HP Ink Jet Printer Ink expires and useless?

[ultrarunner]

Ive had printers over 40 years but only in the last few have nearly full cartridges "Expired" requiring replacement.

These printers are for specific functions which have regular use but low page counts.

Is this a new thing across the board or only with HP printers and HP ink?

Also a few issues with HP LaserJet printers where a cartridge is moved from one machine location to another machine in another location... mostly in a pinch which results in a Not Genuine cartridge or stop printing until dialog box satisfied...

 

[mrmikey]

Sorry for not answering your question but a comment.
I think HP has the worst proprietary software for their peripherals imaginable, I refuse to buy their crap at all. Last HP printer/scanner I.....had because I bought aftermarket cartridges at less than 1/2 price I had to go thru a resetting dance every time I used the cursed thing. I ended up putting my fist thru the glass tray and chucking it in the driveway. Got a few odd looks from my daughter when she showed up later in the day but she nodded her head knowing what happened.
As for moving the cartridges from one machine to another, yup I've heard that once their installed on a specific machine, it's tied to that machine. How dare you try and use something you've purchased the way you want to .
Sorry for the rant but that kind of crap ticks me off to no end, my theory is you've bought it it's yours to do with what you want................Mike

 

[Tinhack]

I quit buying HP printers years ago. I think the last one was an HP Deskjet 500 (or something like that). I've had Epson, Canon and some old Geminis going back to the "typewriter ribbon" days. Now, I keep going back to Brother. The Brother ink cartridges don't expire but the machines go through a cleaning process once a week whether it's turned on or not. If it's plugged in, it cleans once a week--Even if you just printed 500 pages. They all place selling ink ahead of printer prices. And they all have different methods of determining ink level.

I really like my old Brother Laser more than any ink printer I've had. It's an old MFC-9320CW and I can still get supplies. I can't plug anything else into the same outlet while it's running but it always starts up and runs without failure. I happened to pick it up at an auction a few years ago for like $10 (I was the only bidder). When I checked the internal stats, it had less than 10 hours on it.

 

[MossRoad]

Ive had printers over 40 years but only in the last few have nearly full cartridges "Expired" requiring replacement.

These printers are for specific functions which have regular use but low page counts.

Is this a new thing across the board or only with HP printers and HP ink?

Also a few issues with HP LaserJet printers where a cartridge is moved from one machine location to another machine in another location... mostly in a pinch which results in a Not Genuine cartridge or stop printing until dialog box satisfied...

Ink jet ink goes bad if sitting on the shelf for long periods of time. It does the same thing if sitting in a machine for a long time with little and/or intermittent use.

With that said, many printers will now know if the cartridge you are using is from a 3rd party and not “genuine”. I had some Epson printers like that. They’d complain about non-genuine Epson blah blah… when the cartridge was installed, but if you OK’d it, it would no longer complain. If, however, you removed the cartridge for some reason, and reinstalled it, it would complain again. Sometimes it might complain if the power was removed for a period of time, too, like if a power strip got turned off.

Similar things when we used remanufactured toner cartridges in laser printers. You had to acknowledge that it was not genuine HP toner cartridge.

That kind of stuff probably started 15 years ago.

 

[mrmikey]

I really like my old Brother Laser more than any ink printer I've had.

Same here, mines a L23800, don't use it much but it's a good 3-4 years old and has aftermarket reman toner cartridges in it, works like a charm....M

 

[Tinhack]

Ink jet ink goes bad if sitting on the shelf for long periods of time. It does the same thing if sitting in a machine for a long time with little and/or intermittent use.

Laser powder does too. But, if a cartridge hasn't been used for a while, you can treat it as a new one by performing the same initial step(s). Typically, this is shaking to mix or rotating/shaking the cartridges to loosen toner. Just don't shake a toner cartridge upside down.

 

[5030]

I keep going back to Brother.

All we use here and we have 3. I'm 100% sold on Brother printers (inkjet). You can purchase aftermarket cartridges that are as good as OEM and inexpensive. They make good sewing machines as well, my wife has one.

 

[ultrarunner]

Had a feeling not all printers have similar restrictions...

The ink pack was well over $100 and had 19 months to expiration... maybe a 100 pages so over a buck a page!

 

[MossRoad]

Laser powder does too. But, if a cartridge hasn't been used for a while, you can treat it as a new one by performing the same initial step(s). Typically, this is shaking to mix or rotating/shaking the cartridges to loosen toner. Just don't shake a toner cartridge upside down.

And don’t use a regular vacuum cleaner to suck up toner. It can be explosive.

And if you get toner on your hands or clothes, don’t use hot water to clean it up. Heat sets it. Use cold water.

 

[5030]

The one thing I really like about Brother printers is, the 'ink trap' which is where the residual ink goes when doing a nozzle cleaning, don't impact the overall operation of the machine. Most printers have an 'end of life' sequence programmed into their ECM that renders the printer inoperative when that time cycle is reached whether the 'ink tank' is saturated or not. Cannon Pixma printers are noted for that especially. Planned obsolence at it's best. You can remove the 'residual ink tank' on a brother and clean / empty it, though I never have because I don't 'clean the nozzles' too much. So long as the print quality remains good, they don't get cleaned.

Had a Pixma that expired due to the 'end of life' program in the ecm and basically there is no work around so it went to the landfill (printer heaven) and was replaced with Brother's and no more Cannon printers here. Pixma's do print nicely but are basically worthless in my opinion. You can have the fastest throughput and the best reproduction but if the machine becomes a useless rock after a pre determined amount of time. they aren't worth beans in my opinion.

 

[MossRoad]

Had a feeling not all printers have similar restrictions...

The ink pack was well over $100 and had 19 months to expiration... maybe a 100 pages so over a buck a page!

I used to buy aftermarket cartridges online for our Epson at home. Great deals out there. Just don’t be tempted to ’stock up’ too much, as it’ll go bad sitting on the shelf after a few years.

At the newspaper, we hired a company to maintain all of the laser printers. They would supply the toner stock, perform the PMs, and supply usage and cost figures to accounting each month. We also had them service the large plotters that were ink-jet with large capacity ink wells. We did our best to eliminate as many inkjet and laser personal printers throughout the company, and severely restrict color printer permissions. That didn’t go over real well, but saved us a ton of money in ink and paper.

I also found that by switching from the default font to a more efficient font saved us about 30% on toner costs, so we implemented that company-wide, and I got a coffee mug for my efforts.

 

[Hughman]

I gave up on ink jet printers all together decades ago and went with Brother laser printers. Toner cartridges last a lot longer than ink cartridges. It does kind of restrict you to B&W printing, but if you can live with that, they are a lot cheaper and more reliable to operate.

Hack tip... When the "replace toner" light comes on, put a piece of masking tape over the site hole on the side of the cartridge and you can get a lot more use out of the toner before it quits working.

 

[Spike56]

Ive had printers over 40 years but only in the last few have nearly full cartridges "Expired" requiring replacement.

These printers are for specific functions which have regular use but low page counts.

Is this a new thing across the board or only with HP printers and HP ink?

Also a few issues with HP LaserJet printers where a cartridge is moved from one machine location to another machine in another location... mostly in a pinch which results in a Not Genuine cartridge or stop printing until dialog box satisfied...

My two cents. If possible DUMP the printer where you have to buy a replacement cartridges. One of the best products I ever purchased is my EcoTank (Epson) printer. Had for 3 years now. Has NOT clogged or dried out and GONE are the days trying to find / order specific cartridge's ! You refill the tank/s with bottled ink - AND it is simple to do.
I used to have the same issues as you stated. No idea on $$ these days, but .... for me, it was a good decision (I make so few good ones, it is easy to remember).

 

[Tinhack]

It does kind of restrict you to B&W printing, but if you can live with that, they are a lot cheaper and more reliable to operate.

Not so, if you go with a color printer. My laser Brother has four cartridges. One black and three color. And it prints pictures better than my ink printer.

 

[Hughman]

Not saying color laser printers don't exist, just that I have no experience with them. I will add that of the two laser printers I have, the brother 5040 is probably 30+ years old and the smaller 2040 is probably 20+ years old. Both have been trouble free, though the 5040 is finally ready for a new drum.

 

[Ken45101]

Inkjets get very expensive if you only print a few pages a month. I gave up and went to a laserjet. I have had no problems using aftermarket cartridges with the current Canon MF210, which I've had for 8-10 years.

If I ever need a color print, I will send it to Walmart or some other picture printer. It is about the same cost per page as home printing color and they do a better job than I could do if I had a color laserjet.

Ken

 

[MossRoad]

I gave up on ink jet printers all together decades ago and went with Brother laser printers. Toner cartridges last a lot longer than ink cartridges. It does kind of restrict you to B&W printing, but if you can live with that, they are a lot cheaper and more reliable to operate.

Hack tip... When the "replace toner" light comes on, put a piece of masking tape over the site hole on the side of the cartridge and you can get a lot more use out of the toner before it quits working.

We used to just shake the toner cartridge and put it back in. Did that several times per cartridge. Worked great. Just be careful or you’ll end up looking like a chimney sweep!

 

[JasperFrank]

Brother makes the best printer. I've been tempted to get rid of all the HPs we have, but I get the genuine New Old Stock Carts for $3.50 from the local Goodwill store. I only buy the #57 Color, #58 Color Photo and the #56 Black Carts. And we only use the older HP printers that take these three and have never had a problem swapping the Carts amongst the printers. So far I've been able to use even very out-use-date Carts, some as old as 12 years.

HP is the worst offender when it comes to OEM detection and limiting the use of their Carts. 2016 is when they enacted their most restrictive policies, but HP was always working, way back in 2006, to figure out ways to limit the re-use of their Carts.

 

[ljjhouser]

I gave up Ink printers MANY years ago. Cost too much compared to toner. Then we operated on two HP4100. Good printer but wore them out. Then we bought two Brother MFC 3770. This first round, I brought Brother toner$$$. For the last two years, we have only used "off brand" toner - cost about $105 for all 4 extended size cartridges. The two Brothers have been excellent. I should have gotten rid of the HP4100 s sooner. ALL ink cartridges (in my opinion) are way overpriced.
The Brother MFC3770 is color and has excellent print quality.

 

[jyoutz]

I have a HP printer and I subscribe to HP instant ink online. For only $3.99 per month, HP monitors my ink level and ships me ink automatically when mine runs low. I did encounter the problem you had recently when I didn’t use the printer for a long time and the ink jets on the cartridges dried up and became clogged. I had to contact HP to get a shipment before those cartridges were empty, but this has only happened once in the past few years. The subscription is worth the price and saves the hassle of buying ink in stores.