Comment by sricks3
3 years ago
This is actually the biggest problem with my current home printer. My wife or I will print something after installing brand new ink cartridges. Then a month or two later, we try to print something again. The printer acts like it's printing (and seems to think that it's printed the document correctly), but the page comes out with little or no ink inconsistently spread around the page, as if the cartridges were empty.
We finally realized the problem was that excess ink was drying up on the (outlet/spout/I'm not sure of the right term) where it's fed out of the cartridge and onto the paper. In short, *we weren't printing _enough_.* Sure enough, as long as we print a page or two a week, it keeps working properly. Also, for some reason, the "Clean print heads" function or whatever it's called doesn't resolve the issue.
Yep, inkjets need to periodically "clean" the heads by squirting something through them, and they happen to be filled with ink, so that's what they use. I successfully got one working once with vodka when its self cleaning routine couldn't do the job and rubbing alcohol wasn't close to hand.
This is why I use and recommend a black and white laser printers - total cost of ownership is easiest and cheapest in my experience. I suppose they're more expensive than an ink jet to start off with, but it's not that big a difference and a decade of near trouble free printing is worth something for sure.
I don't see the need for color printing documents, but if so there's office stores. For photo prints I'd be looking at places with high end inkjets most likely these days, but there are other color processes that should still work well - I did RA-4 chemical photo printing way back when and it was excellent at the time and should hold up well, but I don't know that anyone bothers with that today.
A laser printer, even a B&W laser printer, is the best choice for a lot of people. I ended up getting rid of my ink jet for the reason you say. I don't print a lot but I do need to print semi-regularly and I'm certainly not going to drive 15 minutes to the nearest Staples every time I need a page or two printed out.