Printers And Side-Ink Tanks

[SailingHome]

There seems to be a local phenomenon in Pattaya. Printers are being sold with ink tanks on the side and hoses to the cartriges. Is this from the factory or added on? If added on, how do they set the cartridge to not report empty after certain time/volume/etc.?

[Khun Jean]

It is not local as i bought one of those (an epson) about 4 years ago in Bangkok, they still sell them.

Don't know how they fooled the circuitry, and truth told i not really care.

It works great and color prints are cheap to make, especially when they are bigger then the typical 4x6.

The quality of the ink is important. Pictures made 4 years ago that were in an album still look great, some that were framed and hanged on the wall are slowly getting a yellow haze, nothing a quick reprint won't fix.

I also had an canon with original inks and they are better. Now almost 6 years and pictures still look good.

The importance of prints is slowly going down though, at least for me. More and more digital frames are used by the family and being able to send pictures digitally to family in my home country is a great benefit.

[SailingHome]

It is not local as i bought one of those (an epson) about 4 years ago in Bangkok, they still sell them.

Don't know how they fooled the circuitry, and truth told i not really care.

It works great and color prints are cheap to make, especially when they are bigger then the typical 4x6.

The quality of the ink is important. Pictures made 4 years ago that were in an album still look great, some that were framed and hanged on the wall are slowly getting a yellow haze, nothing a quick reprint won't fix.

I also had an canon with original inks and they are better. Now almost 6 years and pictures still look good.

The importance of prints is slowly going down though, at least for me. More and more digital frames are used by the family and being able to send pictures digitally to family in my home country is a great benefit.

cool, cool. I am not a picture printer much, but put out reams of paper in my studies. Laser just isn't worth it for me. Finding high quality inks is not difficult. Thanks!

[floridaguy]

they sell these everywhere in Thailand. ask about your particular model, but on my Epson, when the printer thinks that it is low on ink, there is a small button on the printer head that I press and it resets the ink counter.

[Rabbi]

OK I bought an EpsomTX300F with Tanks added in Tucom and it was a dismal failure. Not because of the hardware but the unauthorised and non-original tank installation.

After much agro and "lies" [we nearly came to blows] from the retailer I eventually went to Wattana [authorised Epsom Dealer] in Pattaya Klang and after a few days got everything operating successfully "under warranty".

My recommendations are

ONLY buy from an authorised dealer [you can check on the net]

Epson & Canon are great

Use top quality ink - I use "Inkman" it is a bit dearer but seems to last longer

Hope that helps

[SailingHome]

OK I bought an EpsomTX300F with Tanks added in Tucom and it was a dismal failure. Not because of the hardware but the unauthorised and non-original tank installation.

After much agro and "lies" [we nearly came to blows] from the retailer I eventually went to Wattana [authorised Epsom Dealer] in Pattaya Klang and after a few days got everything operating successfully "under warranty".

My recommendations are

ONLY buy from an authorised dealer [you can check on the net]

Epson & Canon are great

Use top quality ink - I use "Inkman" it is a bit dearer but seems to last longer

Hope that helps

Bummer you had such a bad experience. I wonder if you got the odd one since others are reporting working ok. How was your issue resolved? IE did they put in new heads and ink?

[Rabbi]

OK I bought an EpsomTX300F with Tanks added in Tucom and it was a dismal failure. Not because of the hardware but the unauthorised and non-original tank installation.

After much agro and "lies" [we nearly came to blows] from the retailer I eventually went to Wattana [authorised Epsom Dealer] in Pattaya Klang and after a few days got everything operating successfully "under warranty".

My recommendations are

ONLY buy from an authorised dealer [you can check on the net]

Epson & Canon are great

Use top quality ink - I use "Inkman" it is a bit dearer but seems to last longer

Hope that helps

Bummer you had such a bad experience. I wonder if you got the odd one since others are reporting working ok. How was your issue resolved? IE did they put in new heads and ink?

Printers as far as I know do not come from the factory with Ink Tanks fitted they are an optional extra and if fitted by an authorised agent you should not have any problems.

My experience and that of many others who reported on the subject some months ago is that the non-agents [read in Pattaya "Tucom sales people"] are not factory trained technicians and do not use genuine hardware or firmware.

My issue was resolved when Wattana replaced the firmware with genuine not pirated/copied and gave the printer a thorough service even though it was only 5 weeks old and failed within 6 days and spent 2 weeks in Tucom. Even during the initial 6 days I was constantly restting it because it would not recognise the tanks and was reporting "ink out" and eventually just stopped completely.

Since then it has operated as new for 8 months now.

[Daffy D]

I've been using Canon printers for years, refilling the tanks as necessary. The problem was that I don't do very much printing and after a couple of years use the nozzles usually clog up, don't notice because of disabling the low ink warning, and the the printer becomes useless.

This time thought I would try one of those printers with the side tanks. I only buy cheap printers and the cost with the tanks full of ink plus bottles of spare ink was little over 2000Bt. This amount of ink will last me for years.

The advantage is I can see how much ink is in the side tanks and it need never run dry. Have only had the printer for a couple of months but am well please with the way the system works.

As for the other questions. I believe the conversion invalidates the warranty as it is not a standard add on and they remove or reprogram the chip so you don't get any of the usual warnings nag warnings.

[SailingHome]

Has anybody bought at tukcom and had a good experience? Which vendor did you use?

On longevity, 2-3 years is pretty good for a cheap printer. Usually there is an OS upgrade by then and no drivers for your old model anyway.

[johnh101]

Had my Canon printer converted recently to use the side tanks, it works great.

Points of note, the low ink alarm is now always on and if you do not use them regularly the tubes will dry up, this happened to us but the guy who fixed it up for us cleaned them out in 10 minutes.

[sarahsbloke]

I just bought a Canon MP287 printer, scanner, phocopier for 3,000bht including ink tanks (Pantrip Plaza Chiang Mai behind the escalator)

The shop just sells printers and tanks, they take over the 1 year guarantee .... it goes wrong bring to us not Canon service.

It works very well, the ink tanks are big and will last a long time.

Edited December 19, 2010 by sarahsbloke