Recently, the old printer at my house which was a inkjet printer that runs out of ink every 20 pages was finally replaced. The issue with the printer we had was that ink cartridges would be running out frequently when we printed even though we never printed much at all. Printer cartridges for that printer would cost around 20-30 dollars for a replacement and the cartridges did not have a high yield of ink. Recently, I decided to pop open one of the cartridges with a screwdriver to try and see what was inside as the ink cartridge was already broken and causing streaks on the page. After prying it open, I found a block of foam inside that wasn’t even damp with ink, the ink almost seemed like some powder of some sort which explains why I kept running out of ink so quickly. Every time I shook one of these cartridges, I could not feel any liquid inside.
Usually, consumer home inkjet printers are subject to this problem no matter which brand you go with, so I went on eBay and looked for a business/enterprise level printer that was not subject to the issue. I found the Epson WorkForce Pro WF-C8190 which was a color network printer that used four high yield cartridges of black, cyan, yellow, and magenta which could print up to 2,900 pages in Black and 1,700 pages in color. For the largest capacity cartridges the printer can take, it can print up to 11,500 pages in black and 8,000 pages in color which means the ink cartridges do not need to be replaced often. A pack of these cartridges in the standard size will run around $250 dollars, which is less than the cartridge replacements required by the older printer as those cartridges have a low yield in printer ink requiring way more ink replacements.
The WF-C8190 also has many more features than the other one, such as PIN number printing, web configuration, expandable paper cassettes, and more. With a higher page output of 24PPM for both black and color it can print more pages in less time while the older printer could take up to a minute printing multiple full black pages.
In terms of efficiency, the WF-C8190 works without as many interventions and keeps operating costs low while maximizing printing. I’m still fiddling with all the features this printer has to offer, so I might make a follow up post soon.