Customer Appreciation Day – Coupon

5 years ago on June 2nd, 2003, O-ink opened the Mt. Pleasant Store. After making it for 5 years, we have decided to throw a little bit of a party of sorts for you, our customers.

Our First Annual Customer Appreciation Day

If you live either near Mt. Pleasant or Saint Johns Michigan, you can stop in our stores that day and get 10% off replacement cartridges. If you have an HP or Lexmark cartridge that we can refill, you get 50% off.

For those of you who shop on the web, at our website, www.oinkinkstore.com, you can get 10% off any replacement cartridges using the following coupon code at the check out, thankyou.  This offer is valid only on June 2nd, 2008.

In New Cartridge news:

We have added some new products to our website and store’s computer systems. First is the high yield replacement for the Lexmark T430. This is a 12,000 yield cartridge priced at 189.99. The second cartridge will be available June 6th, is the HP CB435, which goes into the HP Laserjet P1005 and P1006 printers. This cartridge is rated for 1500 pages and cost 57.99

Using the right paper in your printer.

I do apologize as it has been a while since I have posted.  Family things and other work items have taken me away for a bit.

Paper, it all pretty much seems the same, but it really isn’t.  You have copy, inkjet, laser, photo, label, speciality, transparancy, and many more that I am forgetting.  I am just going to talk about some tips about paper and printers.

1.  Only use paper made for your printer:  Inkjet printers are really not made for laser paper and laser printers are not designed for inkjet.  Inkjet paper is made to hold in the ink, while laser paper is designed to withstand the high heat that a laser printer puts out.  While actual inkjet and laser paper cost more, a safe bet is multi-use paper.

2.  Photo paper in laser printers, only if you want to ruin it:  Photo paper is made to hold ink, not toner from laser printers.  Putting in photo paper into a laser printer to print off a photo is all good, but you might ruin the laser printer as the toner has nothing to fuse to.  Unless the paper says it is made for laser printers, do not put it in there.

3.  Labels – Everything for labels is the same as photo paper.

The paper you use depends on the output you get.  If you want photo quality, use photo paper made for your printer (i.e. HP printer – HP paper).  Sometimes off brands are okay, but stick with the name brands on photo paper.

Oil prices and printer cartridge cost

Everyone and their brother/sister has been watching oil prices go up and up and up.  There seems to be no end.  With higher oil prices, means higher fuel cost, which in turns means higher prices for almost everything.  However, most people just look at the fuel prices.  Here at our St. Johns store, fuel prices are around $3.69 for unleaded today.  But what about the other products of oil, mainly, plastics.

Yes that wonderful non-degrading product we use daily is made out of oil.  I recently read an article that stated that a laser toner cartridge on average has between 1/2 to 1 gallon of oil in the creation process, while Inkjet cartridges are around 1-3 quarts.  This can add up over time.  The question is when will companies like HP, Lexmark, and Canon pass on the cost of the plastics on to consumers.  I would guess it is only a matter of time and here are the factors.

1. Cartridges are their money makers, even for a large company like HP.  So if their margins slip, they want to keep investors happy, they would raise prices.
2. Shipping cost have increased.  We have all seen this in food, gas, and everyday purchases.
3. The cartridge bodies are made from plastic – Plastic is made from oil.  It only makes sense that the prices would increase.

I am GUESSING that by the end of the year, if oil prices increase like they have been, that printer cartridges could see an increase in 5-10% for OEM or brand name cartridges.

However, using recycled and refilled printer cartridges should not see as big of increase for one main reason, we are not making new cartridge bodies.  We use the shell they made and add ink to it and make it work.  Which is why I promote using refilled and recycled cartridges.  Visit our website to see all of our refilled printer cartridges.

Estimated Ink Levels

Just had a customer today return two bad color cartridges that we sold her.  The first one we got from our supplier and it was electronicly dead.  The second one was a cartridge we had just refilled in house.  She had brought the cartridge in from her printer cause it had just been emptied, 13.99 plus tax she had the same cartridge with ink in it ready to go.

Her complaint was that the one we refilled said it was empty.  I assured her it would and reminder her that according to HP, the Ink Levels are estimates only as they can not tell you the actual amount in there due to the kind of cartridge HP designed.  She still wanted her money back, even after I put it on the scale for her (showing that it was 3 grams above full).

So how do you tell how much ink is in your cartridge?  Well, if you own a Brother or Canon printer that takes the single tank cartridges, you are fine.  Canon and Brother employ an optical sensor to view the levels.  HP, Lexmark, and Dell use estimators.  These estimators go off from page count, paper used,  and quality level.  So how off can they be?  It all depends on the printer, some printers, they are right on, maybe have a error ratio of less than 5%.  Others, especially HP printers that use the 57 color and 58 photo, can be off from 70% to 100%.  While it is rare, we do get people turning in ‘empty’ HP cartridges that by weight, are completely full.  Going back to the question posted above, how do you tell?  There are two main ways.

1.  Time – You have an idea on how long a cartridge should last you, couple months or a year, each person is different.  Any cartridge you put into your printer should last as long, assuming your printing habits do not change.

2.  Quality – If what you print starts to look bad, there are only two possible reasons, dirty or empty.  Most of the time it means they are empty.

What about the cartridge that O-ink sells, how do I know they are full?  Every cartridge that O-ink fills in house is weighed two times before we seal it.  Our Factory filled cartridges are weighed 3 times before they leave.  We have the full weights and empty weights for every cartridge that we have the ability to fill, so we can tell you how full your cartridge is.