Weapons of Mass DistractionPrinter Ink Refills

I was printing up some wedding invitation stuff a couple months back and ran out of ink.  I have one of those fancy Epson printers that uses 6 different colored ink cartriges.  It cost right around $100 to buy the full set of ink.  Another annoying thing I found is that my printer refused to print anything if any of those inks were empty.. even if I specify to use only black ink.  The insane cost of the ink got me thinking about refill possibilities for my inkjet.

Some manufacturers have started doing things like making their ink cartriges expire.  When you print the first page it starts a time bomb that will disable it from printing after a certain number of months has gone by, even if the ink is still full.  Another manufacturer started putting chips inside the cartrige that are illegal to reverse engineer (don't get me started on the DMCA), making it impossible for a 3rd party to come along and produce compatible inks.

I decided that it wasn't worth the huge expense to print photos at home when I can take pictures to the store on a memory card and print them for less than 10% my home cost.  Next time my inkjet printer runs dry I may just pick up a cheap laser printer, since toner cartriges seem to last virtually forever in a home environment where they don't get much use.

You may be able to find someone that makes ink refill kits or similar setups for your printer, but beware sometimes the ink they use isn't as high quality as the name brand stuff.  You don't want your photos fading do you? :)

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