Inkjet Printing - Disadvantages

Disadvantages

Inkjet printers may have a number of disadvantages:

• (Original) ink is often very expensive. According to the BBC (2003), "The cost of ink has been the subject of an Office of Fair Trading investigation. Which? magazine has accused manufacturers of a lack of transparency about the price of ink and called for an industry standard for measuring ink cartridge performance".
• Many "intelligent" ink cartridges contain a microchip that communicates the estimated ink level to the printer; this may cause the printer to display an error message, or incorrectly inform the user that the ink cartridge is empty. In some cases, these messages can be ignored, but some inkjet printers will refuse to print with a cartridge that declares itself empty, to prevent consumers from refilling cartridges. For example, Epson embeds a chip which prevents printing when the chip claims the cartridge is empty, although a researcher who over-rode the system found that in one case he could print up to 38% more good quality pages, even though the chip stated that the cartridge was empty.
• The lifetime of inkjet prints produced by inkjets using aqueous inks is shorter (although UV-resistant inks are available) than those produced with solvent-based inkjets and so-called "archival inks" have been produced for use in aqueous-based machines which offer extended life.
• Because the ink used in most consumer inkjets is water-soluble, care must be taken with inkjet-printed documents to avoid even the smallest drop of water, which can cause severe "blurring" or "running". Similarly, water-based highlighter markers can blur inkjet-printed documents and discolor the highlighter's tip.
• The very narrow inkjet nozzles are prone to clogging. The ink consumed cleaning them—either during cleaning invoked by the user, or in many cases, performed automatically by the printer on a routine schedule—can account for a significant proportion of the ink used in the machine.

These disadvantages have been addressed in a variety of ways:

• Third-party ink suppliers sell ink cartridges at significant discounts (at least 10%−30% off OEM cartridge prices, sometimes up to 95%), and also bulk ink and cartridge self-refill kits at even lower prices.
• Many vendors' "intelligent" ink cartridges have been reverse-engineered. It is now possible to buy inexpensive devices to reliably reset such cartridges to report themselves as full, so that they may be refilled many times.
• Print lifetime is highly dependent on the quality and formulation of the ink as well as the paper chosen. The earliest inkjet printers, intended for home and small office applications, used dye-based inks. Even the best dye-based inks are not as durable as pigment-based inks, which are now available for many inkjet printers.
• Many inkjet printers now utilize pigment based ink which are highly water resistant: at least black ink is pigment-based. Resin or silicon protected photopaper is widely available at low cost, introducing complete water and rub resistance for dye and pigment inks, although it should be noted that the photopaper itself must be designed for pigment or for dye inks, as pigment particles are too large to be able to penetrate through dye-only photopaper protection layer.
• Inkjet printing head nozzles can be cleaned using specialized solvents; or by soaking in warm distilled water for short periods of time.