Monday, April 8, 2002		Article

Avoid refilled cartridges for high-resolution printers
Vipul Verma

In this section, this week, we will primarily, take up issues related to the printers. It is the printer that brings project, text, documents or any other work from virtual to real world. Therefore, issues related to the printer should not be taken lightly and rather should be dealt with carefully.

The first issue related to the printer comes at the time of buying it. Normally, an average computer user does not ever research the available range of printers in the market. It is worth mentioning here that there is a huge range of printers available in the market that caters to the need of different segment of users. For example, for an accounting office purpose, the dot matrix printer would be ideal, but for other offices where a lot of communication is being done through letters, a good heavy-duty desk jet printer or a laser printer would be apt. Even for home users the best solution in general is the desk jet printer. There is a huge range of printers available in the each of above-mentioned category i.e. dot matrix, desk jet and laser. In general, for home users and small offices the choice of desk jet printers is the most common. But which printer should one buy. Well! The answer to this question is not very simple and would depend on the need of individual user. However one thing can be said for sure that one should not blindly buy the printers or should not solely depend on the advice of the hardware vendor.

The first criterion of selecting a printer is the DPI or dots per inch. As of now, for desk jet printers, 1200X1200 DPI print resolution is the minimum required. Depending upon the price, 600 X 600 DPI print resolution printers are also in vogue. Since the higher print resolution represented by higher DPI consumes more ink, thus for heavy usage a relatively lower DPI printer could also be chosen depending upon the type of work. In general for an average home user, 1200 x 1200 DPI resolution printer should be the ideal choice. Since in desk jet printers the running cost or the cost of printing a page is high, thus one should also thoroughly research the aspects related to the ink cartridges and its duty cycle.

One should also make sure that the comparison is being done on parallel ground, which means that if the benchmark is economy mode then duty cycle of the ink cartridge of different printers should be evaluated in this mode only. The third consideration should be the versatility of the printer. These days one of the common features is the printer's photo quality printing capability. Although a majority of the printers available today are capable of photo quality printing, still they differ in features. Some desk jet printers like HP need separate cartridges for photo printing, but some other printers like Epson do not require any special cartridge for photo printing and the same cartridge could be used for normal printing as well as photo printing. Some other additional versatile features of the printers are capability of printing on transparencies, T-shirts, banner printing, card printing etc. Though a person may not be able to use all available features yet since these features do not come at extra price, therefore it makes sense to choose a printer that is more versatile in features.

After selecting and buying a printer, the next important task is of maintenance and economical running. The first care, which is also one of the most important parts of the maintenance of the printer, is to protect it from dust and humidity. Dust and humidity are the biggest enemies of the printer and can cause serious damage besides poor performance. Thus you should always keep the printers covered when it is not in use. The second important aspect related to the maintenance is to handle the printer with care. This means that whenever your handle important parts like printer head either for changing the ink cartridge or for general cleaning, you should never touch the printer head from below that is the point where the ink is dispensed. Also you should take care not touch the printer circuitry as the static electricity of the body can cause damage to the electronics circuitry of the printer head. If you are not using printer for a long time, then you should always clean the printer head before using it. For cleaning the printer's head, you do not have to remove it as most of the printers provide software utilities for cleaning the printer head.

Also you should take care that if the printer is not in use, then you should disconnect it from the mains by either switching it off from the mains or unplugging it. It is worth mentioning here that some electricity is being consumed even if the printer is switched off. Also, you must use the printer on the UPS as voltage fluctuations could cause serious damage to your printer.

The next and one of the most important issue related to the printer is of refilling the ink cartridges. This is a critical question and needs to be addressed carefully. The refilling of ink cartridges is acceptable in cases, where the printer head is not a big issue. Normally in budget range and economy printers the print head is not a problem and is also not very expensive. In some printers the print head is being replaced with the ink cartridge whereas in some other printers, the print head is fixed and only the tanks are replaced. Using refilled cartridges is not a problem if the replacement of print head does not involve much cost. But in cases like Epson 680 printer, where the print head is quite expensive, it is not advisable to use a refilled ink cartridges.

There is another rule of thumb related to the use of refilled ink cartridges, as per which you should avoid using refilled ink cartridges for high-resolution printers. Since in the high-resolution printers, the nozzle size of the print head is small, therefore using re-filled ink cartridges could block these nozzles and can thus affect the performance of your printer. Clogging of the nozzles could also lead to damage to your print head causing unnecessary expenditure. Therefore for low resolution and entry-level printers you can use refilled ink cartridges, but for high-end printers you should only use original cartridges.