Best sub-$100 CAD printer I can buy that doesn't emit any ozone?

[Navaros]

I recently bought a color laser printer only to realize after I opened it that it emitted Ozone gas; which is totally unacceptable to me. I ended up having to take a 40% restocking fee on that just to get some money back because the store tells me they would now have to sell it as open-box at a big discount to another customer, even though I didn't use it.

Now I still need a printer. One that does not emit any ozone gas whatsoever.

My main purpose for this printer is to print notes & assignments for school.

I would also like to have a fax and copier and scanner functionality, but this it not essential.

I don't care about speed.

The main things I must insist upon are:

1. It must emit no ozone gas.
2. It must produce good quality printouts.

I have read that some Inkjets use crappy ink that fades away in a while, so I'd prefer to avoid that if possible. On the other hand, I read that solvent-based inks emit toxins too - is that true? If so, I want to avoid that.

On Cnet they recommend Canon Pixma iP2600 Photo Printer as the top printer in my desired price range, but can I get a better printer than that for a similar price? Should I be concerned that Canon printers like that only use 2 ink cartridges instead of 4?

Ideally, I would like it to be under $100 CAD.

I live in Canada so I would probably either buy this from ncix.com, or canadacomputers.com. So hopefully your recommendations are something that they carry.

Please recommend me the best printer you can given the info in this post. Thanks.

 

[Lemon law]

I did google your ozone concerns with Laser printers, and got little information I could really call solid, but apparently, some Laser printers are better than others, and many studies suggest there is little to be concerned with with your printing volume. But if you are really paranoid about it, you could get a wireless type or serial cable type Laser printer, install it in some remote location away from you that is well vented, do your printing, and then retrieve the output later. You can also significantly reduce laser emissions by leaving them off except when you are going to print, it takes an extra 15 seconds for them to warm up that way, but when off, the fan does not run and help blow toner particles and ozone all over the place.

I got no google hits on the toxicity of inkjet printers, since the solvent in inkjet printer ink is basically water, there are few concerns other than the fact that the plastic in disposable inkjet printer cartridges are clogging landfills and the plastic will not biodegrade.

Most inkjet color inks are dye based rather than pigment based, and since all dyes have weakly bonded electron pairs, they will fade over a very long time, and can be degraded by exposure to ozone, light, and some chemicals in normal house hold air. Pigment based inks are less prone to fading, simply because they are much larger in size and hence resist degrading for a much longer time. In terms of personal experience, I have found normal text inkjet output using a toner based black left lying around in my house well exposed to light has no noticeable fading after 10 years. But in the case of photoprinting where color balance is critical, I have seen research output that shows it can significantly the visual quality of photos when they are directly exposed to high levels of light or ozone for a long time.

To answer your last question, no, I would buy a ip2600. The replacement cartridges contain far too little ink to last long, and unless you are made of money, they will eat you out of house and home in replacement costs unless your yearly printing volume is very low. You would be far better off with any of the only slightly more expensive Canons using the Cli-8 &Pgi-5 cartridges that contain far more ink for less money. And since these Canon chips are now cracked, you can use much cheaper clone cartridges, or get a $30. chip resetter, and easily refill for real economy.

However I very much doubt you can get an all in one for $100 Can, but if you look at some of adjacent printer threads, you could get a nice Canon MX850 all in one inkjet for $170.00 US.

 

[Lemon law]

Sorry, double post.

 

[Navaros]

Thanks for the info. I guess I'll forego the AIO functionality.

In the link here in the adjacent thread:

Text

He recommends Canon IP3500 or IP4500.

I can get that from Canada computers for $43.99CAD and $53.99 CAD. Would you say that's a good deal? If so, which of those should I get?

What good does a chip resetter do, since I'd still need to buy more ink soon anyways if the chip says it's low, wouldn't I? Where do I buy chip resetters from?

The nifty-stuff site in this link has a guy who messed up his printer and he thinks it was from third-party ink cartridges. Is that truly what caused his problem, or was it something else?

Text

Is there any danger that Canon might stop manfacturing the larger ink cartridges a year or two down the road?

 

[Lemon law]

The main difference between the two is that the ip4500 has an extra photoblack cartridge, IMHO, recommended, because in color photoprinting, mode, the ip3500 would make black by combining magenta, cyan, and yellow. Producing a muddy looking black using 3x more ink.

But I see you found the nifty stuff forums that will give you good links for finding chip resetters, but specific brands are often cheaper to ordered off ebay. And yes, poor quality or incorrectly blended inks will tend to clog printheads, which is why its good to follow the advice of experienced posters on the nifty stuff forums in terms of refill inks and third party clone cartridges.

To give you somewhat of an understanding of what chips do, its really an IMHO scheme to force you do use more expensive OEM cartridges. And to contrast it with way my very similar to an ip4500 non chipped canon, ink level in the cartridge is monitored, a light shines through the almost transparent plastic sides of the cartridge tank section, if the tank is still full, the printer keeps printing, when the tank empties, the printer signals low ink which means the cartridge should either be refilled or replaced. The chipped canons instead use a chip that basically counts nozzle fires, and when that reaches some number, it determines
that ink is gone and you should replace the cartridge. But even if you then refill that chipped cartridge, the chip will still say the cartridge is still empty and refuse to print. Until the chip resetters came out, you could go through a convulated process, voiding your warranty, still refill, but you lose all automatic ink monitoring. And a chip resetter simply resets the chip back to zero, something that took almost four years to crack the chip encryption

But bottom line, either way, make sure ink is flowing to the printhead, because the ink cools the tiny elements in canon Printheads as the ink is vaporized, and if there is no ink, you can burn out a very expensive canon printhead if you keep continually trying to print without ink.

As it is, my ip4000 printhead is still going after 8000 plus pages and I have heard of printheads still going after 50,000 pages.

 

[Navaros]

Is the ip4500 that I would buy today a chipped canon?

 

[Navaros]

Ah I found out that it is chipped but it can be reset.

Does the ip4500 come with full cartridges by default, or are they 'starter' cartridges?

Because if they are full ones, doesn't it make sense to buy a whole whackload of those printers @$53.99 CAD solely because the ink that comes in them is cheaper than buying refills for it? Or is there something I'm misunderstanding about why that doesn't pan out like I was thinking?

 

[Lemon law]

They are full cartridges in most Canons, but now you are getting into the concept of throw away printers, where the printer plus a set of full cartridges is cheaper than a set of OEM replacement cartridges alone.
A rational choice only if you only buy OEM cartridges, but a poor one when you can refill and keep refilling your original set of cartridges for $5.00 or less.

But as an insurance policy, it may pay to buy 2 ip4500's, that way you have a spare printhead, a spare printer, two full sets of cartridges, and then keep running the original printer until it drops many 10,000's of pages later. And keep refilling the same set of two cartridges only starting after both deplete.

Lets just talk B/W text printing, you can get about 500 pages out of an OEM cartridges for $17.00 or so, round numbers 3 cents ink jet consumables per page, add in the $54.00 you paid for the printer, and your per page costs soar to 14.2 cents per page, but even with super small quality but still high quality ink, your refill costs are and stay at well under one cent a page semi forever.

My last order to Hobbicolors was for 8 oz of black text ink for $16.00 US, basically enough to print 6000 pages of black text, net cost in consumables .027 cents per page. Or 53.25X cheaper than paying 14.2 cents per page.

Starting to grasp the idea? And you are talking to a boob who never could get refilling right with HP's or Lexmarks, but refilling Canons is super easy.

 

[Navaros]

From what I've read so far it seems the third-party ink seller sites don't let me buy just one refill at a time, right? Which is what your $5.00 number was based on?

Ie: if I go here, Text

Then it looks like the least amount of refills they would sell at once is 6.

But what if I can't use 6 because the ink would expire before I used it? I read that ink only has a shelf-life of 2 years. But I don't see myself using my printer other than for printing class notes and assignments, so I probably would't be able to use anywhere near so much as 6 refills in 2 years, would I?

In that case, how would I be able to refill my ink for ~$5.00?

 

[Lemon law]

Sorry Navaros,

I know little about Atlantic ink, but it sure is not the only company on the planet, and looks quite expensive to me.

I am super reluctant to recommend any given company, but here is a link to hobbicolors on ebay. http://shop.ebay.com/items/hobbicolors?_dmd=1&_sop=12
But I mention hobbicolor because it come highly recommended on the nifty stuff forums, its an ink I happen to use so I have personal experience, but other inks also
come highly recommended, including formula labs and other that I now forget. In short, do your comparison shopping, for tested, non pig in the poke products.

The other delusion you somewhat have is to assume you will get 500 pages per given text black cartridge under your usage habits. While you might get 500 pages if you
turned on the printer, and printed 500 pages in a row, but when you print 6 pages one day, 3 more 3 days later, and on and on, you would get far less than 500 pages, because
each time the printer comes on, it goes through a cleaning cycle that wastes ink. And this is basically true of all inkjet printers, regardless if you use OEM cartridges, clone cartridges,
or you refill. Don't like that unpleasant reality with inkjets, then your alternative is basically a laser if you want a graphics capable printer. If you just want text, you should be able to find piles of dot
matrix printers in thrift shops.

But you hit the other rub, unless you live in a big city or can share with someone else, most ink is vended by mail order companies, and unless you buy in some bulk, shipping costs eat you alive.
And since almost all new inkjet printers are chipped, you have to cost in a chip resetter also if its even available for the inkjet printer you choose.

 

[Navaros]

I started out with a laser printer but then I had to take a $40 restocking fee that I lost out of my pocket to return it, because I had no way to know it emitted ozone toxins prior to opening the box and reading that in the user guide. :disgust:

The reason I am going for InkJet now is primarily so I don't have to breathe in ozone toxins emitted by my printer.

 

[IcePickFreak]

Be glad then you missed the days of the old blueprint machines for making copies of hand drawings. I can't say for certain if they omitted ozone or not, but you didn't really think of that due to the overpowering smell of ammonia.

Edit: and yes it dawned on me about 10 seconds after I posted that you aren't talking about CAD printers lol.

 

[Lemon law]

Originally posted by: Navaros
I started out with a laser printer but then I had to take a $40 restocking fee that I lost out of my pocket to return it, because I had no way to know it emitted ozone toxins prior to opening the box and reading that in the user guide. :disgust:

The reason I am going for InkJet now is primarily so I don't have to breathe in ozone toxins emitted by my printer.

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Although I do not quite subscribe to your paranoia about Lasers, I can respect it. In terms of ozone, you will probably get as much standing next to a refrigerator or a sewing machine, and a busy office with multiple lasers always on is going to be different than your home if you only leave your laser on long enough to print.

My efforts have been directed mainly at showing you how to beat the artificially high total costs of inkjet printers, because inkjet printer manufacturers make their money off the ink cartridge replacement costs rather than on the printer itself, and in the inkjet printer market, one can do far far worse by choosing anything much different. Most inkjet printers are giant ripoffs and designed thus to suck you in. But its your money and your choice.

But your remaining mainstream economical choice is a dot matrix printer or daisy wheel, great for text, will not do color, and stumbles very badly with any graphics.

 

[heymrdj]

Originally posted by: Lemon law

Originally posted by: Navaros
I started out with a laser printer but then I had to take a $40 restocking fee that I lost out of my pocket to return it, because I had no way to know it emitted ozone toxins prior to opening the box and reading that in the user guide. :disgust:

The reason I am going for InkJet now is primarily so I don't have to breathe in ozone toxins emitted by my printer.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Although I do not quite subscribe to your paranoia about Lasers, I can respect it. In terms of ozone, you will probably get as much standing next to a refrigerator or a sewing machine, and a busy office with multiple lasers always on is going to be different than your home if you only leave your laser on long enough to print.

My efforts have been directed mainly at showing you how to beat the artificially high total costs of inkjet printers, because inkjet printer manufacturers make their money off the ink cartridge replacement costs rather than on the printer itself, and in the inkjet printer market, one can do far far worse by choosing anything much different. Most inkjet printers are giant ripoffs and designed thus to suck you in. But its your money and your choice.

But your remaining mainstream economical choice is a dot matrix printer or daisy wheel, great for text, will not do color, and stumbles very badly with any graphics.

Wow I'm dead. I printed 2,500 pages last night off my CLX3175FN Samsung color laser. One entire black toner cartridge. By the time I was done the entire living room smelt of toner .

 

[Lemon law]

Heymrdj, who claims, " Wow I'm dead. I printed 2,500 pages last night off my CLX3175FN Samsung color laser. One entire black toner cartridge. By the time I was done the entire living room smelt of toner ."

I do not know if you indeed own a samsung clx3175 FN or not, but if you want to be sarcastic, at least be factual. According to Samsung, the capacity of a whole black Toner cartridges is only 1500 pages, with only a 150 page input tray capacity, you would have to fill paper 17 times to to print 2500 pages, and I would side with Navaros, and if my whole house started to smell of Toner, I would not want to be in the vicinity either.

But give yourself an A for fueling everyone's paranoia.

 

[heymrdj]

Originally posted by: Lemon law
Heymrdj, who claims, " Wow I'm dead. I printed 2,500 pages last night off my CLX3175FN Samsung color laser. One entire black toner cartridge. By the time I was done the entire living room smelt of toner ."

I do not know if you indeed own a samsung clx3175 FN or not, but if you want to be sarcastic, at least be factual. According to Samsung, the capacity of a whole black Toner cartridges is only 1500 pages, with only a 150 page input tray capacity, you would have to fill paper 17 times to to print 2500 pages, and I would side with Navaros, and if my whole house started to smell of Toner, I would not want to be in the vicinity either.

But give yourself an A for fueling everyone's paranoia.

Umm ok. Yes I sat there and refilled the tray every time it emptied. over and over and over and over. I just had the paperwork punched today, I can take a picture and post it up here in the morning if you so wish to see the proof. The printer as well if you want, I still have one or two of the covers for the reams of paper I used if you want that as well.

And you're right, I didn't make it to 2,500, I still have several pages to do.

On this toner

Page Count : 438 / 2145 Page(s) (Color/Mono)

Overall printer life: 3892 Page(s)

And for the record if you couldn't tell, I'm not feeding paranoia, I was being sarcastic. I couldn't give a damn about the room smelling of toner or smelling like Ozone. Beats the crap out of using paint thinner in doors.

 

[Navaros]

I ended up buying a Canon ip4500 online since online is the only place I could find it that wasn't open-box.

Just my luck, the front cover is defective of the unit I got. It won't stay down permanently. The open button is useless since on my unit it's always open anyways. I called Canon to confirm it's a defect and they confirmed it is indeed. They wouldn't tell me that they can exchange it for an ip4500 specifically. If I go bug the reseller I bought it from about this they will probably ding me for shipping charges to send it back, which at least Canon wouldn't have. :disgust: