Simon, I had a similar problem many years ago with an Epson, so long ago I don't recall the details but i found a solution trawling the internet, I just entered the following " epson printer not recognising genuine cartridges" and many ideas come up so may be worth a try ? But you will need to look for your specific printer I think. Mine ran for many years after the fix so good luck with your efforts.

John

Epsons are particularly bad because their (expensive) heads clog easily.

One trick I have found useful for all infrequently-used colour printers is to prepare a text file containing a single line of text with each character in a different colour. Put it on the desktop and send it the printer every few days or a week. It uses very little ink (although the ubiquitous head-cleaning cycle may use some) and will at least cycle the jets.

My current main colour printer (I have a BW laser and a Large Format colour printer/Large Format scanner besides) s one of those with bulk ink tanks so the regular head-cycling is less of an issue.

I gave up with cheap ink jets and got a Samsung monochrome laser printer – it's more economical over time, way quicker to print and no hassle. Obviously if you need colour it's more expensive but I don't.

I have found that Epson printer software tends to tell lies when you are not using epson ink cartridges. I bought a small electronic scale to weigh allegedly empty cartridges and often they still contained quite a lot of ink. I now have one of their "eco" models with the refillable ink tanks. I will have to see how long that lasts.

With really cheap inkjet printers, the new ink cartridges can cost as much, if not more than the price of the printer.

Absolutely right. Inkjets are a 'use it or lose it' technology: a few prints every day would be good. Once a month will cause grief. Big cartridges do better than small, and late Inkjets seem more sensitive than older ones. (I put this down to older Inkjets being designed for small offices, whilst most newer models are purely domestic, substituting photo print-quality for robustness. Inkjet profits are in selling Ink, not the actual printers.)

I don't do nearly enough printing to keep an Inkjet in reasonable condition, and mine spent as much time cleaning its heads as printing. Head cleaning wastes a lot of ink and doesn't always work. Got fed up in the end and bought a mono-laser.

Not having colour is a big disadvantage, but apart from that cheap mono laser printers are excellent. Much faster, don't have ink to clog up, and price per page is low. Unfortunately colour lasers are pricey, not worth it unless a lot of colour printing is done.

Inkjets rarely feature in big Offices. It's cheaper to share a reliable colour laser amongst many users.

General rule: cheap printer = expensive ink, special paper, and short life; expensive printer = cheap ink and long life.

Inkjets are cheap to buy and cost-effective for low print runs, but crazy expensive for heavy use and unreliable for light intermittent print loads. Good value if demand happens to be in their comfort zone, otherwise liable to disappoint. Mono lasers are reliable and cheap to buy and operate. It's a black and white decision…

Dave

I went to buy some HP 301 cartridges yesterday. The supermarket have security devices and procedures in place to stop you pinching them off the shelf. No surprise really when you look at the package cost. A combined B&W plus colour packet was £32!!!! I am getting old and grumpy now but that really is a silly price.

Phil H

I have an HP 1022 mono laserjet bought from my then employer as part of a 'staff put in bids for the stuff we are getting rid of' initiative. It's about 15 years old and (touch wood) still works well after many reams of paper.

I also have an Epson EcoTank colour inkjet which is good, the refillable ink lasts ages (over a year per fill) and over several years I've more than save the cost in not buying damned micro-cartridges.

Neil

Gave up on inkjets after having several particularly epson printers. Too unreliable and expensive to run.Last was a rather expensive A3 epson photo printer, was nothing but trouble.

I decided to buy a used Samsung mono laser printer off ebay 3 years ago and have printed thousands of pages of b/w text . No problems at all ,toner cartridge lasts ages. Not bothered by lack of colour ,if i want photos printed then there are plenty of online places that do them for pennies.

Edited By mark smith 20 on 30/01/2020 13:53:36

Don't want to hi-jack the thread, but thought a word about my problems with Epson and Linux might save someone a problem.

I originally had an Epson 4000 from long ago, which I really liked, but eventually I decided it had to go when the cost of the ink cartridges made a mortgage necessary, and also the 'disuse' syndrome drove me crazy having to clean the heads.

Like a fool, I went out and bought an Epson 382, with the large ink tanks (because I liked the 4000). This caused me endless problems. First thing was that Epson have stopped supporting Linux…or have they?. If you can finally find the right place on their website, which is a model of disorganisation and chaos, you can find Linux drivers. (The native Linux Mint drivers would not handle an L382 at that time). After much faffing, I was completely unable to get this driver to do anything properly – pages came out as a mass of characters (not graphics), and colours were a joke. Emails to Epson went into some black hole somewhere.

Eventually, in desperation, it was consigned to the junk pile in the spare bedroom, and (I really did have a bad senior moment) I thought 'it can't all be bad', and went and bought an Epson 3150, also the ecotank type.

Exactly the same problem with that – Epson site very unhelpful, drivers hard to find. While I was doing this, it seems that the Epson site underwent some renovation and changes, and suddenly I was able to find the drivers (for Linux). But they still didn't work properly. The site advised me that it was dependent on certain other files, which by then were virtually impossible to locate. Eventually I did (had to compile them first), installed them, started to install the drivers – and got a message telling me that the files I had just installed were the wrong version for that driver (but not according to the Epson site!). This printer was also consigned to the junk pile 'for later attention'

Back to the L382 – downloaded the drivers from the revamped site – and it worked!. At least, it works as a printer, although many of the settings are not possible – scanning is not possible, but I live in hope – perhaps with a little more tinkering….

Summary: Epson website is useless and disorganised. Epson does not respond to queries to their help pages. Despite claiming to support Linux, they do not, at least, not well). I am no amateur at this, but all my experience, plus much communing with various (non-Epson) forums was not able to sort these problems, A borrowed HP printer worked at first attempt, using the native Linux drivers – no more Epsons for me.

The idea is good – large ink tanks, with none of this electronic level crap, but unless you are running Windows, don't buy an Epson. Hope this saves someone a lot of grief.