Finding cartridge capacities

[Osage]

My main criteria in selecting an inkjet printer is economy measured in terms of
ink consumable costs. These forums are one of the few sites where one can find quality information from people not marketeers puffing products.

While its not a hard and fast rule, all inkjets use ink about equally. So the more ink in a cartridge the more pages you can print.

For a hypothetical standard page consumable costs become --------

number of pages cartridge can print divided by the cost of the cartridge yields consumable costs in pennies per page.

A good part of the these forums seek to cheat the equation by driving the costs of a cartridge down by refilling or selecting quality third party cartridges.-----and getting close to or exceeding OEM quality.

But for the average Joe consumer its stick to OEM cartridges and never investigate costs.

From what I can see, and using OEM inks in an inkjet printer, for the hypothetical
5% coverage, these costs range from three cents at best to up to thirty cents at worse. A rather HUGE range depending on printer make and model to print the same given page. ( see printer tests in Tom's gardware guide for source information for these figures. )

And before anyone says its because the printer manufacturers make their money on ink not printers, I will hasten to agree. And your dead give away to a printer that will eat you out of house and home, is a printer with small capacity cartridges underfilled at that and at higher than average cartridge price.

So it would seem step one for a fairly uneducated consumer would be to check the ink volume in a the cartridges used by a given printer they are interested in buying by looking at cartridge specifications. Easy advice to give, often difficult to implement. And printer's manufacturer average page yield is not be be trusted nor is it standardised.

AND AS A GENERAL RULE FINDING INK VOLUME IN A CARTRIDGE IS SOMETHING DIFFICULT TO FIND.------I sometimes find my self going to twenty or more sites
before I SOMETIMES find the information. Some manufacturers freely publish cartridge ink content in mililiters and many hide that information. But I do enjoy researching those type questions.

What is needed is a web site that has this information or does anyone know of a web site where this information on the volume of OEM ink in a cartridge can be found easily and across all manufacters and printer model? If not, such a web site is sorely needed and would also be likely to bring the consumers better printers as a result.

 

[JV]

Osage,

The BCI-6 cartridges have 13 ml or cc of ink, as on the OEM package. 4 cc remains in the cartridge at the empty signal. It takes about 0.7 cc of ink to print one 8 x 10 photo. One OEM cart is $10 and a compatible cart is $1.86. The ink cost with compatible carts is 186 x 0.7 / (13-4) = 15 cents per 8 x 10 photo. With OEM carts ink cost is 1000 x 0.7 /(13-4) = 78 cents per 8 x 10 photo.

See http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=3236#p3236 Post#34 for detailed calculations.

When refilling, ink cost is 6 cents/8 x 10 photo from Grandad's estimate.

See http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=3146#p3146 Post#1 for detailed analysis.

These are the only more detailed ink cost estimates that I am aware of. As you can see there are quite a few items in the estimate and there can be variation in the results.

Compatible cartridges and ink also have to compared with OEM on the basis of the printed color they produce with and without custom printer profiles and as to how soon the ink fades.

JV

 

[drc023]

With my i950 I could print between 45 to 50 full bleed 8.5x11's before getting the first low ink warning and with my iP4000 it's around 40 to 45. When the low ink warning pops up, there is still quite a bit of ink remaining in the sponge which would allow for additional printing if I chose not to refill at that time. While these numbers may be different than what you report, they actually are consistent. If solid coverage with only a single color was used then around 17-18 8x10's could be printed which is about .7cc per print. From a cost standpoint, the per sheet cost drops even more when refilling is factored in. Depending upon the quantity of ink purchased/price the cost to refill a single tank could be only a few pennies. I've calculated my current ink cost per 8.5x11 photo to be around 3.

 

[Osage]

While I thank both JV and drc023 for posting their insights on their Canon experiences, I point out that this covers basically only the BCI-6 cartridge line. But it does point out the huge savings to be had.

JV's seventy eight cent estimate for an OEM color 8x 10 print is in remarkable agreement with the April / 05 consumer report estimate of eighty cents. And also in agreement with the Tom's hardware guide reviews of SOME selected printers.
That JV slashed his costs with non-oem cartridges from 78 cents to six cents is not only huge its also wonderfull. And along comes drc023 pointing out he can cut that another 50% by refilling.

But the intent of my post is to ask how the average consumer can find quality information about printers on the internet.-------or even get quality per page cost estimates unless their short list is one of the very FEW well reviewed printers where a cost estimate exists.

For example and at the request of a friend I was asked about the new Epson c88.
Went to the Epson web site and found nothing about cartridge capacity or even a highly dubious manufacturers estimated yield. And spent quite a bit more time checking other independent reviews and still could not find that one simple answer of how many ML's of ink are there in the various cartridges.

Either I am not a very good searcher or that basic information is well hidden. And the c88 is just one of many examples.-----and how is the average consumer to determine if any printer in the store has excellent economy, so so economy, or is an ink hog that will eat you out of house and home.

In my own case, I spent countless hours on the internet researching what printer to buy-------and most of that time was wasted sifting through junk information. I did not find the nifty stuff forums until after I decided to buy an ip4000.

I have to feel that I made a fairly good choice and now really notice when I am at walmart and see the person ahead of me in line blowing another fifty bucks or more on replacement cartridges. I used to be exactly like that person ahead of me in line. I still ask why is it so hard for the average person to find quality information
on printers and consumable costs?

And if any web site exists that show how much ink is in a given cartridge at a glance?