Readers Write: Don't Switch Off Your Inkjet Printer!

One of our readers recently contacted us to complain about a Canon MP640 printer's seemingly excessive consumption of ink.

We thought this was the perfect opportunity to reiterate something we regularly try to bring up in our tests: if the print heads are not built into the cartridges, anyone who prints even small volumes on a regular basis should leave their printer on standby, as it'll consume less ink than if continually switched on and off!

So how can you tell if the print heads are built into the cartridge? The easiest way is to look at your ink cartridges on the side where the ink comes out. If you see a kind of metal plate pierced with lots of tiny holes then the print heads are built into the cartridge (as is the case for older HP and Lexmark printers). This means you can turn the printer off completely with no risk of running down the ink faster than usual. If you see a kind of sponge with ink then the print heads are not in the cartridge but in the printer itself. This has been the case for a long time in Brother, Canon and Epson models, and new HP and Lexmark printers now also use this fixed-head system. In fact, all new printers have fixed print heads built directly into the printer.
 

MARCHANDS €     Amazon mark...  249.99  Compare prices Subject: Excessive ink consumption Hello, After reading your review of the Canon MP640 I decided to go buy it. Although it's perfectly satisfactory, I've noticed that the colour cartridges run down really quickly, even if I'm not printing any colour documents. I contacted Canon's customer services but they refuse to answer questions on this subject. However, without any other explanation, they strongly advised me not to leave the colour cartridge bays empty even if I'm not using coloured ink, as they said it could lead to a blockage. Do you have any idea what the problem could be? And do you know anything about why I'm being encouraged to waste coloured ink? I'm wondering if it's a genuine technical fault or if Canon is just trying to sell more coloured ink cartridges? Thanks,

In the interest of saving energy and doing our bit for the environment, most of us now tend to turn devices off when we've finished using them rather than leave them on standby. However, with recent models of printer, which consume around 1 W of power on standby, the best way to combat waste is actually to leave them on standby.

Explanation

The MP640 has built-in print heads (tiny nozzles from which drops are ejected onto the paper). These are located on a separate block, integrated directly into the printer rather than in the ink cartridges. This makes cartridges cheaper to manufacture but increases ink wastage by 10% to 20% as cleaning cycles need to me carried out more frequently. In fact, each time you switch the printer on, a print-head cleaning cycle is launched.

A printer that's switched on and off every day will therefore waste an awful lot of ink, whereas the same model left on standby until you want to use it will use ink more economically. Given that new models of printer like the Canon MP640 consume less than 1W of power on standby, the impact on your electricity bill and on the environment will actually be negligible.

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