Epson Ecotank Printers

I still have Brother HL-1650 that is over 18 years old and it still works fine. Brothers does not provide a Win 7 driver but Win 7 compatibility driver is good enough (just lose access to a few options via driver) . I have a color laser for my limited color - again nothing to dry out.

I own a HP Envy series inkjet printer and subscribe to their Instant Ink program...which entitles me to print 50 pages for
$4.50 a month in Canada...a dollar cheaper in the USA...there are other plans if you want to print 100 pages or more per month. I print full page photo prints so for me it's a bargain...with paper my cost comes out to about 35 cents a print!...
well worth it for me. The printer is linked to HP and they can detect when i'm running low on ink and send me a replacement cartridge. If I don't print 50 pages in a month the balance is rolled over...and kept in reserve.
As mentioned by SCB...my concern would be the inkheads in printers using the EcoTank system...also ink cartridges tend to dry out if not in continual use.

Im reading this thread with interest, maybe to help someone in the future with blocked nozzles
I used to service HP large format plotters and customers used to get blocked nozzle's often.

This is the way we used to get them working again:

1. Dab nozzle plate with warm distilled water with a lint free cloth.
2. Lay cartridge nozzle down on paper towel to dry and soak the old ink off repeat if necessary till plate is ink free.
3. Get alcohol swabs (come in squares about 25mm/1 inch square sealed packs)gently dab the nozzle plate repeatedly
4. After a few dabs put on a dry paper towel to soak off alcohol and ink.
Repeat a few times as nccessary.
Put back in printer do a test page. If there are still blocked nozzle's repeat step 3 & 4.
But every now and then press the nozzle plate onto a clean swab. There is normally a little breather hole in the top of the cartridge you can blow on it a few time during the process. (The ink doesn't taste that bad but rinse mouth with whiskey if taste is unbearable).
Sometimes the old dry ink is quite stubborn, if steps 1 & 2 don't work
Fold up paper towel place in saucer put some water in and soak for up to 3-4 hours check regularly
Dab off on a dry paper towel. Resist the urge to wipe (as this pushes the old ink into the nozzel holes.

This works 90% of the time.

From my fountain pen hobby, I have learned the best thing to clean ink is ammonia. Back before ink cartridges would fail to work because the printer detected a non-genuine cartridge, I would use an ink syringe and fill it will household ammonia cleaner without surfactant. Run a few cleaning cycles. Then repeat the same with water. Follow by a cleaning with real ink cartridges and I was usually good to go. My sister-in-law's mother-in-law bought an old Epson Stylus 750 (I think) from me. She didn't use it for a year after I set it up, and then called me and said it would not print.

I just took a paper towel, soaked it bleach and let the print heads rest on it for an hour. Then 2 cleaning cycles and stern lecture about cleaning cycles and you were good to go.

Older inkjet printers used to do a mini-cleaning cycle once a week when you left them on to make sure they heads didn't dry up. Every once in a while you would hear your printer make noise for a few seconds. I think that feature went away when Energy Star compliance became a thing.

I've been involved in the design, development, and manufacturer of a lot of technology devices. I cannot imagine trying to justify a consumer device where users had go through cleaning processes outlined in the two posts above. (Although the two posts above are completely accurate and good advice for cleaning print heads.) As VP of Engineering if I had gone to my company's sales/marketing department and told them that our new product would require these kinds of cleaning procedures and user intervention I would have been looking for a new job that afternoon.
Don

The right way for you do it is to make a pack of cleaning cartridges. 2 sets. One has dilute ammonia and the other distilled water. Then you sell those to the consumer for some high price and put some kind of guarantee on them that it will clean the printer or your money back. You charge say, $50.00 for them, to make them cheaper than a new printer, but still expensive enough to rape the consumer.

That way both sales and marketing are happy.

Most of these companies are in the ink business anyway. I had a friend who worked for HP and at the annual state of the company meeting when he was still there, ink accounted for more than half of the company's profit.

I think the reason why we're seeing these tank printers now is because people are printing way less.

I used to download PDFs and print them out to read them. Not any more. Now I just put them on my tablet.

Both my kids' schools now use Google Classroom for everything. Everything is submitted electronically. Heck even photos aren't printed any more. Now they're just shared with people on Instagram or YouTube.

Ink profits are drying up, slowly. Makes more sense now to charge more for the printers.

Hi apastuszak,
You are, of course, correct that some companies would indeed design and market a poor device as a profit center. But in my situation I was also a partner-owner of the company and our vision and mission statement did not include designing and manufacturing devices with built in obsolescence, profit center consumables, or otherwise raping end users or customers. Most small (<than 500 employees) technology and engineering companies that I am familiar with do not operate that way, they strive to design and build quality devices. As I am sure you know, technology always moves along fast enough to ensure constant upgrades and repurchases, no need to play games.
Don