Earth Day Coupon

In celebration for Earth Day, O-ink is offering a 10% off coupon until April 27th for the following items.

Computer cables, replacement inkjet and toner cartridges, fax film.

Visit our website at www.oinkinkstore.com and use the coupon earthday.

Help everyone by recycling, not just on earth day but every day of the year.

Earth Day and Inkjet Printers

Earth Day 2008 is just around the corner and once again we are reminded about how much we waste and that we should recycle.

Printers are no different. Today I am going to pick on inkjet printers. Here are somethings to help you reduce your ink usage.

1. TURN IT OFF – Leaving a printer on will waste power. On some printers, they run automatic cleaning cycles, while this keeps the nozzles clear, it does use ink. If it is off, it can not run.
2. Play with your quality settings – Ever look at the preferences for your printer (Also called the printer driver), it can be a powerful tool. You can change paper settings, quality settings, double sided printing and more. I recommend that people look at the quality settings. Lowering the quality will reduce the ink that your printer uses when it prints a page. Also turning on the black ink only will not use your color cartridge.
3. Do you need it printed? *Disclaimer* I sell printer cartridges for a living and want you to print as much as you can so you can buy more cartridges from me, but I would rather be honest to you.* Do you really need to print that off or is it going to be thrown away like most things?
4. Use scrap paper – Why waste a new sheet of paper for something a quarter page long, use that paper that you just thrown out.
5. Be careful on photos – Once again, while I love people printing photos off, get a digital picture frame. If you need to print it off, make sure you want it.
6. Get a Black Laser Printer – While Color lasers are the rage right now, their cost are actually higher than inkjets, a black laser printer is a good investment. Usually they are cheaper to run and faster than an inkjet printer.

Also, check out this video that I was referred to. Makes things interesting.

The Dirty Little Secret of Inkjet Printers – Click here for more home videos
Have a happy Earth Day and do your part by buying recycled products

New Products from O-ink

Time for a quick update with what are some of the new products we are carrying and selling both on our website or at our two stores.

Canon PGI-5 Black and CLI-8 Colors – Since Canon has came out with the PGI and CLI series of cartridges, they have jumped ahead in quality and service in many polls (PCMag.com for one). A problem for the refillers on this cartridge was the fact that Canon included a chip that recognized the cartridge. Well after being on the market for 2 years, there is now a way to reset the chips. Currently the PGI-5 Black CLI-8 Black CLI-8 Cyan CLI-8 Magenta and the CLI-8 Yellow are all in-stock. The two photo cartridges are coming soon. These are all filled to the same as the OEM cartridges and carry our one year satisfaction guarantee.

HP 74XL and 75XL - The new 74/75 series is replacing the 90 series of cartridges. Each cartridge comes in two flavors, standard and XL. While the Standard cartridge is cheaper, the XL cartridge has double the cost for triple the page yield, simply put, it is cheaper for the consumer. These are all filled to the same as the OEM cartridges and carry our one year satisfaction guarantee.

Dell 1320 Color Laser Cartridges – The Dell 1320 is a small color laser printer that runs around $300 to buy from Dell or Staples. While they do not have the best page yield, it does offer a customer a color laser printer at a low price.

Lexmark Replacement 24035/24015/34015HA/34035HA Black Laser HY – The Lexmark 24015 and 24035 are both 2500 page yield cartridges while the 34015/34035 are both 6000 page yields.  While they may look the same, they do not work in the other’s printers due to the chip.  The replacement that O-ink has are at the 6,000 page yield mark for both of them.  It will work in the following printers:

Lexmark: E230, E232, E234, E238, E240, E330, E332, E340, E342
Dell: 1700, 1700n, 1710
IBM: 1412, 1512

The Difference in Cartridges

Everyone who has ever bought a cartridge has had this thought at least once, ‘is this the best cartridge for my printing needs’.  Okay, well something like that at least.  Let me show you the difference in some of the cartridges out there.

Photo Cartridges – Worth it or not?

A big word in the printer industry is at home photo printing.  You can sit down in your pj’s and print photos out at home, without driving across town to get them done, not to mention, get showered, dressed, if you have kids get them ready, you get the idea.  Some printers from Canon, HP, Lexmark, and Dell have an optional Photo Cartridge that can be put in to make your photos look better.

A Photo Cartridge contains Black, and Cyan and Magenta, however, the latter two are different shades than your Cyan and Magenta in your color cartridge.  Most of the time the Photo Cartridge replaces the Black cartridge.  Some cases it has it’s own space in the printer, but this is mainly on higher end HP models.  When you have a photo cartridge with a color cartridge this gives you 6 color printing, not the 4 color printing that you get with a black and a color.

So is it worth the extra couple of dollars?  Most of the time, no.  However, this depends on how keen your eyes are to tell the difference between 4 and 6 color printing.  And keep in mind that just because your print came with a photo cartridge, does not mean you need to keep buying it.

Moderate Yield & Standard Yield & High Yield

Take a look at a Lexmark 17 and Lexmark 16 cartridge, what is the difference?  Most people say about $12 and one says moderate and the other says standard.  What does moderate and standard mean?  That is a fancy way of saying low yield and standard yield.  Any cartridge that says moderate yield means it does 2 to three times fewer pages than the standard or the high yield cartridges (HP calls them the XL versions).  As for price wise, while the standard or high yield cartridges do cost more, if you look at the cost per page the standard or high yield is lower than it is with a moderate or low yield.

So what cartridges are affected by this?  Here is a brief list, remember that when you buy a printer, that usually the cartridges you get are not the full set.  The first number is the low or moderate yield/Standard yield/High yield (if applied).

Lexmark:

17/16, 27/26, 19/20/25, 49/50/55, 60/65, 71/70/75, 32/34, 28/34, 33/35, 29/35

HP:

27/56 (on select models), 28/57 (on select models), 21/27/56 (on select models), 22/28 (on select models), 88/88XL, 74/74XL, 75/75XL, 78/78XL

Epson’s Nine Pin Fuse

Since the ruling against Ninestar, the only Epson cartridges that can be sold by small shops like O-ink, besides Epson Brand,  are refilled Epson cartridges that the cores come from the USA.

Now this is fine for most Epson cartridges.  Some of the old models and some of the pro series of printers, those cartridges are hard to come by, but any of the seven pin cartridges are an easy find.  Let me explain Pins, when I mention pins, I mean contacts on the chip that Epson puts on the vast majority of their cartridges.

However, around a year, year and half ago, Epson came out with a new chip, a nine pin chip.  This chip has a micro-fuse built into it.  So what is the problem you may ask?  When these printers that take the 9-pin cartridge read the cartridge as empty, that fuse burns out.  Rendering the cartridge completely useless.  While people in my industry are looking for solutions, currently you are stuck buying new Epson Brand cartridges.

What about the at home user looking to refill cheaply?  With both the T069, T077, and T078 series of cartridges they can not be done.  Until someone legally designs a replacement chip, or figures a way to prevent the fuse from going, we are out of luck.