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Comment by williadc | Hacker News Reader

I had an Epson Ecotank for a couple of years. The printer heads got clogged all the time. We bought a series of cleaning products to address it, they often solved the problem for only a few prints. We finally gave up and bought a Brother laser printer.

This project seems like it's trying to address a similar market to the Ecotank. What assurances can the project team provide that OpenPrinter will have better reliability?

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I have an Ecotank and my parents have one too (data set size of 2 :). I've had it for 4-5 years now and it's superb for my simple use case (occasional low cost printing at home).

I did initially run into clogged heads too, until I scheduled a test print every month which uses all colors. That way no single color stays unused for too long, and it's been working like a charm ever since.

If the heads are already "degraded" there are two (or more?) cleaning programs available from within the official printer driver settings dialog. They did resolve my initial issues.

Epson could definitely do a better job of informing users though by slapping a big warning on the thing saying "you need to print something every X days to avoid issues".

what they really need is a built in print program that just prints a color exercise sheet every 2 weeks.

Ecotank printers are worse in terms of clogging problems, because there is a tank and a hose vs a sealed cartridge. The ink has to flow through the entire system and that means you will have to print at least once a week.

Best protip I ever heard was to just automate a weekly print, and to delay it a week any time you intentionally print.

If you print occasionally then laser is the best option. It's just not usable for photo printing. You ideally want to be using the printer every week or two with inkjet.

Just bought a Brother ink tank printer (they have a whole line). Let's see how long it lasts.

Thirteen models that all look nearly identical and a website that doesn't even remotely help you distinguish between them.

I see the same people have been in charge of product design and marketing at Brother for the last twenty years...

and the product browsing page crashes when i apply more than 2 filters or attempt to sort by price. half of the visible products are out of stock or no longer manufactured. really enjoyable experience.

I also had an Epson ink-tank printer (I don't think it was an Ecotank model name, but similar idea) for several years, battled print head clogs all the time. Found that Windex worked pretty well for dissolving the clogs. (The dad from My Big Fat Greek Wedding was right about something!) But what eventually got me to switch was that the maintenance cartridge — the big sponge under the printer that soaks up the ink pushed through the heads during a head-cleaning operation — was getting full, and it's not a user-serviceable component in Epson printers! They wanted me to ship it off to their service center, and pay who knows how much to swap out the maintenance cartridge. Nope, not gonna do that.

Ditched Epson for Canon. I've had my Canon ink-tank printer for a couple years now. Had ONE serious clog that required multiple flushes to clear the clog, but mostly it's been clog-free. But the best part is that I can just order a new maintenance cartridge from Canon for about $12 + shipping. So when it fills up (probably in another couple years) I can just swap it out myself and keep on printing.

Won't ever buy another Epson printer again. Canon has been great so far.

It sounds like OpenPrinter will be using existing ink cartridges with the print heads built-in; I presume they will therefore have the same reliability.

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