What are your frugal and sustainable tips and tricks?

[fuzzi]

Congratulations. Hope you make the best of your retirement years.

Thank you. I've got plans, both yard and house.

 

[gtaus]

Update on Inkjet Printer Repair

Fixing the laser printer encouraged me to try to fix my old Brother MFC-J430W all-in-one inkjet printer/scanner/copier/fax. I had not used that printer for a long time and the printhead jets were dried up and clogged. I mainly have been using it as a scanner for the past ~4 years. It still worked great for that.

I was so excited that I was able to clean up and get my old Brother inkjet printer working again. Everything looked like it was coming up roses. The print quality was fantastic, and I had 4 new ink cartridges loaded up. I thought I was set.

The next morning, I wanted to print some stuff out on the inkjet printer, and it was not working! I looked at the LCD display, and it had an error code "Cannot detect" and was pointing to the Cyan cartridge. How does that happen? It was working perfectly the night before?

I swear, these printers just find a way to die....

I spent the next several days trying to clear that error code with no success. I ordered new ink cartridges on the chance I had a defective Cyan cartridge. That was no better with the new order. No matter what I tried, the printer would not detect that Cyan cartridge.

I went online to look up the error code, and a number of people reported the same problem with that printer model. Actually, it's a problem with a number of Brother printers. There was no solution. The printer is now officially dead.

Well, there was one video from India that shows how to disassemble the printer and clean the light sensor that is failing, but it's like a 2-hour job with no guarantee that it can be fixed. Any, by the way, you might muck up the cables as you take it apart and that will kill it as well. Not worth my time or effort on my inexpensive 14-year-old printer.

I'm not going to say I wasted my time trying to initially clean the printhead and getting the printer working again. But I only ended up getting 3 test sheets printed and one actual page of something I needed to print out. Then, the next morning, the printer was in that error condition and won't print anything anymore.

Mine also has a copy function that I use as much or more than printing pages.

The scanner part of it still works fine. That's all I used it for the past couple of years. So, I guess I'll keep it for the scanner function until I get a replacement printer. Most of my printing is in black and white, so my laser printer is fine for that.

The more I read up on the reviews of all these inkjet printers, the less I like to see what I'm reading. It's not very encouraging to me to read the tech reviews on these printers.

Almost all the tech reviews state that these inkjet printers are designed to last only a few years. I was considering getting a bulk ink printer because the cost per page is the lowest, but then I found out that they require all kinds of maintenance and if you don't use them a lot, the printheads will indeed dry up. In any case, the expected life of a bulk ink printer is only 2-3 years according to many.

In fact, some of the bulk ink printers boast that they can print out 5000-7000 pages on a bulk ink fill. That sounds pretty good. But what the tech reviews tell me is that waste ink pad in the printer fills up as early as 4000 pages. Some models have maintenance kits you can buy and replace, other models just shut down and that's all folks! In either case, it's a form of planned obsolescence to get you to buy a new printer in a couple of years. Pox on all of them!

Yup. Another vote for an inexpensive AIO (all-in-one) laser printer. Does scanning, copying and printing if color isn't a priority and/or you print such low volume that ink dry out/clogging is a problem. I've had my Brother AIO for about 5 years now and it has been great. The cartridges last forever.

Would you tell me which inexpensive AIO laser printer you bought? Since I don't really print that much, I have lost a number of ink jet printers due to ink drying up and/or printheads getting clogged. I have had my B&W Samsung ML-2510 laser printer for about 20 years and it's still working fine. In that same time, I think I have trashed at least 6 inkjet printers. I'm more inclined to go color laser if I can find one that is inexpensive. Thanks.

The color laser printers I have been looking at are more expensive upfront than the inkjet printers, but they have an expected life of many years. I guess if you look at the price of the printer for the years of service you can expect to get out of it - especially for someone like me who does not print much anymore - the laser printers which don't dry up are the better choice.

 

[TooCheep]

Would you tell me which inexpensive AIO laser printer you bought? Since I don't really print that much, I have lost a number of ink jet printers due to ink drying up and/or printheads getting clogged. I have had my B&W Samsung ML-2510 laser printer for about 20 years and it's still working fine. In that same time, I think I have trashed at least 6 inkjet printers. I'm more inclined to go color laser if I can find one that is inexpensive. Thanks.

The color laser printers I have been looking at are more expensive upfront than the inkjet printers, but they have an expected life of many years. I guess if you look at the price of the printer for the years of service you can expect to get out of it - especially for someone like me who does not print much anymore - the laser printers which don't dry up are the better choice.

Mine is a black & white Brother model HL-2280DW. I doubt that exact model is available any more. The reason lasers last so much longer than ink-jets is that they use a dry powder for ink rather than liquid. The powder doesn't dry up and clog and is very reliable.

Sorry, I can't comment much on color lasers other than that they are more expensive than BW. You'll have to do some searching and see if you can find one that works for you.

Minor educational point: Pretty much all retail printers (ink-jet and laser) give you a sub-capacity cartridge to start with (maybe 40% full). That is to force you to buy a full replacement cartridge at retail sooner. This allows them to discount the original printer purchase and make their real money on cartridge sales. This is similar to how many razors work.

 

[fuzzi]

I had a bubblejet printer for years, YEARS. I'd probably still be using it but computer software upgrades eventially made it unusable, it couldn't communicate anymore.

 

[gtaus]

Mine is a black & white Brother model HL-2280DW.

Thanks. My ~20-year-old B&W laser printer is still working fine. If I get another laser printer, it would have to be color.

Sorry, I can't comment much on color lasers other than that they are more expensive than BW. You'll have to do some searching and see if you can find one that works for you.

Yep. The color laser printers I have been looking at are about 2X the price of bulk ink printers. The initial cost is higher, but for someone like me who does not print out much anymore, I think the advantage of the laser printers is that there is no ink to dry up or clog the printheads.

Years ago, when I got my first dot-matrix color printers, everything had to be color. When inkjet printers came online, I was printing out photos all the time. Nowadays, most of my printing is done for filing taxes. No color required for that.

I just don't print out photos anymore. My need for color printing is at a minimum. That is why the inkjet printers dry up and fail. They just don't get used and the ink does not move through the system. If my old B&W laser printer dies, it would make the choice easier for me. I just have a hard time spending money on another printer for color printing that I know I will not use very much.

Thanks for the response.

 

[PacificChorusFrog]

I am keenly aware of packaging, and how a thing is packaged is part of my decision to buy or not. For example, the kitty litter I buy is in a recyclable cardboard box, rather than a plastic bag or bin. I shop bulk so I can bring my own mason jar to fill (and get a tare at the cashier when it's empty). If the thing comes onto my property and it one once alive, it doesn't leave (well, human visitors don't count). For example, bones get buried deep with the used kitty litter.
I use a bamboo toothbrush. After it's time brushing my teeth, the head can be cut off and it makes a nice plant marker.
I shop for used clothes, and only buy 100% cotton or wool. Once they get so very holey or I can't wear them anymore, they cover my weed pile until they disintegrate.
It's late October, and I've gone to the landfill transfer station twice this year. It's mostly plastic, and buried garbage left by the previous owners. I'm still finding glass, burned plastic, and other vintage artifacts. Last week it was a Spiderman leg and boot.

 

[gtaus]

It's late October, and I've gone to the landfill transfer station twice this year.

I think it has been 2 or 3 years since I visited the landfill transfer station. However, I am currently preparing a load for the trip out there. I gathered up three dead computer printers and a couple of 5-gallon buckets of miscellaneous metals and non-burnable items to dump at the site. I don't know if the printers get recycled, but they have a separate section just for electronics at the transfer station.

In any case, all those items are too big to be dumped into a trash can at the gas station, and you cannot drop off electronics at our recycle bins. So, I guess I'll have to visit the transfer station this year. I'll just make sure I have a good load to drop off when I make the trip.

 

[gtaus]

I just have a hard time spending money on another printer for color printing that I know I will not use very much.

Good news! I found a brand-new All-in-One Inkjet printer in the closet of our guest bedroom. Looks like I bought it back prior to COVID-19 when we still had our local Office Depot in town. Probably one of those Black Friday specials. I unboxed the printer last night and got it all set up for printing and scanning. Everything is working great.

Although the starter ink cartridges are maybe only half capacity, for as little as I print, I think I might get a couple years out of this printer before I need to buy new ink cartridges. I'll continue to use my B&W laser printer for the bulk of my printing.

My old inkjet printer died because the ink dried out and clogged my printhead. I cleaned it up pretty good and thought I had brought it back to life, but then it found a new way to die anyways. This time, I printed out a small yearly calendar that I have taped to the top of the printer. I will cross off the date every time I use the printer, reminding myself to print out at least one page per week. It's just a visual check that assures me to use the printer at least once per week to keep that ink flowing.

I checked the printing cost per page of my "new" inkjet printer versus my ~20-year-old B&W laser printer using OEM ink and toner. The cost for inkjet comes out to about $0.054 per page for black, and $0.17 per page for color. The laser printer cost is $0.036 cents per page using the OEM toner cartridge, however, I have used third party toner cartridges in the laser printer for years and years and the cost per page in that case is $0.008 per page - less than a penny per page. It's a really big difference in cost, but the laser print quality is about the same as far as I can tell.