Off brand inks

accordmaniac · 02-02-06, 05:43

I am currently a high school senior and for Christmas I got a printer. I do a lot of printing for school work and since its a photo printer I print a lot of pictures too. It uses six separate ink cartridges but at the rate the level meter is going it seems like they will all run out at the same time. To replace all six inks with genuine Epson ink it will cost $60, and that's if I buy the combo pack at Sam's Club.

I'm on a tight budget so I was wondering anyone here uses off brand inks that work just as well as manufacturer made ink? I searched Ebay and there are these inks that are said to be compatible with my printer, which is an Epson Stylus Photo R220, for $5 for 18 cartridges (

HTML Code:

http://cgi.ebay.com/18-Epson-Compatible-R200-R220-R300-R320-ink-cartridge_W0QQitemZ6846133017QQcategoryZ16200QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

). The low cost of course must be made up in the $40 shipping cost. It seems like a good deal but I question the quality, the "you get what you pay for" thing. Maybe someone in this large internet community has had experience to share?

Sorry for the long post.

truzoom · 02-02-06, 05:46

The lack of information on the product they are actually selling makes it seem shady. I would just put in the extra cash and buy the OEM stuff locally.

kpounds · 02-02-06, 06:44

I get replacement cartidges for my Canon printer from Inkgrabber.com There was a photographer that did alot of printing and tested out different Canon cartridges and found the Inkgrabbers to be very, very close to OEM Canon. I just checked and Inkgrabber does carry your model Epson replacements. I don't know about the quality, but the Canon's are quite good.

Setec Astronomy · 02-02-06, 06:47

Well, if you want to buy the real ones, I was trying to buy an HP cartridge in Walgreens, but they were out, so I went down the way to Radio Shack, and they were $5 cheaper.

theeloved1 · 02-02-06, 08:03

I don't know for sure about the off brand inks...one thing though. I used to have the same problem as you, and started doing some research on it.

The best thing you can do is conserve ink and money by taking your digital pictures somewhere else to get them printed. I read many different articles all stating the samething. If you don't print A TON of pictures, there's no way to justify the cost it is to print pictures (with ink/paper/everything included)...in which case you have top quality stuff at home. Walmart, Woodmans, Walgreens...places like that print pictures for ~14c a print which is much less expensive in the long run. There are also many places that do it online...I think you just send your digital pics, they print them and are sent directly to your door.

Kind of an indirect solution to your problem, but it helps....certainly did for me.

accordmaniac · 02-02-06, 08:24

Thanks for all the the prompt replies. I'll take a look into the inkgrabber idea.

I don't want to go print pics at stores because I enjoy editing the pictures on photoshop and printing them, I haven't had to buy ink yet but I'm seeing the ink levels drop fast as I have had to print so many reports, college apps, and tax stuff lately. So I'm just anticipating the day that I run out. Plus I have a couple hundred sheets of photo paper and it still amazes me how you can print nice glossy pictures at home.

kompressornsc · 02-03-06, 04:15

Here's what we do for pics. Take them, edit them all you want, and them e-mail them to Walgreen's (I think CVS does it now, too). When we signed up for the service, we got like 50 prints free (haven't even used all of those) and a 4" x 6" glossy is only 18 cents. And I've got a pretty good photo printer, but the ones from WG come out so much nicer. It's got to be cheaper (and better quality) than using your own printer. (and my HP takes 3 cartirdges-if I have to repalce them all at once, it's just over $100).

PrinzII · 02-03-06, 04:31

Recently, I discovered that OfficeMax has a cartridge refilling service. You might want to check that out.

RTexasF · 02-03-06, 04:53

I have an Epson that takes four cartridges and two more Lexmark printers. I've been using these folks: http://coolegear.com/ for quite some time with nary a problem. They were called overnightinkjets.com but recently changed names/sites.

Setec Astronomy · 02-03-06, 05:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by accordmaniac

I don't want to go print pics at stores because I enjoy editing the pictures on photoshop and printing them

There is nothing that says you can't edit them at home then bring them to a store for printing.

Quote:

I haven't had to buy ink yet but I'm seeing the ink levels drop fast as I have had to print so many reports, college apps, and tax stuff lately.

Maybe I'm not quite up with the latest printers, but if you're using up your photo-quality ink on reports, maybe you should use a different printer/setting for them.