Officejet Pro 8500: How can you print without color cartridges installed?

[lsdisciples]

>How does covering the rubber bladder on the inside of the color ink cartridge with tape override anything to allow only the black in to be used??? It doesn't seem to make sense to me.

When putting the tape on the right spot it really work...I have tons of Black and white pages printed since the ink check is bypassed by tapes on color cartridges.    The check and the design of the printer is clearly designed to force you to spent extra money on ink cartridges as much as possible.

after 3 or 4 black ink cartridge latter I can say that the printing cost is highly reduced when used without color..  The absurdity is that the cartridge is completely empty on a periodic basis (almost each year) even without using them at all.

[Bob_Headrick]

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lsdisciples wrote:

[snip] I have tons of Black and white pages printed since the ink check is bypassed by tapes on color cartridges.    The check and the design of the printer is clearly designed to force you to spent extra money on ink cartridges as much as possible.

after 3 or 4 black ink cartridge latter I can say that the printing cost is highly reduced when used without color..  The absurdity is that the cartridge is completely empty on a periodic basis (almost each year) even without using them at all. 

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If you want a black only printer I would suggest you get a suitable laser printer.  If you want mostly black with occasional color then an inkjet printer with integrated printheads like the Deskjet 6980 may be a good choice.  Taking a high volume color inkjet printer and destroying the color capability by ruining the color printheads and ink delivery system seems like a poor choice no matter what your application.

Some color ink is used to keep the nozzles clear, see this page for information on how ink is used.

[lsdisciples]

I dont want to black and white only printer... I need to print in color sometime.  The problem is having color cartridge inside for occasional use result in buying 3 color cartridges periodically even if you print less than 10 color pages a year.

I have a set of empty color cartridges with tapes on it, this way I can keep my color cartridge totally full and swap the cartridges when needed.  Anyway if you dont do photos or artistic websites printing, color is used on rare occasion. 

There was no notice on the box about using this printing only for mass color document printing ONLY or the printing cost will be unreasonable. 

[Bob_Headrick]

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lsdisciples wrote:

1. I dont want to black and white only printer... I need to print in color sometime.  The problem is having color cartridge inside for occasional use result in buying 3 color cartridges periodically even if you print less than 10 color pages a year.

I have a set of empty color cartridges with tapes on it, this way I can keep my color cartridge totally full and swap the cartridges when needed.  Anyway if you dont do photos or artistic websites printing, color is used on rare occasion. [SNIP]

OK, a few points that I have made several times already in this thread but bear repeating:

1. If you only print occasional color then a printer with separate ink supplies and printheads is likely *not* the right printer for you, whether it is HP or some other vendor.  For 10 pages of color a year you would be much better off sending the prints to Kinko or some similar.  
2. If you bypass the out of ink sensor on the printer with a piece of tape you should not expect that the color will work again when you replace the color cartridge.  In the likely case you will need to replace the printhead(s), in the worst case there will be clogs in the supply lines that require service.  For reference the printheads are about $65 each and you will likely need to replace both.  You might get lucky and only have to replace one and do some fiddling with cleaning cycles to recover the other, but the likely case is $130 or a new printer when you need to print color if you bypass the safeguards.

[behr121002]

Agreed on your point, Isdisciples. 

No where in my experience,... no where in the advertising,.. no where in the store representation or sales 'pitch' was a customer made aware of  such warnings, conditions or requirements cocnerning the operational shut-down of the printer should one of four cartidges run out,...least of all one of the color cartridges. 

For any company that brags about on good design, reliablility and customer satisfaction, an operational design such as this is UNACCEPTABLE.

[Guardiana]

It was trying to tell me I am out of ink on brand new cartridges! I called them and they could not help, taping the oval window on the cartridge it helped. What a scam!

[SiobhanF]

Here is the explanation from one of our printing experts at HP on why color ink cartridges are used when you print black and white.

Our teams of engineers design print systems – printer, ink and paper – to work together to give optimal results. Each print system is different and designed to address different printing needs. For example, if you only want to print black and white documents, a monochrome laser printer might be more suited to your needs than an inkjet printer. If you want to focus more on photo printing, a Photosmart is a better solution, or for office documents, an Officejet Pro.

Once you’ve selected a printer, there are things you can do to optimize printing for your needs. Within the printer driver (on the PC) there is an “Advanced” option for “print in grayscale” where you can select to use “black ink only.” This means that color ink will not be used in printing. However, in a print system utilizing individual ink cartridges, the permanent or long-life printhead is designed to last for the entire life of the printer – so to keep the printhead working smoothly, the printer conducts cleaning/maintenance cycles that ensure the printhead does not dry out and ink can continue flowing through the nozzles as intended. This process will use all the inks, to ensure that the nozzles and each color do not clog and keep running at their best.

HP ink cartridges are rated on an industry standard page yield, but as with any print project, your individual experience will vary based on use. Just as your car’s fuel mileage varies from tank to tank depending on how you drive. The frequency with which you print, the volume and type of printing you do, even the climate in which you live can affect the yield of your cartridges. To get a better idea of how HP calculates expected life span of cartridges, you can check our ISO test suite and process.

[Guardiana]

After the cartridges, etc. were checked for clogging it was still insisting there is no ink left when the cartridges were unused. After each checking, it was saying that one or more cartridges had to be replaced, sometimes those were different colors. It was most frustrating because it would not allow me to install/use other features, such as scan/ fax. When I called your company the technician was no help and told me the best thing was to return it.

After reading the blog and taping the oval window the problem went away. This is very peculiar to say the least, especially because refusal to print when the cartridge still has ink seems to be a frequent issue. Not that long ago Epson settled a class-action law-suit pertaining to the very same problem... Makes me wonder

[lsdisciples]

Here is an explanation from our experts (anyone living on planet earth who does not work with hp) :

We can send people on moon since almost 50 year, but keeping an ink cartrige usable for a single year is too complicated? ...The only option is to create a system that periodically drop the ink in the trash.  hp innovate... LOL

if you are not even able to create a decent printer that keeps its ink wet for a year I think you should consider doing something else than creating printer.

[behr121002]

Concerning  the last two or three posts...... TOTALLY AGREE!!!!