Ink Expiry on Epson Printers
IMPORTANT: This is just advice.
To be clear - it is of course entirely at your own risk, if you do choose to use expired ink.
In 20 years of inkjet printing and contact with tens of thousands of fellow printers, we've never yet heard of anyone having any issue from doing so, but you need to decide for yourself if the theoretical risk is worth it.
If you are thinking about buying an Epson printer but are concerned about the ink expiry - in all honesty, I wouldn't worry too much. While technically the inks do have expiry dates on them and you are supposed to use them within 6 months of opening, we have scores of clients who don't actually manage this.
The key issue is settling - the pigments settle out of the viscous carrying fluid. And the solution is easy - just pop your cartridges out of the printer every now and then and (gently!) shake them up, for a minute or so. This keeps any issues at bay, and we've never seen or recorded any colour shift from out of date inks.
In the end, the expiry date is probably more about Epson inks sales than anything else.
So don't let fear of expiring inks put you off buying a truly excellent, bigger printer that is very cheap to run, compared to the smaller options. Throwing ink in to landfill is not a great outcome, so if at all possible, use all the ink you buy, to make beautiful things!
