Customer Reviews

Sharp UX-C70B Black Ink Cartridge (UX-B700 Fax)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

I had the dry ink problem also after not using for a week. I was ready to order a new cartridge but first I tried soaking the printhead in distilled water about 10 minutes. Do not soak the cartridge just the printhead. Place in about 1/8 inches of water. Now my cartridge works fine.

If you need a fax machine for "once in a while", it is an extravagance to go to a laser printer type of device - - - especially if you already have a decent laser printer for your computer.
The problem with this kind of ink jet fax is that the ink dries out. That problem is compounded by the fact that the replacement cartridges are in the $30.00 range. So live with the fact that the ink dries out. The remedy is to learn how to clean the cartridge port where the ink comes out. Finally, after a year and a half, and having purchased a replacement cartridge after the first 5 months which, a year later I now realize that I never needed in the first place because I had not received as many as 10 pages. Clean the print head until you can get really black ink to coat the face. After having struggled with very soggy rags and tissue and testing and testing without success, I came across a review that talks about soaking the
print head in 1/8" of water. It turns out that I had to do this twice. On the second time, I finished the attempt at cleaning by quite firmly smacking the print head into my soggy wet rag
on the counter (an an attempt to try to put some force or pressure on the place where the ink comes out and perhaps force some water into the canal or passageway (or whatever it is) of the cartridge where the ink comes out. Then I wiped the metal part on both sides of where the ink comes out and blotted the part where the ink comes out. It made my Kleenex very black. That was it. At this point, I knew that what I had done had done the trick. The next test page was complete as the manual shows that it should be when the combination of the fax machine and cartridge are working properly. So, for the moment it works just fine. I say, "for the moment" because my method was getting quite aggressive with the cartridge. Did I possibly damage it in some way such that the cartridge might now leak ink? I have not seen any evidence of this concern but it has only been one hour since I finally fixed my dried ink
problem. Another misgiving, of course, is how to know when the print problem is just dried ink and when you are out of ink. The number of faxes that I receive should have the cartridge lasting for years. The phenomena of drying ink, however, makes that not possible. I have put 90 days on my calendar for a reminder to clean the cartridge again, whether it seems to need it or not.

Compared to other black inkjet cartridges, this seems wildy overpriced. If used only occasionally in a home fax machine to print out confirmations, it will likely dry out before it "runs" out. There are no viable lower-priced alternatives. Avoid remanufactured cartridges as they do not perform well at all.

You don't get what you see on the website! I ordered a new Sharp cartridge, but received a re-manufacutered version of some unknown brand.
Sharp UX-C70B Black Ink Cartridge (UX-B700 Fax)

I've installed my new cartridge about 6 months ago and have printed less than 20 pages. Now it appears to be dried out even though there is no indication that I've run out of ink. I've followed the instructions for cleaning the cartridge without any noticeable improvement. To get a new Sharp cartridge will cost me more than I've paid for the FAX machine itself.

Don't believe everything you read! This is listed as NEW but came in as RECONDITIONED (refilled). You get your money back and lots of E-mails wanting you to buy directly from the supplier, but why waste time and still have to order again? If you want a refil, go on to Cartridge World--they have always done a decent job for me.

This cartridge is used in a Sharp UX-B700 which I've already reviewed as the worst fax machine I have ever owned(it has since been discontinued). As you can see by the small size of this cartridge, it holds very little ink and prints very few pages before giving up. I have gotten rid of this machine because of the high price of these replacement cartridges. They printed about 100-150 pages before drying out. I have even had two of them come to me out if the factory package bone dry! I used this machine in a small office environment and the ink ran out every 10 or 12 DAYS! If these cartridges cost 4 or 5 dollars they might be a good value but for what they cost they are an outrageous waste of money. Bye Bye Sharp.

Sharp uses the tried-and-tested scheme of virtually all inkjet manufacturers: Sell the hardware for next to nothing, then sit back and watch the money roll in as irate consumers are forced to pay for overpriced proprietary supplies to keep their plastic little machines up and running. Nowhere does this get more excessive and infuriating than with ink cartridges. I would not be surprised to learn that in Sharp's case, both the quality and the quantity of the ink are engineered to wring minimum performance out of the cartridges. Ka-ching! That's another $30, and another, and another.

As others have noted, Sharp's pricey-as-gold cartridges have a nasty habit of drying out in record time. The printhead on the cartridges is so prone to clogging as to constitute willful negligence (or worse) on the manufacturer's part. Soaking the printhead in warm water and slamming it onto a wet rag a couple of times may dislodge the ink clots, but the relief is likely to be just temporary. I'm done with Sharp. Other inkjet makers aren't perfect either (because the technology itself isn't perfect), but Epson and Canon and HP aren't quite as shameless and blatant about gouging their customers.

Having previously replaced a couple of cartridges that dried out on my Sharp UX-B20 fax, I've been pretty good about making a copy with the fax every few weeks to prevent the problem from recurring. But it happened once again--and the manual's instructions to wipe the cartridge and run the cleaning sequence didn't help. I got the cartridge to work by soaking the contacts at the bottom end of the cartridge in 1/8 inch of distilled water and then wrapping the end in a wet cloth and smacking it against my hand (don't know if the latter step was important, but it didn't seem to hurt). I'm grateful to the reviewers who suggested these measures. You've saved me--and probably a lot of others--a lot of money.

I thought I was ordering the Sharp product but I received a "generic" instead. I consider this false advertising and I would hope that Amazon would do something about it.