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Consumables
cost a lot of money, and the cost
savings of compatible or recycled
cartridges equates to a real
reduction in your printing costs.
But unlike other consumables like
CD-Rs or printer paper, inkjet
cartridges are exactly and carefully
engineered to match the printers for
which they are designed. These
strict performance and compatibility
requirements may make you think
twice about saving money on an
off-brand cartridge. Therefore, A
little research may save you cash
because, while manufacturers
encourage you to use their own-brand
consumables, Compatible cartridges
are available for most printers.
TYPES
OF INK
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Whatever
technology is applied to printer
hardware, the final product consists
of ink on paper, these two elements
are vitally important when it comes
to producing quality results. Two
entirely different types of ink are
used in inkjet printers: Dye based
and pigmented. Dye based ink have
high brilliance and wide colour
gamut, but are not light fast or
water-fast enough. They are slow at
penetrating and take about ten
seconds to dry. However, Pigmented
inks are more waterproof and
fade-resistant and fast-drying which
dry at about 100 times this speed.
The former is generally better
suited to straightforward monochrome
printing, while the latter is used
for colour. With colour printing,
because different inks are mixed,
they need to dry as quickly as
possible to avoid blurring. If
slow-drying ink is used for colour
printing, the colours tend to bleed
into one another before they’ve
dried.
Original
Equipment Manufacturer(OEM) INK
CARTRIDGES
A
brand name inkjet carries the brand
name of the manufacturer on it,
usually the same as the printer
manufacturer, for example, Epson,
Canon, Hewlett Packard, etc.
Value Shop have worked hard to bring
you the latest OEM products at
superb prices.
COMPATIBLE
INK CARTRIDGES
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A
company other than the original
printer manufacturer manufactures
compatible or unbranded inkjet
cartridges.
There are a large number
of such manufacturers and the
quality of their product can vary
according to the quality of ink they
use.
Compatible cartridges are
completely new, generally reliable
and perform as well as brand name
cartridges.
REMANUFACTURED
INK CARTRIDGES
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A
remanufactured inkjet cartridge, by
definition, is a cartridge, which
has been refilled with ink.
Primarily you will only find
remanufactured Inkjet cartridges for
Hewlett Packard, Lexmark and some
Canon printers, as they have
patented their inkjet cartridge
designs. Therefore, Many people
choose to refill their own Ink
cartridges, as there are refill
stations available to do it you.
COST
OF INK CARTRIDGES
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The
cost of brand name inkjet cartridges
can be exceedingly high in
comparison to compatible or
remanufactured inkjet cartridges. In
many cases, compatible inkjet
cartridges can be as much as 70%
less than the cost of brand name
cartridges making them a good
economical option.
It
is easy to source cartridges for
Epson, Hewlett Packard and Canon
printers.
The Epson type has a fixed
print head and the Hewlett Packard
type has print heads in the
cartridges. Canon produces printers
of both types and a halfway system
with a removable print head unit
that takes small cartridges.
The
fixed print head printer (Epson)
uses cheaper cartridges that are
only ink tanks. It has one drawback;
if the printer is only used
occasionally, the print head can dry
out and become blocked. The printer
is then likely to be a write-off. It
is almost very difficult to clear a
blocked print head.
The
printer that has print heads in the
cartridges (Hewlett Packard,
Lexmark, Canon) can also suffer from
a blocked print head. If this should
happen, only a cartridge is lost.
Print head cartridges cost more than
the ink tank type but often contain
more ink.
Epson
have introduced a series of inkjet
printers that use chipped inkjet
cartridges. The microchips offer no
advantages to the user over the
original system that Epson used for
its earlier printers to indicate the
amount of ink left. Epson introduced
the chips to make it difficult if
not impossible for the compatible
cartridge makers to produce
cartridges for the new printers.
Nevertheless, the compatible
companies have now produced
cartridges with compatible chips.
These tend to cost slightly more
than the unchipped cartridges but
are still considerably cheaper than
the Epson originals; search for the
latest prices on our site.
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