$26 Wireless Deskjet All in One Printer
erco
Posts: 20,256
Seems too good to be true. Available for pickup at a Walmart near me. Am I just in the right place, or does anyone else have these available near them? I might have to get one. Or two, if a second printer is cheaper than ink cartridge refills.
http://www.walmart.com/ip/HP-Deskjet-2541-All-in-One-Printer-Copier-Scanner/39127379
http://www.walmart.com/ip/HP-Deskjet-2541-All-in-One-Printer-Copier-Scanner/39127379
Comments
http://www.staples.com/HP-61XL-Black-Ink-Cartridge-CH563WN-High-Yield/product_863057?cid=PS:GooglePLAs:863057&ci_src=17588969&ci_sku=863057&KPID=863057&kpid=863057&gclid=Cj0KEQiA2o6lBRCn_b7yppe98rQBEiQAMpnYncRSPSv7lCeZVV4xYnflfDoz0EnRS3FV26c_Hrfb10YaAsMG8P8HAQ
http://www.staples.com/HP-61XL-Tricolor-Ink-Cartridge-CH564WN-High-Yield/product_863058?cid=PS:GooglePLAs:863058&ci_src=17588969&ci_sku=863058&KPID=863058&kpid=863058&gclid=Cj0KEQiA2o6lBRCn_b7yppe98rQBEiQAMpnYnW-TTOVQs3R47ByrsvwYB1ZWpPhGHEq8GhUSR7PYoyIaAiCh8P8HAQ
All in all, not to shabby.
Another ecro deal. College fund on PayPay?
Edit: The Value Bundle for the Black and Tri-Color Ink refills is $34.00 :-)
Yep. Very tiny. Printing just 5 pages put a noticeable dent in the black cartridge's estimated ink.
We just bought an HP Envy printer (also uses the "61" cartridges) for $50 from WM. The Envy (but not the $26 printer) is eligible for HP's "Instant Ink" program. Since we typically print less than 50 pages a month, paying $2.99/month ($36/year) works out cheaper than buying the XL cartridge pair (upwards of $50 at my store). There's also an online coupon code for a free month.
I've rec'd the special cartridges from HP but have yet to install them. They're noticeably heavier than the normal ones.
Time will tell if this is a better deal in the long run. We were using off-brand ink refills in an Epson but the printer stopped printing magenta. Not sure if it was the ink or not, as this printer had issues with magenta Epson ink from the start.
The wireless printing works well. I can print from my android phone or a Kindle HD, or email a document. That said, if you email a document, there's no way to select which pages, etc.--you get the whole enchilada.
Walter
With HP inkjets the printhead is part of the cartridge, so you end up re-buying a critical part of your printer each time you fill up.
Epsons are better if you can find third-party refillable cartridges for your model. You might spend $50-75 for the printer, but only $3-5 for a cartridge, or even less depending on the ink source. Refilling cartridges isn't everyone's cup of tea, though.
Walter, if your Epson stopped printing magenta altogether sounds like the cartridge itself got de-primed. That can be caused when the ink in the cartridge is allowed to be depleted too far, introducing air into its main ink chamber. You either then have to pull the air out of the cartridge using a large syringe and special tube, or just get a new properly primed refillable cartridge.
As a note to the refillers: always keep your OEM cartridges handy for testing. Don't deplete them and throw them away. Use them to initially to test the printer when you first unpack it, then put them away in a sealed air-tight pouch. This allows you to have known, good cartridges if a problem occurs later on.
The printer would print magenta, but only after re-priming the printhead... and then only for about 1/4 of a page. It was a $40 printer to begin with and not worth my time to buy the kit (with the special tube) and fiddle around with it.
http://www.costcoinkjetrefill.com/pricing
http://www.pcworld.com/article/218408/serial_refiller_costco.html
I've been steeting people away from this unit since. It reminded me of a cheap Canon printer.
Very little on board controls. Even the connectors felt loose and sloppy. (Power/USB)
BTW I never had any success with alternative branded refills as they usually killed the printers
So, ~5 years ago I bought two $80 Xerox Phaser 3124 Laserjets. Absolutely fantastic! The printer comes with ~1000 pages of ink and a new ink cartridge costs ~$120 for ~3000 pages. I have done about 50,000 pages on each printer without any problems! Pretty good for such a cheap printer!
I have a cheap color inkjet Epson TX110 for scanning/copying and color printing that is almost only used for scanning and occasional copying.
Even with trickle inking the heads can get clogged up. Trickling keeps the surface of the jets wet, and prevents most clogs at the exit of the jets, but doesn't do much for the other parts, including the cartridge itself, which can get caked up. Only printing a page or two every week will prevent that.
I recently had to throw away two 13x19 Epson printers because I only did manual trickle inking, using nozzle checks. These had external ink tanks, and over a period of several months the ink just coagulated in the lines, cartridges, and heads.
The very day you posted about the 2541 I picked one up at a local stuffmart for my wife for $26. She has been delighted with it. The 802.11 link has worked flawlessly and transparently.
She prints only 20-30 sheets a month...otherwise we'd love to have a LaserJet printer.
This talk about inkjet printer maintenance has got me wondering how the little omni wheel robot printer I ranted about will handle these issues. They now plan to use their own proprietary cartridge but I'm not sure how well any cartridge will hold up without some sort of maintenance. Would using the printer once a week be enough to keep the print head clean? Do inkjet print heads need some sort of docking pad? I have an old HP portable printer and I don't think it had any sort of docking pad so perhaps the robot printer will be alright without one.
I do wonder how the cartridge will hold up to being upside down for extended periods of time. This is a photo from their most recent update.
The charge port is on the bottom of the printer and it looks like the printer gets charged while upside down. Wouldn't having the printer cartridge upside down cause the "de-primed" issue earlier discussed?
Sorry for the hijack erco but I doubt a detour to Cuba will hurt the thread.
This is very true, but a tabloid or larger laser is VERRRRRY expensive, well over a thousand, with replacement OEM drums at least $500. A 13x19 CMYK Epson inkjet is $150. Of course, a commercial Epson inkjet, 24" +, is a few thousand as well, but these are very different puppies. I'd hate to think what a 24" wide laser would cost!
Though I don't do large format printing any more, there was no way I could fork over for an an 11x17 laser. So I went with Epson and external CIS. After two years, the tanks, tubes, and cartridges failed, but as I said, the printers are cheap to begin with. Ultimate in replaceable technology. I had two such printers; one was loaded with pigment ink, the other with sublimation ink.
I'm guessing these cartridges are sealed somehow, though I believe most need some kind of vent to equalize the pressure. Pulled from the print head the cartridge may leak, because the pressures are no longer balanced. But perhaps as long as the cartridge is over the heads, the pressures are such that there's no leak or depriming (which is caused by air getting into the ink feed).
Epsons do, because their technology doesn't use heat, the way the HPs do. Maybe the heat required to force out the jet helps to keep them clean. I don't know, as the last HP I owned was over 10 years ago, and I never really looked inside to see how it worked.
On the Epson printers, the printhead will park over its cleaning station. While there, the heads are kept wet by using pads. Excess ink is flushed through these pads, and into another area of the printer, where you can empty it if it gets too full (most consumers never use their printer enough to fill up the waste tank). During printing, about every 4-6 passes, the printhead will roll over this cleaning station again. There's a wiper at the edge of it that cleans off the bottom of the printhead.
Because HP printheads use thermal ink technology, when you replace the cartridge you also replace the head itself. By doing this, you dispose of the part of the printer that might get clogged up. On an Epson (and similar using piezo heads), once the jets get clogged with dried up ink, it can be very difficult to clean them. Most users just junk the printer.
Perhaps proof that the wrong division kept the HP name ?
Yes, I saw that HP offers some disposable heads separate from the tanks. These are pretty much just limited to high output machines, right?
Canon also offers this on some models. The cartridges are said to last as long as normal use of the printer. They can be user-replaced if they get clogged. Epson should follow suit.