# Kodak all in one making me buy ink when not all used!!



## hoteldave

Hi, There has been one or two posts about ink usage on here, people buying ink when unnecessary on Kodak printers. I find it frustrating when the printer says the colour has run out and wont let me finish my print run until I have replaced the colour cartridge although I only want to print black text. I have always had HP before and when you got a message "ink low" you could ignore it until you were ready to go shopping for replacement cartridges and believe me that was ages before you noticed any deterioration in quality. *Is there a way to disable this message on Kodak so that I can finish my printing when the ink is low.* I was talked into a Kodak machine because the ink cartridges were supposedly cheaper than others, but if the machine refuses to print until you have bought new cartridges then this is not going to be the case. I wouldn't recommend Kodak to anybody!!
Dave


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## myfax

I'm so bad to hear that. if have a *print* machine that don't use the ink or paper,it will be saved costes and time. Do you think?


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## epshatto

I'm not sure what kind of ink cartridges the Kodak uses. Do you have a seperate cartridge for black? Or do you have cyan, magenta, and yellow cartridges but no black? If there is no black ink cartridge, a printer creates black by combining ink from the other cartridges, which uses a lot of ink. That might be why it's saying ink is low, since you mentioned you only wanted to print black.


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## hoteldave

I have black cartridge and a colour cartridge. If I am printing out several letters (black) and for some reason the printer detects that the colour cartridge is low ( although the black cartridge is full) the ink low message appears and wont let me finish my work. Very frustrating.
Never buy a Kodak again.
Dave


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## Petie

I am having the same issue. Kodak advertises the printer to be more economical as far ink and cost per page to print. However, to me it seems to be false advertising when the printer stops printing even in black only when the color ink cartridge is low. 

Currently I cannot print and I am being asked to replace a black ink cartridge even when the pages seem to still be printing fine. HP users recently brought and won a class action suit for similar practices.


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## bozshok

Face the same problem, really annoying.


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## godspeeed

Dont forget that there will always be some ink left in the cartridge. If the cartridge would go totally empty it could drain air in your printhead nozzles and damage it.


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## JimE

It's not a Kodak issue. ALL printers will stop if any cartridge is missing or "empty".


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## hoteldave

Dogg said:


> It's not a Kodak issue. ALL printers will stop if any cartridge is missing or "empty".


 Dogg you are wrong, I have had HP machines for years and although they warn that ink levels are low, they do not stop printing. I used to change my inks when the printing wasn't 100% and I got a lot more use form my ink cartridges and never suffered any problem with ink heads as somebody suggested.


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## JimE

Some printers will allow you to bypass the "low ink" warning and continue printing (my Canon does). I use the cartridges until quality is affected and replace them. I assume it may continue with them empty, but I haven't tried it.

In any case, my point is that it's not an issue specific to Kodak. There are numerous posts here concerning other brands that won't print with empty or missing cartridges.


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## gcavan

I once owned an Epson which used some sort of page count method to 'calculate' when the cartridges needed to be changed and would absolutely refuse to print once it thought either cartridge should be empty. So I had to fool it by taking out the cartridges and "replace" them and then tell the driver to initialize the "new" cartridges.

My HP gives me a low ink warning in the form of a blinking light but would allow me to keep printing (if I wanted to) until it was spitting out blanks.


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## printerman60

most printers have a chip in the inkjet cartridge, that read the drops.
even if it looks full, or half full, the printer reads the info from the chip.


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## teddyv

OK, here is my Kodak printer issue, similar to past Epson issues. New Kodak printer. I load new cartridges, one black, one color. I set printer options in control panel, and check at each print job system dialog, use black ink only. Often I find draft setting gives satisfactory results. I never use color to print. Not photos, not color in document printing. I choose only black ink, all the time, every print job. I verify black only at every print job, regardless of program I am using.

After an appropriate number of pages printed with black ink only, never using any color ink, the printer monitor gauge shows the color ink level dropping along with the black. About the time it says I need to replace the black, it says I need to replace the color also. Even though I never used any color ink. If I remove and replace the same color cartridge, it knows and says color is out, needs to be replaced. I know it's not evaporation.

I have gone through two cycles of cartridges, regular capacity and high capacity, with same results. That is the problem I have been having with Kodak printers and forced cartridge purchasing. Is there any way to override the color cartridge monitor, apparently tied to number of pages printed, not amount of ink used?

*Is there any printer on the market today that monitors actual ink used, and not just page count? *Why can't the chip on the cartridge read the actual ink level, instead of just ID-ing the cartridge so it has to be replaced after the printer prints so many pages? *Anybody? * ~Thanks....


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## MedScope

Yes mine does same BS even though I select black in advanced; it still uses color on the black prinouts... atleast my DELL printer you could hit OKAY n it would still print on a wallgreens black refill, but it did not use color along with black to print black written type. I'll never buy another kodak - they lied.

tim, paducah ky


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## Tomken15

Take all of the cartridges out, clean the contacts, give them a good shake before refitting them, set it to colour and then see if you still get the low ink alert.

The only time I print in colour with my Epson is when I print off a screen article, but it's set to colour by default and I only get the low ink alert when one of them is low, but it doesn't effect the print out and occasionally I think it will have had to mix the colours to print the black text.

You could try downloading the drivers as well to see if that helps.


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## MedScope

''Kodak's tech explained to me that their ink cartridges are cheaper than other manufacturers because the other companies have fresh (but temporary) printheads as part of their cartridges, whereas Kodak has a permanent printhead as part of the machine and its cartridge only supplies the ink, enabling the lower price; but the ink, including the color ink, MUST keep lubricating that printhead and keeping the nozzle open, so even color ink must flow with every B&W page.''
Kodak ESP 3250 -- good but keep a backup - Kodak Esp 3250 All-In-One InkJet Printer - Epinions.com

i bet walgreens refills won't work - not willing to spend the money to try.
thnx for reply

ts


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