Don't buy inkjet printers

We don't own an ink jet printer. I wouldn't take an InkJet printer if you gave it to me

Instead, we have a HP Laserjet 1022n (network version). That's a fairly recent replacement for an older model that gave us years of service. The 1022, and the one it replaced, are not capable of printing in color.

Whenever any of the children of my nephews visit and are using our computers, they groan when I remind them once again that if they must print something in color, they'll need to email it to themselves. They forget about how primitive we are; not having an ink jet printer available is apparently a privation they don't often experience.

They are good kids, though. They accept reality and move on. Possibly they make Facebook entries about their cheapskate great-uncle, but I don't see that, so no harm is done.

Ink Cartridge Cost and Problems

The cost of inkjet cartridges can exceed the cost of the printer. Often, part of the reason for that is that all the mechanical complexity is built into the cartridge - the printer is more like a carrier for the printing part.

This also means that a defective cartridge can cause you problems long before the ink is gone.

Clogging and streaking are common problems. You can try swabbing the business end of the cartridge with alcohol and of course follow up with running the cleaning/alignment software that came with the printer. However, attempting cleaning may just make matters worse.

Modern inks may be water based - soaking the business end in hot water might loosen things up! I'd try water first and although distilled water might seem like overkill, remember that the holes in these things are very, very small.

Note that the clogging can also come from paper dust. That's apt to be a problem if you have had this for a while.

HP used to have a cleaning kit, but it has been discontinued.

Paper Feed Problems

You may remember tractor feed printers? The paper had a perforated edge with holes that you fed into pinned wheels and those guided the paper through the printer. Hard to jam and hard for it not to get the paper to the print heads.

Now we have rollers that pull the paper through. Over time, the rollers get stiff or dirty or both and the paper can't feed or it slips on one side so that it gets misaligned or jammed.  It might feed several sheets at once too, and that usually causes a problem.

Radio Shack used to sell rubber enhancer back in the days of cassette tapes - they had little roller wheels to. I don't know if you can still buy that anywhere. Alcohol might clean up gunk.

Often there are tension devices that help push the paper into place before feeding. These can wear out and not be pushing hard enough; if you can get at it to stretch it out, you might give it some renewed life.

Throwaway

Given the cost, it's not worth spending a lot of time trying to fix these things.  People just throw them away.  That offends me - don't we have enough junk cluttering our landfills?  

If you do want to try repairing an older printer , this very old Printer and Photocopier Troubleshooting and Repair Collection could get you started. A lot of it may not apply to modern printers, though.

Yes, I am a cheapskate

Laserjet printing is much, much cheaper than inkjet. The initial purchase cost is higher, but the cartridges last so much longer and the units just don't have the mechanical problems of cheap inkjets.

I'm sure that would remain true for color laser jets also, but we have such little need for color at all that I cannot justify the expense. Our primary printing need is invoices, and even that need has lessened as more and more of my customers are willing (or even prefer) to take emailed PDF's.

That's good: fumes from printing ink are a health hazard and although we faithfully recycle our cartridges, I'm sure some of this stuff ends up in landfills. We try not to print anything if we can avoid it.

Photos need color

However, sometimes we do want to print a photo. Neither of us is anything close to being good with a camera; one of our daughters has excellent composition skills in that area, but she didn't inherit that from either of her parents.

Nevertheless, we do take pictures now and then and sometimes we want to print them out.

A dark confession

I have a confession to make. We have them printed at Walmart. The reason that's a confession is that we dislike Walmart intensely. We don't like that they destroy other local businesses, we don't like the way they treat their employees, and we detest the politics of the owners. We will go out of our way to avoid shopping at Walmart.

But sometimes their prices are just too good. We may hate ourselves, but some things are just too good to pass up. That is definitely the case with photo printing - it starts at 15 cents! You can upload photos directly from your computer and have them ready to pick up in an hour or less. They'll even mail them to you if you want.

Given the cost of acid free photo quality paper and the cost of ink, why would I want to print at home?

As I can easily convert almost anything on my computer to a format that Walmart can print, I can even do that for other things I'd like in color. If I need anything better, there aredigital printing services available.

Some people will want in house color printing. If that's you, you really should consider laser jets over ink jets.

I'll send the kids over to see you if you do that.

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