The really large revolution in this world was Gutenberg, who manufactured the tool that produced the greatest social revolution of the time. The King James Bible. We are surveyors. We produce PLATS, which are also the legal representation, of property lines, and many folks do not read legal descriptions very well, and I like PICTURES very well. In fact, I am quite interested in Matt Johnstons recently unveiled software package, that can take a written description, and at an improved rate, produce a PICTURE from a pile of words. I like to think of these as "Large WORD PROBLEMS".
Well, this brings us to today. Cheap printers are available. In fact, Mfrs will GIVE you a printer, if you will buy their INK, in their cartridge, to print with. So, ultimately, you wind up spending some $ 100 a month in ink, in some paradigms.
So, I'm interested in these contraptions.
About 1.5 to 2 yrs ago, I was shopping for a printer. I read up on it, and all. And, when necessity struck, I bought a Brother MFC-J6545DW. It has LARGE printer TANKS, and a pretty conservative use of this ink. And, Prices for the ink was reasonable. Some $60.00, and with shipping, around $65.00. The advertisement was "Comes with your first year supply of ink". I bought one of these printers.
Well, Last week, it ran out of ink. Being a conservative person, I had bought extra ink, shortly after buying the printer. So, that when it ran out, I'd have NO CRISIS. I'm happy.
Well, BLACK quit first. No surprise. So, I open the package of ink, and my first surprise was NO BLACK CARTRIDGE! It was the 3 colors. Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow. but NO BLACK!
So, I need it fast, and drive to Hot Springs, to buy the ink. And, I discover:
1.) It came with HUGE ink tanks. but, the ink tanks for sale are NOT the huge tanks, like those the printer came with. They are MUCH SMALLER.
So, I shopped for a printer, and bought one that had fairly inexpensive ink, that lasted well.
Here is what it came with:
?ÿHere are the cartridges that I found while pricing the ink:
So, the ink cartridges it came with cost around $200-250.
and the ones offered, for sale, (MUCH smaller, capacity) cost around $ 100 for all 4 cartridges.
Thats not all.
IF you REFILL your original cartridges, well, they have CHIPS in them, and once emptied, the chip HAS to be reset, before it runs out of ink, or somehow it apparently registers to the printer that this cartridge is EMPTY. If you refill it, but after it has run out, then it TRIGGERS the printer in some way that it won't register that it has ink, and it WON'T PRINT if it cannot register that it has ink.
IF you buy aftermarket ink,(that don't have new chips, programed to give the right signal) I am not sure how to make these work.
Well, back to my story, I have 3 color cartridges, which will soon need to be installed. While in Hot Springs, I bought ONE black cartridge like the second pic above. It was over $40.00, and it contains maybe 1/3 the ink of the ones it came with.
Printer manufacturers are making some fine printers. The ink is cheap. But, a cartridge, costs more than the ink. And, are trying to make a profit. So, they are hi-jacking our ability to "Just buy ink". With all kinds of contraptions, chips, etc, to BLOCK any of us from refilling.
I think I will go ahead and keep reading. I bought the printer. It's mine. And, I am FREE to trash it, replace it, or figure out how to make it work. It's the AMERICAN way.
But, what about my surveys? Do I like MULTIPLE Real Estate transactions, to happen, with JUST one survey plat? There are some similarities. It's got me to thinking.
Back to the ink, I have 4 new MINI cartridges, that cost about $ 110.00. I am ok for a month or two. But, I will have to figure out this equation.
Such it is.
BTW, this printer will SCAN 11x17, print 11x17, and Letter, and Legal sizes. It has good software in it, where you can scan to a thumb drive, and it will combine all the scans into one file. It will make PDF's and JPG'S etc. Also, the MRF has discontinued this printer. I'd guess it is because some HACKER has figured out how to by pass the EXCLUSIVE ink, and it can somehow use aftermarket ink. HMMM
?ÿ
Here is a NEW printer like mine:
I'd guess I paid around 300 for mine. We will be fussing with ink and printers for many more years, I'd guess.
Nate
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Australia. RADU. kangaroos. And folks that talk funny.
I found a similar product in Germany.
I would prefer to get one from this side of the pond.
I'm sure everybody has some sort of "printer story'.
N
N
Let me see if I am following the metaphors; wouldn’t it be nice if survey drawings could generate repeating income like the ink in printers, and maybe even have the influence of the KJV? Am I close?
Yes, Brad, I am thinking along those lines. The work we do, (IF it is good work) has a continual value. Look at Old John Deere tractors. Well made, (overbuilt) and still selling for 6k, even from the 1950's.
My thoughts are: IF I don't ever want to do Sub standard work. To feed my family, via shortcut surveys, is bad money.
I do believe there is an afterlife. Judgement day. My surveys will be there. Since I own the printer, I feel liberty to repair it as I see fit.
Surveys are nearly a permanent improvement to this planet.
I have seen surveys that were worse than bad, they were misleading.
Brother managed to persuade me to buy their produce by:
Offering me a good cheap printer.
Offering Cheap cartridges.
I did not figure out the fact that the cheap cartridges, were NOT what it came with. Until now.
Overall, I think it is a GOOD value, but I was fooled by the cheap, (but undersized) replacement cartridges.
Hmmmm
Some years ago I bought a Brother laser printer, about the cheapest in the store. It does a good job. But I found two hacks on line that almost double the life of a cartridge past their tricks.
First, black electrical tape over a sensor eye keeps it from nagging me when the toner gets partway down.
Second, when it thinks it has printed enough pages, take the cartridge out, remove two screws from a gear assembly and reset its position to continue for a couple more reams until it gets streaks. Then shake the cartridge to print a while longer.
People think gasoline is expensive until they discover the true cost of printer ink.
When I started my own shop in the great depression of 2008 I found a large format plotter that would print up to 36 x 42 dwgs. I found it on craiglist and it was listed for $150 so I jumped on it. At the time, it was only two years old and I told him that I was willing to pay more for it. His answer was that his father just passed away (he was a retired Architect who still dabbled) and his siblings tasked him with emptying the house to list it and he just wanted it gone. I used that plotter for 5 years until it died and did not care so much about the cost of OEM HP ink cartridges, it was the cost of the rolls of paper stock that killed me.
At the same time I had an inkjet printer/scanner/fax machine that also did 11 x 17 color prints and scans but if the blank ink went dry, it wouldn't let me print or fax anything. Back in 2008 I had a client that would give me printed copies of title reports and in 2010 they switched to a web based service and required me to print those reports out. I told them that they were crazy and that the cost of ink would kill me. Their solution was to buy me an HP LaseJet color printer and they supplied me with toner cartridges and paper my work with them ended in 2013 when I sold my business to assume a 9 to 5 job building a Survey department for an Engineering firm.
I have a good friend who has a business or selling refilled ink and toner cartridges and a significant discount from the OEM cartridges and they worked fine with my large format plotter but not with the LaserJet. Every time I loaded a refilled toner cartridge I would get warnings and continued pop up harassment sent to the screen from the printer.
I still use the LaserJet as my personal printer but pay for the OEM cartridges to avoid the headaches and I only need to replace them every year and a half or so.
As a side note, to avoid the cost of ink and toner on projects where I had to deliver a big quantity of plans I bought a program called Print to PDF for $15 so I would make PDFs, color or not, and take them to Kinkos or the FedEx store to let them print out what I needed and very reasonable costs.
