Is The End of Expensive Inkjet Cartridges at hand?

[GreatGazoo]

A "game-changer" that seems 10 years overdue...

Epson, the purveyor of printers and ink, is getting ready to launch a game-changing printer this September, according to Bloomberg. The EcoTank stores ink in deep wells that hold enough to print about 4,000 documents–almost twenty times the capability of current home and small business models.

The new printer will cost about $379 to start—far more than the $60 for a current Epson model. But owners of the EcoTank model will only have to buy $13 refill bottles to feed their tanks when they empty out, which Bloomberg says should happen every 3.5 years or so. In the long run, that’s a much better deal than the current cartridge scheme.

http://fortune.com/2015/08/04/epson-ecotnak/

Ink jet printers have entered the hall of fame for products designed to make us buy something over and over. This French documentary, "Pyramids of Waste", traces modern planned obsolesence and the formation of business cartels back to the early days of the light bulb and it starts and ends with the now iconic inkjet printer:

[hobbit709]

1. Continuous ink feed systems for most inkjets have been available for years.

I know several people that have been using them, especially on a large format inkjet.

[GreatGazoo]

3. like these... (?)

http://wirthconsulting.org/2014/03/08/what-you-should-know-about-continuous-ink-supply-systems/

or something better?

Epson is #1 in printers and ink sales so when they change their business model it changes the game for everyone. Epson's model (and HP, Brother, Canon, etc) was to get a lot of margin out of the ink cartridges. Perhaps now it is to make more on the front end (the printer itself) and to try to stay on top by adopting and co-opting the bulk ink thing.

[olddots]

2. if only Epson could be trusted

So far they have the credibility of an oil company .

[tech3149]

4. One could only hope

But for luddites like me, I'm satisfied with my old Laserjet 4P. It can do 4,000 pages on a cheap re-manufactured toner cartridge and is actually repairable by an old fart like me. Not only that the print doesn't run when it gets wet. Add to that, I can print out film masks to make PCB's about as cheap and much quicker than if I sent the files to someone else to make the boards for me.
I've had quite a few of the multi-function inkjets over the years and the waste of ink and the mess they make to the mechanism doesn't seem worth the effort.