My first printer buying experience – my requirements and my new Epson L3156

Last Saturday (March 6) I purchased my very own first printer ?. There will be a lot of visits to the government offices to fix and sort our documents. My wife will need to adjust her name due to marriage, and I would need to fix my last name. Hence, owning a printer will be very handy for us.

Requirements

So, I’ve decided if we will buy a printer, it has to have a scanner as well. Though it’s so easy to capture documents via smartphone apps now, I think it is still better to use an actual scanner.

Printers are now incorporated with “expensive”, thanks to the printer companies conspiring to sell expensive ink. Come on guys, if you weren’t so greedy, printers could have been one of those appliance consumers normally own. So, if I will buy a printer, no more of those expensive ink cartridges, and instead they should be using ink tanks.

Some printer “rumors” and chit-chat

I was initially planning to find printers that were hacked by some local shops to have the “continuous ink system”. I remember this was the only way to go around the expensive ink cartridges.

Its funny because I also remember back in time, it was a constant battle between printer companies and people who want to avoid the expensive ink cartridges. When people started injecting inks into their ink cartridges to refill their ink instead of buying new ink cartridges, printer companies will then introduce “invalid ink detected” if their software detected that the consumer is not using their expensive cartridge.

And the consumers retaliated by introducing “continuous ink system” where the inkjets are directly integrated with the cartridge head. These cartridge heads will always pass the sensor of the software, hence the software will not complain anymore even if the consumer is not using their brand ink cartridges.

And if I remember correctly, the printer companies retaliated by adding a counter to their print, limiting the number of prints you can do on their printer, making it act like they are broken. But of course consumers retaliated by learning how to unlock these limitations, one such software still exists today: http://www.page-net.com/frame/pages/Epson%20printer%20resetting.htm#:~:text=If%20your%20printer%20is%20giving,counting%20your%20prints%20from%20zero

I am not sure anymore how the constant battle went on. Story time is over and let’s get to the printer we bought.

Update/Edit (March 15, 2021) – I stumbled upon this video and it discusses in detail how printer companies try to rip their consumers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHX6tHdQGiQ

Epson L3156

Epson L3156 is the only printer available at the moment that passes all our requirements. We paid 10,000 pesos for it from Wink Printer Solutions who has a branch in Malolos. It has 7 days replacement warranty and 2 years service warranty.

It’s worth noting that it supports wifi connection natively. It means you can operate the printer to print and scan via wifi connection. On my setup, I set it so the printer is connected to the existing wifi I am using in the office, but I believe it can also broadcast its own wifi where you can connect.

Having wifi capability means I can put the printer at any corner of the house and I’ll be able to use it without any USB cable attached to it.

There’s also a smartphone app you can use to be able to operate the printer from your phone. I find it handy especially when scanning multiple documents. I do not have to go back and forth to my computer every time I need to issue a scan command. Plus I can easily save and email the scanned document via phone ?.

The vendors tested the printer we are purchasing, showed us the sample of the prints, then we went home.

I thought we will need to go back to ask for a replacement

After arriving at home, I started configuring it. One of the stuff you will stumble upon driver install is the nozzle check.

It will print a pattern and you should check if the pattern is complete or not. If there are gaps you will need to issue print head clean command.

Unfortunately, my first nozzle check print is bad:

I issued a print head clean. It went better than the first nozzle check. But it is still bad, considering that the printer is brand new. The nozzle check will print the following pattern for the next 8 tries, doing a printer head clean then nozzle check print:

I almost thought my printer is busted and I have to go back to their shop again until I found this article online.

So, I leave it alone then went back again after 6 hours. Low and behold, it finally passed the nozzle check and its printing a lot better now:

Conclusion

Definitely happy with my printer, hope it last.