Fischer - Free Heat

[Andrew]

One of the Gogglebox young ladies had her say on smart meters, i.e. that she definately doesn't want one because it would only provoke arguments.

[Mike Clarke]

Yes it does but only after it's been standing for a very long time. On the other hand if I switch it off after use it goes through a cleaning cycle every time I switch it on to print something.

[Mike Clarke]

That's what I thought too when I checked it with the meter. I've seen quite a number of 'unexpected' results when testing low power devices with this meter and I'm inclined to regard that value as being a rather generous overestimate.

[Steve Walker]

A purely personal observation, but when we had an HP photo-inkjet printer that was infequently used, we found that the cartridges inevitably gunked up solid and could not be cleaned, even with IPA or we'd have to run so many cleaning cycles each time we wanted to use it that we could see the ink-level indicators dropping massively. The end result was a complete new set of cartridges (at about £60) every couple of months, despite only printing off a couple of dozen sheets!

We've stuck to laser printers since then and just go to Max Spielman (sp?) or similar if we want to print off a few good-quality photos.

SteveW

[Max Demian]

It's obviously just a way to sell new cartridges. My ancient Dell AIO /never/ does a head clean unless asked, and prints all right even if it hadn't been used for a few weeks. (I'll use it for as long as I can get hold of the cartridges - which is difficult as Dell don't make them any more.)

[Bob Eager]

Hear hear. I had a rebadged (to Olivetti) Lexmark Optra 45 inkjet. Nice PostScript printer. But I use an old (25 years!) Laserjet 4M+ for everyuday printing, as it's dirt cheap to run.

The occasional use of the inkjet printer cost me a fortune in cartridges; like you, I found that even IPA wouldn't clear them. I gave it away to soemone who'd use it all the time, and bought a cheap colour laser printer. No further problems.

[Martin Brown]

It isn't impossible. Just pretty dodgy.

The deal is if you buy at least 3 of their "magyck" heaters *AND* transfer your electricity supply to them on their ripoff tariff they will credit your account with 1000kWh of "free" electricity that you have already paid for many times over for their overpriced kit.

It is sad that this sort of trick is permitted but I presume they have good legal advice on the wording and miniscule size of the font in the extensive footnotes. It is pretty much the same MO as the vastly overpriced "magyck" LED lamps claiming to cure blindness in the elderly.