encouraging since the original cartridges would end up at meager 100 print outs in comparison.
For 6 months all went fine until one day the printers reported some errors and refused to print. After a detailed diagnosis, the vendor told us that the head got blocked and would cost a hefty amount for repairs. That was the end of the highly favored project.
Epson Ink Tank Printer.
Exactly after one year, I came across new Epson L220 printer. This difference this time was that the printer had ink tanks but they were pre-installed by the manufacturing company. I can confidently confide that I am quite impressed with the performance of Epson L220 since last 2 years. We had to get it serviced it only once every year. Here is my summarization of the benefits of Epson L220 Inkjet printer
- The cost of printing has got down by 80% with the large volume of 140ml ink tanks.
- The quality of printing is excellent in comparison to the earlier printer.
- It is a dependable, robust and low maintenance design that hardly needs any expensive service. If you have a hardware specialist in your IT team, he can happily do this once a year chore.
- Easy Refilling as the ink tanks is provided externally. You don’t need to open the printer like you do with other printers of the same
- Prompt customer support, which is a great thing for the people who are afraid to handle their hardware due to lack of hardware maintenance skills.
Epson Ink Tank Refill Demo
Latest Ink Tank Epson Printers
For Home use, Epson models L310, L382, L386 and L486 come with Ink tanks that have the capacity of printing up to 13000 number of black and around 6500 color pages.
For Office use, the Epson models that come with ink tanks are L605, L655, L1455. Theses office Inkjet printers can yield up to 11,000 pages.
For photo-printing jobs, you can consider Epson L805, L810, L850, L1800 models that can print up to 1900 color prints of 10cm x 15cm size.
>>Check Latest Ink Tank Printers in INDIA<<
>>Check Latest Ink Tank Printers in USA<<
Final verdict
My experience of years in IT job tells me that this is the best printer at your workplace or home if you have to depend on a lot on computer printouts. The inkjet printers that come pre-build with ink tanks are worth purchasing and use. They definitely reduce the printing costs while maintaining the quality of documents and photos. You will be relieved of frequent messy refilling of traditional small cartridges. Refilling the ink tanks with ink bottles is rather an easy process that will be done in virtually no time. If you are already using ink tank printers or intend to buy one, do share your views or queries in the comments section.
i am little confused, if the head of the cartrage got blocked in tank printer what will be the possible solution.
As i am not a regular user .
i hardly print 10-20 pages per weak but sometimes i used to print some books.
Go in printer settings then click on maintainence option and then click on Printhead Cleaning
If you are printing 10-20 pages a week, then you wont have printer head blocking issues. But you have to be printing at least that much to keep the nozzles of the print head clear. Else you can use the inbuilt head cleaning option. But after a while it will just get too clogged for that also to work. And replacing the print head is just slightly less expensive that buying a new printer. So thats not a feasible option. Also if you clean the head cleaning feature very often, then you will also end up using a lot ink in the process. So buy it, if you will print atleast 10-20 pgs a week.
I have an Epson 405 that was leaving a roller mark along the print when printing a photo on Inkjet glossy paper.
I think that the photo paper is 190gsm.
I took printer to vendor to find that they had same problem with a new printer out of the box.
So, is this a problem that is correctable or do I have to opt for a lighter photo paper
I am considering epson ink tank printer for my home office use. My concern is – my printing load is light and there may be stretches of 2-3 months when I will be traveling and the printer will not be used. Will the ink clog or printer head head blocked. That happened in my epson inkjet earlier.
Not using a inkjet printer for 2-3 months can block the head of the ink nozzles. You need to clean the head (with inbuilt software utility) in order to open the clogged head. OR before travelling, you can cover the printer completely so that the printer does not get contact with air.
I would suggest you shelve the plan of an ink jet printer if its going to be packed up for 2-3 months. It just doesn’t make sense. The nozzles will get blocked for sure and you can only unblock them so much. So this is not for you. Not just Epson or ink tank printers…but none of the ink jet printers from any brand will suit your requirement. Stick to tried and tested mono laser. You print one page a year or 5000 a month, same speed, predictable and reliable. Because there s no liquid ink to be clogging up. And color laser is way too expensive to consider.
I have a printer that uses ink cartridges. Is it possible to fix a tank to my printer and stop using cartridges?
Yes, it is possible, but it is messy, difficult, and you need a chip on the cartridge..
Buy a new Ink Tank printer. Cheaper based on just the effort involved. The ink is so cheap it makes up the cost of a new printer in a short period of time compared to the old cartridge system.