Dye ink V’s Pigment ink...

[Fenrir Enterprises]

I think maybe for pigments vs dye the viscosity is just different enough that the printers have a harder time 'priming' it? I also have hard clogs in my Epson with dye but the Epson with pigment will be fine after a few cleaning cycles. It probably also has to do with refillable cartridges not quite matching spec with genuine ones so it 'loses priming' more easily.

If you have a lot of documents you should probably just get a laser printer. I never use my photo printers for documents. I have a color laser printer I got on clearance (HP LaserJet Pro 200 m276nw) and I buy whatever generic cartridges are the cheapest and have at least 100 reviews on Amazon. Because the drum is on the cart there's little risk of breaking the printer itself, though I guess you could have a massive toner spill if you got a bad refill. Now and then one doesn't last (bad streaking) until the toner is gone, but since generics are almost 90% cheaper than the brand name I can have 5 backup sets around if I wanted to and still be way ahead. I also have a small B&W (HP P1505) I bought a few years before I found the 200. Just be sure if you buy one, make sure you research that aftermarket carts are widely available, are significantly cheaper (there's some that only average 25% cheaper than brand name, personally I wouldn't buy a printer I couldn't get generics at 75% or less) and don't have chip issues.

The aftermarket carts for every laser printer I've had or worked with are cheap enough I see zero need to learn to do it myself.

 

[Paul Verizzo]

Why is it that guys say pigment ink printers clog more than dye ink printers.

I started the switch to pigment inks more than ten years ago because of their more obvious advantages, and one was not clogging, in fact I taught I’d have more clogs with the pigment inks, which turned out to be the exact opposite.

I’ve had less issues with clogs using pigment inks than I did with dye inks, and since then have phased out all my dye ink printers in regular use, except the iP4500, which seems immune to clogging..

The one exception I had was the Maxify, it just didn’t like 3rd party inks and clogged up on a regular basics and had be cleaned a lot before use, but the same inks worked flawlessly in the Pro9500.

The older printers worked easier with 3rd party inks without issues, but there is a greater need to be careful with the newer printers, it’s too easy to damage the print head after only a couple of refills..

Ah, the iP4500! After one died, I actually found a brand new one on eBay! Yeah, it cost several times of what they were selling for 15? years ago, but well worth it to me.