Printer or Printer Ink

[Slynky]

(02-26-2012 08:43 AM)KevinD103 Wrote:  

(02-24-2012 11:25 PM)Slynky Wrote:  I knew/know it's expensive but have never computed it. On the other hand, I would have to express some mild disbelief that aftermarket ink can be 50 times cheaper than OEM ink. That seem astonishing. It's like saying a cartridge of CYAN from OEM that costs $20 will only costs me 40 cents from aftermarket. (using your initital figures of $5,000 per gallon versus $100 per gallon).

I have researched and computed the actual cost of ink.

HP OEM 88 Cartridge color ink = 9ml @ $15.99 each
cost of ink is $1.77 per ml

Cobra Pigment ink for CIS system = $41.45 per 17oz
cost of ink is $.0824 per ml

Link to HP 88 cartridge price

Link to Cobra System Ink

There are 3,785 ml in one US gallon. At $1.77 per ml that works out to $6699.45

For myself, I'm very satisfied with the printer system I bought two years ago from Cobra Ink Systems. That printer is still chugging along and I'm about to buy another for the upgraded features. This first one has paid for itself many times over and has had over 5k sheets of paper through it.

And for the record I do not work for or affiliated with Cobra Ink System.

Thanks for the info. Interesting (except for the fact all they seem to provide for are Epson printers--I have the i9900 ).

And I assumed you know the maath is skewed a bit toward your point (you show cartridge costs from OEM and only bulk ink cost from Cobra when I assume you need to start out by buying a set of cartridges from Cobra and then refill. Of course, I could be wrong and one can refill OEM empties but I thought those were sealed).

Might be worth investigating but, you see, I come from 40 years in the computer field--over 20 years in micros. In my current job, with the government, we were mandated to use refilled toner cartridges to save money. It actually turned out costing more as about half of the refilled cartridges didn't work as they should (smeared, dropped toner on the pages, streaked, etc.) and we had to discard them. We finally went back to OEM cartridges and I can't remember having a faulty toner cartridge. As to inks, we never tried aftermarket after the dismal results with aftermarket toner cartridges.