Ink tank printers - if infrequently used

[Stephen Tashiro]

How well do ink tank type printers hold up if they are infrequently used? Do the tanks or print heads dry out and clog?

[Doug Garson]

We've had an Epson tank type printer for over 2 years, it gets moderate use and has been idle for 2 to 3 weeks several times with no problems.

[Frank Pratt]

The Epson (not a cheapie) tank printer I have struggles. Sometimes it'll go weeks without clogging the nozzles. Other times it only takes a few days for them to plug up.

[Jim Becker]

I find I need to be sure to periodically clean it since I don't do much printing. It does waste a little ink and you can fill up the cleaning reservoir which then has to be replaced, but I'm still only halfway through my "first year's ink" (my Epson printer came with "two years" worth of ink) and I'm two and a half years in. I've had to replace the cleaning reservoir once to-date.

[Lee Schierer]

We gave up on inkjet printers. They clog partially or completely due to infrequent use. We purchased a Brother laser printer for under $100 about 10 years ago. We are still using our second toner cartridge. No clogs and no mess. It prints right away everytime. If I need colo printing I go to an office supply house and pay for a few copies and get better quality than most home printers.

[Curt Harms]

I have a current model Brother ink jet, I wanted the color capability and just as much the scanner. Every day around noon it goes thru what I'd characterize as a mini cleaning cycle. No clogging so far and I have it set to print monochrome by default.

[Frank Pratt]

I also have a Canon 9000 13" printer that has gone up to a couple of years without printing and nothing has ever clogged on it. I has 8 tanks and prints spectacular photos, every bit as good as any commercial photo printing service.

[Keith Outten]

How do you clean the nozzles when they clog up?

[Frank Pratt]

I just run the nozzle cleaning routine. Sometimes I have to do it a couple of times.

[Barry McFadden]

I have a Canon inkjet printer that I've had for years. I don't print much with it and have never had it clog up. When it's not being used I always turn it off because my understanding is that this "parks" the cartridges and covers the print heads to prevent them from drying out.

[Myk Rian]

I also have a Canon. The Pixma series that will print CD/DVDs. I get my ink on ebay, 6 full sets of color and Blk for $19. Have never had one dry up with sometime household printing.
I considered a tank model, but couldn't find one to print the discs.

[Jim Becker]

I have a Canon inkjet printer that I've had for years. I don't print much with it and have never had it clog up. When it's not being used I always turn it off because my understanding is that this "parks" the cartridges and covers the print heads to prevent them from drying out.

The tank type printers being discussed don't have cartridges to park. The ink is loaded from large bottles and you can see the reservoirs on the lower, right side in this photo on my particular printer

[Alex Zeller]

I have an HP scanner/ printer that doesn't get use often and each time I do use it the printer does it's little clean the nozzle dance for 5 minutes. I have thought about replacing it with a tank printer but I think I want a photo printer that has more than 3 colors of ink. I figured it would take 5 or so years if the tank printers become popular before the photo versions will make their way to the market.

[Jim Becker]

Ales, mine is a photo printer (bought three years ago) with both the colors plus photo black and the standard printing black. My previous photo printer that used cartridges was also configured that way. Tank type has supported photo printing configurations from the beginning...at a cost, of course.

[Michael Schuch]

What is the ink tank printer being used for?

I have had my share of inkjet printers and they are capable of some very nice prints but in the very dry air of Central Oregon they have all eventually plugged beyond being cleared by the cleaning routine or a wide variety of print head soaking, cleaning fluid cartridges or even ultrasonic cleaning. I have been told that I should keep my inkjet printer in a special enclosure with a minimum of 40% relative humidity for print head longevity. With the relatively short life span of the dyes and pigments despite manufactures claims I have given up on inkjets.

I have a nice HP super fine dot color laser that will do an OK proof but isn't really photo quality. I have been looking closely at dye sublimation printers. Where the dye is on a ribbon and the printers will only print on special dye sub photo paper. The small (5 x 7) dye sub printers are pretty cheap and the big ones get more expensive of course. Consumable kits with the special paper and the special ribbons are on the expensive side.

For my photography I have resigned myself to printing proofs on my color laser then using a service for final prints. For me this has been by far the most economical route to quality photograph prints.