Earlier this year, at work, I was out of thermal rolls for my fax. I went to a local store: they asked me over 22 euro for a roll. The same roll that, when I went in Shenyang I bought for less than 50 cents (and in fact I bought a lot of them).

22 euro it'a lot of money, because a roll lasts me a few months due to a lot of unsolicited spam...

So, I bought an inkjet fax from Brother, since it seems to have a very good price/quality ratio. I chose a simple one, one that looks like a fax, not a printer.

I buy it, I install it and I am very happy.

After a few months I notice that the yellow, magenta and cyan ink cartridges are drained out, while the black is still 20% left! WHAT?? I printed ZERO color pages! ZERO! Probably this machine combines all four colors to make black ... Or do regular cleaning in night hours to keep the nozzles clean, wasting a lot of color.

I went to see on Amazon how much it's a new set of cartridges: as expensive as unicorn blood! An original set of LC1000 costs over 45 euros!

Almost like a new fax machine! (Note: the set of cartridges that comes a new printer, both inkjet and laser, lasts much less than normal, as the first initialization wastes a lot of ink)

Fortunately, a compatible set cost less than 5 euros (yes, ten third-party cartridges cost the same as an original one) But, I found an even cheaper solution:

See that transparent window? The printer can see the remaining ink with a photocell. Just darken the window with a sticker or color it with a permanent marker, and the cartridge will be seen as full forever. (But the printer also have an internal counter, sometimes you have to remove it and put it back, the printer will think it is new and will reset the counter)