Yesterday Office Depot announced the launch a new office equipment and furniture leasing option for small business customers in North America.

The new SmartWayLeasing service, which is provided in partnership with ThinkSmart (a specialist international leasing business) is only available in select Office Depot retail stores in the Tampa - St. Petersburg, Florida area. It is expected that nationwide expansion of the program will continue throughout the coming year. Office Depot’s leasing program is the first small business leasing program available through an office supply superstore.

The program allows small businesses to save thousands of dollars of upfront expenses by providing them with the option to lease office equipment, including computers, peripherals and office furniture. Inkjet and laser printers are included in this program. At the end of the lease term the customer has the option to renew the existing lease, return the equipment, or upgrade to new equipment.

And yes, Office Depot will even be leasing the ink cartridges you need for your printers. According to Office Depot, small businesses can include printer ink, toner, and paper in their leasing program.

An interesting idea. Would you use the program? Let Pacific Ink know what you think.

Cell phone printers . . . now this is amazing. As we know now, nobody prints their cell phone pictures, but this little piece of technology is out to change all that.

Polaroid has released a pocked sized printer that uses ZINK (zero ink) technology and prints 2″ x 3″ color photos. That’s right, no ink cartridges.

The printer was designed by ZINK Imaging, a company built on the idea that printer ink is not a good thing. The printers they design are ink free. Instead the printers incorporate dye crystals inside ZINK paper. The crystals are secured under a glossy protective layer, and heat produced by the printer melts the cyan, magenta and yellow crystals to release the appropriate colors.

I could not find a price for a pack (or roll) of ZINK paper as of today, but as of last February they were proposing selling 100 sheets for $20. Twenty cents per sheet is on the pricier side, but when you don’t need ink cartridges the price may seem a little more reasonable.

Anyway, back to the printer . . .

You connect your cell phone via USB or BlueTooth and then print. The printer itself is 4.7″ x 2.8″ x 0.9″ and produces 2″ x 3″ photos. Still pretty small, but at least now the image can have a life outside your cell phone. It is expected that the printer will sell for $150.00, and should be released this spring.

ZINK is claiming that if they can put this technology in a printer this small they can put printers within notebook computers, digital cameras, and even cell phones. Let Pacific Ink know what you think of this technology.

Troubleshooting your printer. We take a lot of these calls every day. Search around this blog for a while and you can read about all the various troubles people are having. You can also read about the various horror stories of those that have called HP, Epson, Lexmark, Dell, Canon, etc for support. Some of these calls were quite expensive.

So, anyway before you make that call take a look at these troubleshooting tips. They may save you a lot of time and a few dollars! These are pretty simple steps, but the often do the trick.

1. Read your printer’s manual. Not profound advice, but the information in your manual could be very useful. Often that is what you pay a repair person to do, or for that matter the folks at the support hot line.

2. Check your printer manufacturer’s web site. Manufacturers keep their web sites up to date with problems folks have encountered with their printers. A quick search of their site could just reveal the exact problem you are having and an effective solution.

3. Is your printer receiving power? In other words . . . Is it plugged in? Is it turned on? Is your power strip turned on? Is the outlet your printer (or power strip) is plugged in to receiving power? The most common problem being that the printer is not turned on. Check the printers power before doing anything. Also make sure none of the LED lights on the printer are flashing. If they are refer to #2 and you will receive direction on how to solve.

4. Check your cables. If you can’t print it may be because the cables that connect your printer to your computer are not connected. Make sure your cables are securely connected to both your computer and printer.

5. Is your printer beeping? Some of the new printers actually beep when there is an issue. Most beeps occur when the printer is out of ink or paper.

6. Can you test print? Most printers are built with an automatic test print feature. This means that you don’t have to use your computer to initiate a test print page. You will need to consult your user manual for the button, or sequence of buttons, to push, but if you can print a test page from your printer it tells you that there is not a problem with your printer. The trouble then lies in the connection to your computer (See #4) or the software on your computer that communicates with the printer.

7. Make sure your ink cartridges have enough ink in them and that they are installed correctly. If using a toner cartridge, do the same - make sure there is enough toner in the cartridge and that it is installed correctly.

8. Run the print head cleaning utility. Most printers do this by themselves (clean the print head), but in some cases an additional cleaning is necessary to improve performance. You will need ton consult your user manual for direction on how to do this.

9. Do you have a paper jam? Paper jams happen quite often, and are a big pain! When you have a paper jam you must be sure not to use the “brute force” tactic to remove the paper. This tactic often results in major damage to the printer. Our friends at DUXCW have the best tips for fixing a paper jam:

Always read the manual on how to clear a jam. Don’t be a “gorilla” with your printer! You can easily damage a printer (strip gear threads, etc.), or even get hurt, if you do not follow instructions and are not careful. Turn the power off–unplug it. You have 110 volts running around the inside many printers. And print heads, gears, etc. like to nip fingers.

Laser printers have some very fine wires to remove static charges from the paper near the fuser mechanism which will break if you aren’t very careful. Also, the fuser itself can be very hot (it fuses/melts toner to the paper).

Don’t move a print head unless the instructions direct it. You can damage the belt, etc.

Address labels cause many paper jams and cannot always be seen. The old shirt cardboard trick can be used to dislodge them from many printers. Just feed a shirt cardboard (or cut a piece of like-sized cardboard form a file folder) through like a sheet of paper and wiggle the label loose and out.

Staples, paper clips, dog hair, and cookie crumbs are among the many things we have coaxed out of printers. A staple will raise havoc with the drum in laser printers. If you see vertical lines on pages printed by a laser printer (or copy machine), the drum is probably scratched. Replacing it can be a very expensive repair, indeed.

If jams persist, or the printer won’t feed paper, there is a good chance that gears are stripped or rollers are worn-down or have flat spots. Fixing this sort of problem may require specialized tools and elaborate alignment procedures and is often best done at a printer repair depot. It is not usually economically feasible to send low-end ink jet and dot matrix printers, etc. to a repair depot. Sometimes roller problems can be fixed by cleaning the rollers.

Changing to a different kind of paper may help. Refer to your user manual for guidance.

On humid days, slightly damp paper can cause jams by sticking together causing more than one sheet to be fed at a time. Try removing the paper from its tray, etc. and fanning it. Make sure the edges or corners aren’t curled and the tray is either not too empty or too full. Read the book (user manual).

10. Is your printer memory full? Printers have a certain amount of memory, just like your computer, and it possible for the memory to fill up. When it does your printer will just freeze up. The quickest way fix this is to turn the printer off. Wait about 30 seconds before turning your printer back on. The memory should not be empty.

There are quite a few tricks we’ve used, and heard about over the years, but these are the most “scientific”. We are a little hesitant to post the “off the record” or “experimental” tips we’ve suggested. But, if you would like to share yours, go ahead.

We’ve got something new to add to the “printer ink is more expensive than” list. Now it is more expensive than gasoline.

According to a story in the Lakeland Ledger (Florida) a gallon of manufacturer brand ink is more expensive than a gallon of gasoline. IF you were to buy a gallon of manufacturer brand ink (ink made by HP, Dell, Epson, Lexmark, Canon, etc) it would cost you somewhere between $3,000 and $5,000. What’s a gallon of gas going for today, somewhere between $3.00 and $3.50? Quite a difference. This puts printer ink right up there as one of the most expensive liquids in the world.

Another comparision . . . Imaging driving up to a gas pump and paying $13 for a teaspoon of gas - that’s what you pay for a teaspoon of printer ink.

Let Pacific Ink know what you think about the high cost of printer ink.

Now this is some valuable printer ink! I came across a new story online where a truck carrying $200,000.00 worth of printer ink cartridges was hijacked.

The events took place in Johor Baru, Malaysia (I had to check Wikipedia to find out more about the location of Johor Baru). Where the truck was transporting the ink cartridges to Senai when it was blocked by another truck. The drive was blindfolded and dumped in an oil palm estate before the hijackers drove away with the truck and the cartridges.

We’ve heard people complain about the price of printer ink. I guess it is this price that makes it so valuable. Better take some armed security to your mailbox the next time you receive a package from Pacific Ink!

What do you think of this ink hijacking hi jinx? Let us know.

Printer manufacturers have taken some pretty major steps to protect the profits the earn on printer cartridges. HP, Lexmark, and Epson have all filed lawsuits against ink cartridge remanufacturers. HP and Epson have also spent a lot of money on technology that goes in to their cartridges. Overall, we have not heard much from either Canon or Dell.

San Francisco based Cryptography Research, Inc (CRI) is hoping a technology they are developing can aid printer manufacturers in their quest to eliminate the remanufactured at compatible ink cartridge market. CRI is developing a chip that uses cryptography designed to make it harder for printers to print with non-manufacturer brand cartridges. CRI is not looking to put an end to the remanufactured and compatible ink cartridge market, they are simply looking to make it harder for “pirated” cartridges to be used.

The pirated ink cartridges are those that are refilled or remanufactured, but are then sold as new, manufacturer brand cartridges. It is estimated that pirated ink cartridges help make up the $3 Billion a year that printer manufacturers lose.

CRI’s goal is to create a chip that will make sure that will allow only certain ink cartridges to communicate with certain printers. Their chip would create a random code for each ink cartridge in order to thwart hackers. A hacker would have to break the code of each cartridge to use it. The chip is not in use in the industry yet, but it is estimated to be in use by early 2008.

Sounds like an interesting opportunity for printer manufacturers to work to recuperate some profits.

Let Pacific Ink know what you think of this technology.

Okay, we have a correction to yesterday’s post. It appears our crack research staff (the person writing this) misunderstood the results of Epson’s recent study on wasted printer ink. Here is what the results really said.

Epson utilizes a the multi ink cartridge, individual ink tank approach in all of their printers. This means that each individual color (black, cyan, magenta, yellow, and in some cases other colors) each come in their own cartridge. When one runs out you simply have to replace that specific ink cartridge and not all. Most Epson printers use 4 different ink cartridges, some use up to 6 or 8.

Companies such as HP, Lexmark, and Dell utilize a different model. They offer a two cartridge model. One of the cartridges is for the black ink and the other contains the 3 color inks. Some of their printers use a photo ink cartridge. These cartridges contain the same color inks, but in a photo grade formulation. Put shortly, you will never have more than 2 cartridges in any of these printers at one time. When one of the colors in the color cartridge runs out of ink you need to replace the entire cartridge, no matter how much of the other two colors are left.

This being the case, the study by Epson is really not all that impressive. They wanted to find out which model produced more wasted ink, their individual ink tank model, or the competition’s 2 cartridge model. They showed that their model produces less waste than the other model. Common sense tells you that if you only have to replace the cartridge that is empty you will produce less waste than if you have to replace all three colors. All this study does is allow Epson to make an data backed claim that their method is better than the competition’s (which is what we would really want anyway, right?).

So, here we are with results that back our hypothesis and a study commissioned by the company that runs their entire printer division based on this hypothesis. Some may call it tainted science, we’ll call it “confirmed”. Let Pacific Ink know what you think.

Sorry for the mistake.

Here’s a little something to make us even more conscious about the cost of printer ink.

A recent study has shown that as much as 60% of the ink in a cartridge is thrown away when printers ask users to throw away half full cartridges.

This information comes from a study commissioned by Epson and conducted by TUV Rheinland. Their goal was to measure how much ink is used up and how much ink remains in the cartridge when the printer prompts the user to replace the cartridge. What they found was a lot of ink being wasted.

Amazingly enough, it did not matter how makes your printer half of the ink in the cartridge goes to waste. They also reported that, on average, inkjet printers have an ink usage efficiency of just 58% when used for photo printing and 47% when used for business type printing. Comparative tests were done on 8 different printers from the major manufacturers (HP, Canon, Brother, Lexmark, Epson and Kodak).

Printers made by HP and Epson were found to have an efficiency level of 80%, while the new Kodak EasyShare model was found to have an efficiency level of just 40%. Kodak has made quite a stir with their new, less expensive, ink cartridges. I guess you can afford to pay half price for a cartridge that you are only half of the ink in.

The research also showed that the printers with the worst efficiency were the ones that use the individual ink tanks, as done by Epson, Brother, and Canon. The report says that pages were printed until one of the colors ran out. At that time the “residual amount of ink that was unused was then recorded”. We are not sure if this means that the ink in all of the tanks was recorded, or just the ink in the cartridge that ran out.

Epson commissioned this study because they wanted to find out the impact of wasted printer ink on the environment. They believe that is is more environmentally friendly and less expensive to utilize the individual ink tank model than it is to use a single color cartridge. All Epson printers utilize the individual ink tank model.

As presented, it would seem that the Epson model may not be the correct one, at least in terms of waste.

There is one factor that this study is missing, and we at Pacific Ink have heard this quite often; the majority of printer users don’t replace their printer cartridge as soon as they are prompted to. Consumers, or at least those we talk to, are aware that there is still quite a bit of ink inside their cartridge when they are warned they are out of ink. They keep on printing until the actual print out comes out looking poor.

You can read a full article at PC World.

You mean we don’t have to read any more?

Well, maybe not, but researchers from Mid Sweden University have created an interactive paper billboard that emits a recorded sound when touched. Parts of the page are sensitive to touch and sound is emitted from printed speakers (which are printed with conductive inks). This obviously has potentially huge ramifications for advertisers and product packaging. The projects leader, Mikael Gulliksson, said, “When you approach the billboard and put your hand on a postcard that shows a picture of a beach, you can hear a very brief description of that beach.”

The same goes for product packaging. Image picking up a box in a store and hearing about the product within. I can’t decide if that would be amazing or annoying. And, what about reading?

“Why should I buy remanufactured or compatible printer ink cartridges instead of the manufacturer brand cartridges?”

This is a question Pacific Ink operators answer just about every day. Part of our job as a provider of these types of cartridges is to educate inkjet printer, and laser printer, users about the benefits these products offer. So, we’ve compiled a list of reasons to share with you.

One of the main reasons to use remanufactured and compatible ink cartridges can be summed up in one word . . . REDUCE. When you use these products you are reducing the amount of waste that goes in to landfills. You are reducing the amount of manufacturing waste and pollution. And, you are reducing energy consumption.

Remanufactured ink cartridges are made from recycled ink cartridges. Logic follows that if we are recycling the old cartridges we are reducing what is thrown in the trash, and then what ends up in landfills. The recycling of printer cartridges is a far gentler on the environment that making new cartridges is. By making products from recycled products we end up with less air and water pollution. Finally, by recycling we reduce our energy consumption because recycling requires less energy than creating a brand new product.

The other simple word that helps explain why one should use compatible or remanufactured ink cartridges instead of brand new ink cartridges . . . IMPROVE. When you use recycled printer cartridges, you help to improve the recycling market and peoples attitudes about using recycled products. You help businesses and governments attain their recycled product procurement goals. You help improve the job market.

When our customers purchase remanufactured ink cartridges they are helping to create a demand for recycled materials collected through various cartridge recycling programs. They are setting an example for others that recycled cartridges are just as good as brand new cartridges, and far better for the environment.

Many state and government agencies have procurement guidelines that requires them to purchase a certain amount of recycled product each year. Printer cartridges are one of these products. Many businesses are now also instituting recycled product purchasing guidelines.

When printer users purchase remanufactured ink cartridges they are improving the job market. The jobs created through the collection and remanufacturing of ink cartridges are far greater, in number, than those created by throwing them in the trash. It does not take may people to throw old cartridges in an incinerators or landfills, but it does take quite a few to collect, sort, prep, remanufacture, test, and package them.

Finally, and this is usually the clincher, compatible and remanufactured ink cartridges are less expensive than brand new cartridges. Recycled printer ink cartridges are one of the few products in the world that cost less than their brand new counterparts. Most of the time we pay more for the recycled version of a product. Not the case here.

So, if you are reading this and have yet to try a compatible or remanufatured ink cartridge, give them a try. If you have been using them, good job, and go out and take a moment to let someone else know about their benefit.

(Thanks to the California Integrated Waste Management board and OSO for their inspiration)