Ink Jet Printer Question

Qui-Gon John · Post by **Qui-Gon John** » Fri May 09, 2014 5:17 pm

Maybe folks here have thought about this, but for some reason, it never crossed my mind until someone I met recently brought it up. He told me he never turns off his ink jet printer, (unless there is a power outage), because supposedly each time you turn it on, it uses up ink and can fill the overflow well, if your ink jet has one.

Up until now, I print so seldom, that I usually leave it turned off until I need to print or scan.

Any thoughts?

TonyT · Post by **TonyT** » Fri May 09, 2014 7:25 pm

I never turn mine off. It's connected to a router, thus anyone can print to it.

RaisinCain · Post by **RaisinCain** » Fri May 09, 2014 8:59 pm

Qui-Gon John wrote:Maybe folks here have thought about this, but for some reason, it never crossed my mind until someone I met recently brought it up. He told me he never turns off his ink jet printer, (unless there is a power outage), because supposedly each time you turn it on, it uses up ink and can fill the overflow well, if your ink jet has one.

Up until now, I print so seldom, that I usually leave it turned off until I need to print or scan.

Any thoughts?

That's BS just leave it on. WOW, the crap that people believe is ridiculous these days.

Post by **YeOldeStonecat** » Sat May 10, 2014 8:01 am

Qui-Gon John wrote: because supposedly each time you turn it on, it uses up ink and can fill the overflow well, if your ink jet has one.

An ink jet will initialize the head and run through a maintenance cycle (some models includes self cleaning) each time you power it on. Each time you power it on, yes it consumes a little bit of ink. Never heard of "overflowing the well"....but suppose technically it is possible if you turn it on and off a few hundred times in a day. However...normal daily or weekly power cycles won't overflow anything. But yes...technically it consumes a little bit of ink each time you turn it on. If you power it off and turn it on daily or weekly....you're having it use over 30% of that little cartridge. One of the models tested (see below links) even consumed 50% of its ink due to this process.
Just leave it on...when it's doing nothing...it's not really using much electricity. However...if you leave them on for long periods of time and never print to it, the ink can dry up. Another one of the drawbacks of inkjets.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/100857718
http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/maga ... /index.htm

Inkjets/deskjets are expensive. The price of laserjets has come down big time over recent years, cost "per page" is far better in the long run with laserjets. And they don't squirt out ink (or toner) each time you power them on.

Qui-Gon John · Post by **Qui-Gon John** » Sun May 11, 2014 1:04 pm

StoneCat: So many days I won't print at all. Then some days I may print once or even a few times during the day. Usually only 1 or 2 pages at a time. If I leave it on, as you recommend, I am a little concerned about the ink drying, as you mention. However, almost certainly, I would print something at some point during a week. So the longest it would go with being on, and not printed to, is a week. In practice, most often that time frame will be shorter, once a day or once every couple of days. So would you still recommend just leave it on. Mine is a Brother, so that is supposed to be one of the most frugal.

Cain: Sorry to bring this up. Wasn't just believing anything I heard. Just that I simply never gave this any consideration before.

Post by **YeOldeStonecat** » Mon May 12, 2014 5:14 am

If you print almost every day...or at least every couple of days...I'd just leave it on. It's not like you go for 3 or 4 weeks without printing...printing at least once a week will keep it from drying up quick.