Thread: Crazy

Woody,

Good thinking regarding the battery. It's not only batteries but in lots of things. My brother bought a new colour printer recently ( with a full colour and b/w cartridge) rather then buying a new b/w cartridge for his old printer as it was cheaper.


Peter.

Yairs - there are lots of examples of this lately - can't fathom it out at all. Just went through the same exercise for my old dad - found it was MUCH cheaper to buy a new (and better) drill with TWO batteries than buy one replacement (or have the guts replaced)!!
There must be thousands and thousands of perfectly good battery drills lying fallow for want of new batteries.
I think this is like what the pollies talk about - it's called "Economic rationalism"??!!
Avagooday,

i had this issue when i was on the tools. Makita have a nasty reputation for buning out batery chargers,and thanks to this i now own 3 drills w/6 batteries due to the cost of a replacement charger. after i burnt out the 3rd charger, i thought enoughs enough, and coughed up money for a new 15min fast charger. the money was well worth it.

we are a disposable society at the mercy of mass advertising and ever changing technology. new components no longer suit old products, nothing is designed to be interchangable or re used.

The human race is out to consume itself into extingtion.

Nuf said. must get back to work designing kitchens with a working life of 7 years.

[QUOTE=Nuf said. must get back to work designing kitchens with a working life of 7 years. [/QUOTE]

Seven years! How do you get chipboard to last so long??

Originally Posted by GCP310

The human race is out to consume itself into extingtion.

Sad but true

Printers are a good example of nobbling technology to make a buck. Photo-quality inkjets are dirt cheap these days. The margin on a new printer is barely enough to cover costs. By proportion, ink cartridges are much more expensive. They make a lot more margin on the ink cartridges than they do on the printer. The nobbling comes in because, even though it's entirely possible to make a printer with separate cartridges for each colour, they sell you one with all the colours in it. That means you have to buy a new one as soon as one of the colours runs out. I wonder how many litres of ink, paid for by printer owners, is chucked out every day?

It's the same as a telco selling you a mobile phone for $1. It costs them probably 50 times that to buy it but they more than make up for it on the call charges. Two years later, your phone looks like a brick and you chuck it away (no-one wants to buy it) and get another one for $1.

Cannon have made printers with individual cartridges for years.
My new Epson C63 has individual cartridges.
Really does not make much difference. The colours all seem to run out about the same time anyway.

I have been filling my own Canon BC20 black cartridges for about 8 years as well as the colour ones.

I initially bought a refill kit and now just buy 500ml bottles of bulk ink for $90 + postage which will fill 12 cartridges. That is about a $700 saving on buying new cartridges.

I buy it from a company called Inktek at Coffs Harbour. They will send it any where in Australia for about $7.00.

They have kits with full instructions as well as bulk ink for all printers and is top quality ink.

They have a website.

Any one interested have look. I have no affiliation with them just a customer.

http://www.inktek.biz/

This ain't a new trend.
Mr Gillette I think it was first said, give them the razor, sell them the blades. (or words to that effect)

Originally Posted by DavidG

Cannon have made printers with individual cartridges for years.
My new Epson C63 has individual cartridges.
Really does not make much difference. The colours all seem to run out about the same time anyway.

I'm not saying they're not available but I don't think I'm exaggerating if I say that most inkjet printers on the market have one cartridge for colour and another for black. I have a HP and an Epson and they are both like this.

Whether they all run out at the same time or not really depends on what you've been printing. I can guarantee that if you print photos, you will run out of one colour first and as soon as that happens, the cartridge is useless.

To David G.
Thats an interesting comment about all colours still running out at the same time, perhaps the makers put less colours in the cartridge or know which colours will be used the most etc.

I have in the past considered buying a multi colour cartridge printer but you have cured me of this idea.

To Barry
Did you mean that you have had the same printer for years , I reckon I'm lucky to get 2 years use out of these machines. in fact I purchased the last printer at the cost of under two replacement cartridges.

G'day Woody,

Originally Posted by jow104

Did you mean that you have had the same printer for years , I reckon I'm lucky to get 2 years use out of these machines. in fact I purchased the last printer at the cost of under two replacement cartridges.

2 years? What are you doing with them Woodster?

I bought my Canon BJ-330 in early '93. Its still going though it has trouble dragging paper into itself. The rollers seems to have worn smooth or something similar. It cost me around A$1200.00 at the time, and that was from a Canon reseller that I know, and yes it was cost price!

As much as I would like a nice fast laser, I just can't bring myself to discarding this one.

I think there is a definate trend here r.e. cost of the item and its longevity.

Hooroo...

Mark.

To duckman,
$1200
They made things of quality in the early years of computing, I remember an insurance company I worked for had a room for a computer the size of a cinema.

I reckon I have spent £380 ($900) on printers in the last 5 years so you are on top.

Woody

I have had a Canon BJC4100 for about 7 years now. It still prints quality pages and over the years I would have put probaly 20 reams of paper through it mainly in black. I have stripped it down once and gave it a good clean to get all the paper dust out of it. Still going strong. New cartridges at $60 a pop you have to refill them. $7.50 to refill one as opposed to $60 for a new one it is worth it to refill.