expired Posted by yana24 • Jan 3, 2025
Jan 3, 2025 6:45 PM
Item 1 of 2
Item 1 of 2
expired Posted by yana24 • Jan 3, 2025
Jan 3, 2025 6:45 PM
Costco Members: Brother INKvestment Tank All-in-One Inkjet Printer (MFC-J4345DWXL)
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$227
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Rare or infrequent use is a massive problem with inkjet printers that I learned about the hard way. The printer is NEVER ready to print at the time I need it the most - always requiring around 30 mins of fiddling, purging, and cleaning cycles and a dozen wasted sheets of paper before I can get anywhere with my actual print job. In addition, with INKvestment, the large cartridges end up sitting in the printer for years and probably contribute even further to drying issues, as the ink ages and degrades.
If you are an infrequent user, paradoxically, a more expensive laser printer will be far less headache and peace of mind. I finally caved last month after the inkjet was horribly and seemingly irreversibly clogged and bought a $500 Brother color multi-function laser. This one should be perfectly happy to sit idle for long periods - toner has no concept of drying out.
Incidentally, I've also managed to revive my inkjet after running countless cleans and switching to new off-brand ink from Amazon. I've now set up a weekly print job on my PC so that the inkjet will be used at least once a week to print a simple CMYK test pattern and hopefully avoid drying and clogging.
If you are set on buying an inkjet and you predict low usage, you'll probably want to set up something like this. Or you'll be wasting valuable time and sanity - I can guarantee it from personal experience. Let be know if you need instructions.
Or better yet, buy a laser printer!
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The ink seems to cost ~$25 per ~1000 pages
The printer itself should come with alot of ink (advertised it's good for ~5,000 pages)
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Agree, though not a big fan of Epson print quality and those printers typically run 50-100$ more expensive in upfront cost. Ecotank ink dries up much quicker if not used regularly.
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OEM high yield refills cost $39 & $65 for black and color cartridges respectively. Though there are lots of cheaper third party options on amazon and walmart running around $45 including high yield b&c cartridges. Overall this printer has low cost per print compared to other similar price inkjet refillable AIO printers.
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Rare or infrequent use is a massive problem with inkjet printers that I learned about the hard way. The printer is NEVER ready to print at the time I need it the most - always requiring around 30 mins of fiddling, purging, and cleaning cycles and a dozen wasted sheets of paper before I can get anywhere with my actual print job. In addition, with INKvestment, the large cartridges end up sitting in the printer for years and probably contribute even further to drying issues, as the ink ages and degrades.
If you are an infrequent user, paradoxically, a more expensive laser printer will be far less headache and peace of mind. I finally caved last month after the inkjet was horribly and seemingly irreversibly clogged and bought a $500 Brother color multi-function laser. This one should be perfectly happy to sit idle for long periods - toner has no concept of drying out.
Incidentally, I've also managed to revive my inkjet after running countless cleans and switching to new off-brand ink from Amazon. I've now set up a weekly print job on my PC so that the inkjet will be used at least once a week to print a simple CMYK test pattern and hopefully avoid drying and clogging.
If you are set on buying an inkjet and you predict low usage, you'll probably want to set up something like this. Or you'll be wasting valuable time and sanity - I can guarantee it from personal experience. Let be know if you need instructions.
Or better yet, buy a laser printer!
Rare or infrequent use is a massive problem with inkjet printers that I learned about the hard way. The printer is NEVER ready to print at the time I need it the most - always requiring around 30 mins of fiddling, purging, and cleaning cycles and a dozen wasted sheets of paper before I can get anywhere with my actual print job. In addition, with INKvestment, the large cartridges end up sitting in the printer for years and probably contribute even further to drying issues, as the ink ages and degrades.
If you are an infrequent user, paradoxically, a more expensive laser printer will be far less headache and peace of mind. I finally caved last month after the inkjet was horribly and seemingly irreversibly clogged and bought a $500 Brother color multi-function laser. This one should be perfectly happy to sit idle for long periods - toner has no concept of drying out.
Incidentally, I've also managed to revive my inkjet after running countless cleans and switching to new off-brand ink from Amazon. I've now set up a weekly print job on my PC so that the inkjet will be used at least once a week to print a simple CMYK test pattern and hopefully avoid drying and clogging.
If you are set on buying an inkjet and you predict low usage, you'll probably want to set up something like this. Or you'll be wasting valuable time and sanity - I can guarantee it from personal experience. Let be know if you need instructions.
Or better yet, buy a laser printer!
Do you have those problems with your Brother? I have a J825(DW?) With 3rd party ink. It stays on all the time in rest mode/eco mode and every now and then it runs a self cleaning cycle. It's always ready to print without issues. But it does burn thru ink. The nice thing about my 3rd party ink is that it's cheap. Very cheap. Last batch I paid $20 for 4 black cartridges and 6 colored (2 of each color) it was 2 years ago or maybe 3. But the ink still works without issues. It's the main reason why I recommend neither inkjet to others. I'd been very reliable for many many years. If it breaks I might switch to laser but so far it works.
Sorry to hear yours has issues
Rare or infrequent use is a massive problem with inkjet printers that I learned about the hard way. The printer is NEVER ready to print at the time I need it the most - always requiring around 30 mins of fiddling, purging, and cleaning cycles and a dozen wasted sheets of paper before I can get anywhere with my actual print job. In addition, with INKvestment, the large cartridges end up sitting in the printer for years and probably contribute even further to drying issues, as the ink ages and degrades.
If you are an infrequent user, paradoxically, a more expensive laser printer will be far less headache and peace of mind. I finally caved last month after the inkjet was horribly and seemingly irreversibly clogged and bought a $500 Brother color multi-function laser. This one should be perfectly happy to sit idle for long periods - toner has no concept of drying out.
Incidentally, I've also managed to revive my inkjet after running countless cleans and switching to new off-brand ink from Amazon. I've now set up a weekly print job on my PC so that the inkjet will be used at least once a week to print a simple CMYK test pattern and hopefully avoid drying and clogging.
If you are set on buying an inkjet and you predict low usage, you'll probably want to set up something like this. Or you'll be wasting valuable time and sanity - I can guarantee it from personal experience. Let be know if you need instructions.
Or better yet, buy a laser printer!
Which laser one you bought?
Sorry to hear yours has issues
Right, I have had all these problems with my Brother inkjet. I was very unhappy about this, as I expected better - but I did learn it is not uncommon when usage is low after researching online.
It's always on and definitely self-cleans often but cannot fully clear the clogs.
My inkjet machine was an official Brother refurbished purchase - maybe they didn't do a good job in recertifying it. I suspect the genuine Brother ink I got with the purchase may also be at fault - it may have been a bad batch or just old. Don't really know.
The $20 Kingjet cartridges I replaced it with do print fine - will have to see if it starts clogging in the future or not. But I set up a weekly print job using Task Scheduler because I don't want to deal with this issue again, even if the new ink improves things.
It's always on and definitely self-cleans often but cannot fully clear the clogs.
My inkjet machine was an official Brother refurbished purchase - maybe they didn't do a good job in recertifying it. I suspect the genuine Brother ink I got with the purchase may also be at fault - it may have been a bad batch or just old. Don't really know.
The $20 Kingjet cartridges I replaced it with do print fine - will have to see if it starts clogging in the future or not. But I set up a weekly print job using Task Scheduler because I don't want to deal with this issue again, even if the new ink improves things.
Check out Walmart for the ink and comp and save . Com
I've used compandsave often in the past. Some of the best deals was when they sent me email deals and sometimes search ads. But be careful as there are sometimes 2 different sku numbers for the same item one half priced it's usually only available when you Google search it not searching on their website. But my latest batch was from Walmart. It was a lot cheaper than Amazon.
Hope that helps
I got the Brother MFC-L8610CDW multi-function laser after a bunch of research. It's actually humongous compared to an inkjet, easily around 50lbs. This one is an older model that is still available that I intentionally bought.
The reason to go with an older model is that Brother has been making scummy moves in the latest touchscreen-only models to make it way more difficult or impossible to:
- reset the toner page count. This is needed because printers start complaining about being out of toner based on a fixed number of pages printed, even when there's loads of toner left in the cartridge. Disabling the reset in new models is a way to force you to buy new ink often.
- use non-genuine cartridges, by making them way more difficult and expensive to produce. You can relatively easily find affordable cartridges for older models.
Do your research on these issues before buying a laser as well.
Brother can still be considered the least scummiest of printer manufacturers, but they've recently taken a massive step in the wrong direction. Of course, still better than HP any day!
Rare or infrequent use is a massive problem with inkjet printers that I learned about the hard way. The printer is NEVER ready to print at the time I need it the most - always requiring around 30 mins of fiddling, purging, and cleaning cycles and a dozen wasted sheets of paper before I can get anywhere with my actual print job. In addition, with INKvestment, the large cartridges end up sitting in the printer for years and probably contribute even further to drying issues, as the ink ages and degrades.
If you are an infrequent user, paradoxically, a more expensive laser printer will be far less headache and peace of mind. I finally caved last month after the inkjet was horribly and seemingly irreversibly clogged and bought a $500 Brother color multi-function laser. This one should be perfectly happy to sit idle for long periods - toner has no concept of drying out.
Incidentally, I've also managed to revive my inkjet after running countless cleans and switching to new off-brand ink from Amazon. I've now set up a weekly print job on my PC so that the inkjet will be used at least once a week to print a simple CMYK test pattern and hopefully avoid drying and clogging.
If you are set on buying an inkjet and you predict low usage, you'll probably want to set up something like this. Or you'll be wasting valuable time and sanity - I can guarantee it from personal experience. Let be know if you need instructions.
Or better yet, buy a laser printer!
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