Transparent ink cartridges

[musicdogsbody]

From time to time, years since I once posted a grumble about HP ink cartridges, I still get congratulatory emails from HP telling me I've gained "kudos"  for my helpful contribution. HP seems to revel in the comment, which I have copied below:

"I am convinced that Im being sold ink cartridges with no ink in them. There is no way I've used even 50 pages with this ink cartridge and those that I did print had very little on them (a handwritten christmas card greeting duplicated about 30 times on an otherwise blank sheet - I've had this cartridge less than a month and it's printed NOTHING, and it's empty. 

Hewlett Packard will you please prove to the public that you are selling full ink cartridges by making them transparent. When you buy a jar of peanut butter you can see if it's full."

I haven't owned an HP printer for a long time now and am unlikely to again. Have they made their cartridges transparent I wonder?
And do they actually read these pages? 

[Bob_Headrick]

No, HP ink cartridges are not transparent. 

What printer model did you have?  What cartridges?  HP has many different models, ranging from low end cartrdiges rated at 100 pages or so up to more substantial models.  In my Officejet Pro 8600 the cartridges typically last thousands of pages for the XL size cartridges and last me for quite some time (more than a year).

There are many ways ink can be used other than putting it on the paper, see the document here for some details.  If you have your printer connected to an external power switch (like a European outlet switch or a power director switch) the printer will lose track of time and will do the most aggressive servicing at powerup.  For best economy printers should be left plugged into a live outlet.  Some folks use manual cleaning cycles regularly.  This is seldom necessary (typically less than once in the life of a cartridge), it is much better to let the automatic cleaning take care of things.  

[musicdogsbody]

Thank you for this reply, which is very helpful. I'm afraid I can't now remember what model I had, and it might have been a low-end one, but whatever end of the market a cartridge should print more than 30 sheets with nothing more than 'Happy Christmas from... ' written in biro on an otherwise blank sheet. In other words, practically nothing. I didn't have the printer connected to any weird power source, and I did leave it plugged into a live outlet. I never used a manual cleaning cycle unless there was a real problem, though I might do so when it was completely failing to print with a brand new cartridge; usually this didn't solve the issue. 

I once (more than 20 years ago) owned a Hewlett Packard printer that was an absolute star; it went on and on for years and years trouble-free, it was solid and well-built and completely reliable. When I finally had to replace it, with another HP printer, the lid of the new one broke within a few weeks. I now have a Canon; their cartridges are not transparent either but they do seem to last reasonably well.  Compatible cartridges (which my printer rejects so I can't use them) are transparent, however, so it obviously can be done.