- Joined
- Apr 27, 2013
- Messages
- 1
Hello Everyone!
We are a soap company based in Hawaii called Filthy Farmgirl We have been printing our labels in-house for the last six years on ancient HP Photosmart inkjet printers. We want to upgrade to new printers, but so far we can't find anything that works for us. We spend $12,000 a year on ink and it makes sense to find a new printing system and put it to work!
The old printers we like all use the 75xl and 74xl ink cartridges. The print quality is amazing. Rich deep colors, black blacks, sharp text. We print on fairly "regular" paper which costs 2 cents a sheet. There are thousands of printers that print beautiful color prints on special inkjet or coated photo paper, but try putting in a sheet of normal uncoated paper and the colors come out dull and faded looking.
We buy genuine HP color ink on bay, and use locally refilled black cartridges. We have experimented with refilled color cartridges from several refiners but the print quality is no good. We use on average eight color ink cartridges per week. When we buy them on bay they cost $16-$20 If we have to buy them retail they are $45 each. The printers are obsolete (hp stopped making them years ago) but so far there is a solid supply of used ones on ebay. We try to keep 3 or 4 running all the time, when one dies we replace it.
Eventually this system will become unviable. We will no longer be able to buy used printers, or the sources of cheap ink on ebay will "dry up." Hp still makes the ink cartridges but they will eventually stop.
Last year we tried switching to another obsolete HP inkjet, the 8500A. The print quality was almost as good and the 8500A has separate C,M,Y and K cartridges which allowed us to use refillable inks with acceptable color quality and long term ink availability. We thought we had found the solution! We bought 4 printers but as soon as we put them into heavy production they all got plugged printheads. Even with genuine inks, they were not able to handle the constant output of heavily inked pages.
Laser printers might work, we have done test prints that look almost as good as our little inkjets. So far we have not found a laser printer that can beat the per page cost. Another consideration with laser printer options is power consumption. We are completely off grid and the large laser printers with good per page cost efficiency use significantly more electricity. We would have to upgrade our solar array if we switch to big industrial laser printers. At this point nothing is out of the question.
Another possible solution is CISS.
Any help or suggestions are MOST WELCOME
P.S. We will send free soap to anyone who comes up with a good solution!
We are a soap company based in Hawaii called Filthy Farmgirl We have been printing our labels in-house for the last six years on ancient HP Photosmart inkjet printers. We want to upgrade to new printers, but so far we can't find anything that works for us. We spend $12,000 a year on ink and it makes sense to find a new printing system and put it to work!
The old printers we like all use the 75xl and 74xl ink cartridges. The print quality is amazing. Rich deep colors, black blacks, sharp text. We print on fairly "regular" paper which costs 2 cents a sheet. There are thousands of printers that print beautiful color prints on special inkjet or coated photo paper, but try putting in a sheet of normal uncoated paper and the colors come out dull and faded looking.
We buy genuine HP color ink on bay, and use locally refilled black cartridges. We have experimented with refilled color cartridges from several refiners but the print quality is no good. We use on average eight color ink cartridges per week. When we buy them on bay they cost $16-$20 If we have to buy them retail they are $45 each. The printers are obsolete (hp stopped making them years ago) but so far there is a solid supply of used ones on ebay. We try to keep 3 or 4 running all the time, when one dies we replace it.
Eventually this system will become unviable. We will no longer be able to buy used printers, or the sources of cheap ink on ebay will "dry up." Hp still makes the ink cartridges but they will eventually stop.
Last year we tried switching to another obsolete HP inkjet, the 8500A. The print quality was almost as good and the 8500A has separate C,M,Y and K cartridges which allowed us to use refillable inks with acceptable color quality and long term ink availability. We thought we had found the solution! We bought 4 printers but as soon as we put them into heavy production they all got plugged printheads. Even with genuine inks, they were not able to handle the constant output of heavily inked pages.
Laser printers might work, we have done test prints that look almost as good as our little inkjets. So far we have not found a laser printer that can beat the per page cost. Another consideration with laser printer options is power consumption. We are completely off grid and the large laser printers with good per page cost efficiency use significantly more electricity. We would have to upgrade our solar array if we switch to big industrial laser printers. At this point nothing is out of the question.
Another possible solution is CISS.
Any help or suggestions are MOST WELCOME
P.S. We will send free soap to anyone who comes up with a good solution!
