Everything printers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHX6tHdQGiQ
Ink Cartridges Are A Scam
by AustinMcConnell
This guy explains how overpriced cartriges for printers are. I copypasted some of the comments, short version is laser printers are much better than ink printers in terms of ease of repair.
After my fifth Epson printer, and countless cartridges I decided to never again purchase an ink cartridge printer. A very interesting documentary on this subject of tech and programmed obsolescence is called "The Lightbulb Conspiracy" (2010), and it is really enlightening, no pun intended.
You can now buy an Eco Tank printer from Epson that is built with refillable reservoirs for ink. The printer costs $200 and the ink is very cheap. This is the way it should have been sold from day one.
^ Unless you're printing photos it's almost always better to just get a cheaper color laser printer. Epson is making good printers these days...avoid HP like the plague. I have worked on printers for many years and every time I have to touch a newer HP I cringe.
I've worked as a printer service engineer in an unlicensed repairs shop in Moscow. The guy who taught everyone to repair the devices always said that ink printers do not deserve to exist bc they are practically unrepairable and the price of just owning one is damn big. The best option when buying a printer as an individual with basic (not professional) requirements is to buy a laser printer that is 5 to 10 years old (pre-owned included). These models and their flaws are well-known to almost any repair technichians, the parts and maintenance consumables are dirt cheap.
I've been working in an electronics repair shop for the last 8 years. Over this amount of time, inkjet printers have become the worst thing I've ever had to work on. Pretty quickly into my repair career I made the choice to stop working on them all together. Every single one of them is a complete nightmare to disassemble. And even if you are able to find the fault, chances are the only way to get a replacement part is to pull it from another identical printer.
Another comment from that video, this one is long.
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Laser printers on the other hand? Absolute dreams. Some of them are more difficult to take apart than others, and there is something to be said about the whole DRM on toner cartridges thing...but the nice thing about laser printers is they are designed to be repaired. At least in my experience. Getting black lines while printing? There is probably some paper stuck to the fuser, or the fuser is dirty and needs to be cleaned. Paper getting stuck? It's probably the duplexer or the fuser. Not printing at all, just sending paper through? You guessed it, it's probably the fuser!
You know what's nice about most problems being the fuser? THEY CAN EASILY BE REPLACED. In every laser printer I've serviced, the fuser is contained in one easily removable module that can typically be purchased for anywhere from $30 to $100. Depends entirely on the model...but considering most fancy laser printers are anywhere from a few hundred to upwards of $1k, that's a price well worth paying to get it working again.
The other nice thing about laser printers? They have less issues overall. If you don't use an inkjet printer for 6 months, there is a very high chance it will just suck at printing when you end up using it. The ink gets all nasty, the print head gets all dirty, and you'll probably just have to buy a new printer. I have seen this happen so often that I'm convinced it is by design. Laser printers don't do this. That toner can sit in the cartridge for a year, you can never use the thing that whole time. And then when you go to use it, it just frickin prints. AT WORST you might have to take the cartridge out and shake it a bit. But that's it.
I think what surprises me the most about inkjet printers is, the technology behind how they work is actually incredible. Considering how precise all of it has to be, I'm amazed that they even work to begin with. They really are fascinating pieces of technology. But they all SUCK because of greed. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
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