From: Ronn!Blankenship <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> At 12:04 AM 10/5/03 -0400, Bryon Daly wrote:
Epson printers for sure are chipped (eeprom, not RFID, tho) to make them hard to refill. The eeprom tracks how much ink is used, so the printer knows when the cartridge is near empty*, and refuses to print with it any further. Lexmark too. HP tracks usage, but I think only gives annoying low-ink warnings rather than blocking use. HP also tracks the expiration date in their ink cartridges; I saw an article a while back about a guy who lost $200 in new ink cartridges because he tried to print to his HP while he had his PC date set a year or two in the future (for some sort of Y2K-ish type testing he was doing). The printer thought the carts were "old", and voided them so they could no longer be used, *even after he set the date back!*. And of course, he wrecked a few sets, swapping them in before he figured out the situation, and also of course HP refused to replace/fix them for him.
Unless they have a clear warning somewhere that something like that can happen, I think they should have fixed them for him. Did he continue to use a HP printer after that?
It was an online article I read a while back, I don't remember if he kept the printer or not.
Some may be clear. The ones for my Canon printer aren't. But then, it is one of the few parts of this system which has never been replaced since I got it in 1995. (It still works, and since most of what I print is in black ink only because I am going to make multiple photocopies for class—handouts, tests, etc.—or are business letters where fancy graphics would be inappropriate. And it does print color well enough for the times I need that.)
I'm believe all the current new canon inkjets have clear carts, at least.
Not to mention that Wal-Mart has both genuine Canon replacement cartridges and 3rd-party refill kits on the shelf, so if I am working on something in the middle of the night which absolutely, positively must be ready and printed out in the morning, and I run out of ink, I can have a new, full cartridge in the printer in half an hour . . .
Cool!
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