Is Refilling Cheaper than Using OEM INKS?

[turbguy]

There is NO DOUBT IN MY MIND that refilling reduces the cost of printing. In my (informal) analysis, the MEDIA (paper) becomes the most expensive consumable...

Wayne

 

[jtoolman]

But think about the fact that the papers costs would have always been there.
Even when using OCP K3 inks on my 3800 which come out to around 3 cents a ml per color I am still shelling out about $3-$5 per sheet of fine paper. Which would have been the case whether I was printing with OEM or my current OPC inks

 

[turbguy]

But think about the fact that the papers costs would have always been there.
Even when using OCP K3 inks on my 3800 which come out to around 3 cents a ml per color I am still shelling out about $3-$5 per sheet of fine paper. Which would have been the case whether I was printing with OEM or my current OPC inks

I'm talking about plain paper, 8 1/2 x 11 copier, less than 1 cent per sheet..

Wayne

 

[jtoolman]

Sure if you are printing documents on plain paper but a lot of us print images and expect premium results.
Refilling our carts still slashes our overall costs so much that the papers we choose to use are the only real cost issue, not including our printers of course.

 

[turbguy]

Sure if you are printing documents on plain paper but a lot of us print images and expect premium results.
Refilling our carts still slashes our overall costs so much that the papers we choose to use are the only real cost issue, not including our printers of course.

I agree. I believe the capacity of a black BCI-6 cart is about 400 sheets of text (nominal). At $12 per OEM cart, that's about 3 cents of ink per plain paper sheet. Refilling the OEM cart with Hobbicolors works out to be about 0.2 cents per sheet. How can you loose, even if you just print text?

Wayne

 

[websnail]

The one cost that most people forget about is time... When you're on the business end of things and start getting the varied support requests you soon realise that some folks are more suited to refilling than others.

Quite aside from physical limitations such as motor function, agility, etc... there's the sort of learning curve and fear of technology or practical things that can turn a potential refiller into a wobbling wreck of sweat and puddles of ink.

To put it another way, I have a customer here in the business centre where our workshop is now located and he's made it clear he just "wants it to work" to the extent that he's got his two youngest employees getting trained up on how to refill and letting them handle it. Time wise he doesn't want the hassle and while cost saving is a plus, having it work is more important and getting messy is not something he wants (ironic seeing as he's constantly up to his arms in grease, metal shavings, etc.. ).

But you get the idea... It's nice to talk in absolutes but there's more to the equation than money...

 

[The Hat]

Quite aside there's the sort of learning curve and fear of technology or practical things
that can turn a potential refiller into a wobbling wreck of sweat and puddles of ink....

Websnail, have you been secretly videoing me again while I refill...

 

[websnail]

Quite aside there's the sort of learning curve and fear of technology or practical things
that can turn a potential refiller into a wobbling wreck of sweat and puddles of ink....

Websnail have you been secretly videoing me again while I refilling...

Nah... it's a geek style webcam service... Premium rate

 

[et91fr]

Above all, it is more fun to refill !

 

[barfl2]

my problem is that my Canon Pixma MP620 seems to be doing a lot more cleaning cycles. It sounds like every few pages it does a head clean. My ink seem to be disappearing fast these days, I hope that there is not a problem coming. I always replace a cart on a low ink warning, but not I confess the entire set like MP640 which is sensible approach to reducing cleaning cycles.