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Compatible Printer Inks

The majority of the makers of printers recommend to their consumers that they use the original own brand ink cartridges that they make. Many printer makers state that using compatible printer ink cartridges produced by other firms can lead to problems with printing.

Anyone who has followed the market for printers over the last few years will have realised that the prices of printers have reduced dramatically. This has coincided with a big increase in the price of printer ink. The business model used by many of the major printer makers has been to reduce the profit margins on printers, whilst raising the cost per gram of the ink that they make.

As prices of printer ink have gone up, it has become a much more difficult for the makers of compatible ink cartridges to produce suitable products. Many printer makers have added electronic chips to their printer ink cartridges so that the cartridges can stop printing when they are low on ink. The manufacturers say that this stops low quality prints from being produced when cartridges start to run out. This makes it much more difficult for makers of compatible cartridges to compete, and therefore printer manufacturers can charge more for their own brand ink. Another downside for consumers is that many cartridges stop working before they have fully run out, reducing the amount of pages that can be produced.

A lot of people have the idea that the compatible ink market is quite small, with low quality manufacturers trying to compete with the big boys. It is true that the businesses of compatible ink cartridge producers are nowhere near on the same scale as the printer manufactures, however there are often quite large firms in the market. One such example is UK compatible cartridge producer Jet Tec, that manufactures its cartridges from a large purpose-built factory with more than three hundred employees.

Some of the makers of compatible ink cartridges have actually produced innovative technology of their own. One of the major problems with Epson’s ink cartridge chips is that they can believe the cartridge is empty when it actually has a decent amount of ink remaining. As the chip stops the ink cartridge from printing, consumers may lose a large amount of prints. The solution has been extra life technology which is a system fitted to some compatible cartridges. This system allows the ink cartridge to stop when the chip thinks it’s empty, but additionally gives the customer the option to override. This means that the user has the choice, and doesn’t have to discard cartridges that still hold ink.

The problem with the compatible cartridge industry, is that not all makers of compatible ink cartridges make high quality products. To minimise the risk when buying compatibles, look for known high quality ink sellers with good feedback from customers. There are lots of sites on the internet to look at where buyers discuss their experiences of compatible inks. Also a number of popular computing magazines have carried out large scale reviews of the compatibles on offer. Of course with compatibles often being considerably cheaper than the original printer ink alternatives, it is often not a costly risk to take, and if it works out it could save you a lot of money in the future.

Article Source: http://www.articleadventure.com

Tom is a writer with an interest in Printer Ink and Epson T0333 ink

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