Planetarion Forums

wu_trax · 22 Sep 2004, 19:37

once again i ****ed up refilling the ink and because i certainly will never again buy a new cartige (or whatever that thing the ink is in is called) for about 40-50 € i now plan to buy a new printer. unfortunatly i have absolutly no idea whats good and what isnt.
i mostly need it to print pictures, or better said custom dvd-covers, the quality doesnt have to be perfect, but 'ok'. (so far i had hp deskjet 710c, which was ok, except for the prices for new cartiges.

so, any ideas what i should buy?

meglamaniac · 23 Sep 2004, 14:57

Epson Stylus C86 is a decent base printer, with the added bonus that it can print true borderless pages on full size plain A4 paper, something that no other manufacturer will let you do at the moment without special paper.

If you're feeling a bit fancier, the Epson Stylus R300 does pretty much the same but is a "Photo Printer" (uses 6 colours instead of the standard 4), and also has a special tray to let it print onto DVD or CD discs directly (so long as they're the ones with paper tops of course). Which would make it pretty perfect for you I'd have thought...

meglamaniac · 23 Sep 2004, 15:08

Forgot to mention:
Cheap clone Epson cartridges can be found at http://www.cartex.co.uk/

DO NOT use the InkRite ones available from many websites! They have a habit of drying out and clogging the print heads, mean you waste half the ink trying to unblock them and can sometimes permanently damage them. The ones from Cartex are much better.

wu_trax · 23 Sep 2004, 16:50

thanks, ill go now and see if i can find one of those

djbass · 29 Sep 2004, 09:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by meglamaniac

Epson Stylus C86 is a decent base printer, with the added bonus that it can print true borderless pages on full size plain A4 paper, something that no other manufacturer will let you do at the moment without special paper.

If you're feeling a bit fancier, the Epson Stylus R300 does pretty much the same but is a "Photo Printer" (uses 6 colours instead of the standard 4), and also has a special tray to let it print onto DVD or CD discs directly (so long as they're the ones with paper tops of course). Which would make it pretty perfect for you I'd have thought...

Bzzzzt! Wrong... Canon did it first and did it better

All of their current printer range supports true borderless prints on any media. They have just released a new range of printers that are simply outstanding in quality and value.

All of their printers from the iP3000 and up not only have built in support for direct cd printing but they also have dual paper feed trays and duplexing (double sided printing) included as well. Add to this on top support for PictBridge which is a universal system allowing compatible cameras to print directly to the printer. Seperate ink tanks and a semi-permanant print head (meaning it should last the life of the printer AND is covered under warranty even if you bugger it up) mean that ink is not overly expensive to replace.

However, as a printer tech I will never recommend using a refilled or third party ink as I have seen too many problems as a result.

flapjack · 29 Sep 2004, 09:42

I'm using a canon I455 USB printer here. Permanent print head, so you only need to replace the ink itself.

Recently there was a test of various 3rd party ink sets and refiller sets, obviously they also tested the original ink. Came out that the 3rd party ink I'm using now was better (and probably still is) then the original ink Canon sells.

If you do it right, 3rd party ink can be cheaper and better at the same time.

I don't recommend refiller sets tough, they're often clumsy to use and can easily mess things up.

meglamaniac · 29 Sep 2004, 09:52

Looks like I misjudged cannon there then, didn't realise they had that facility.
Which ink are you using flapjack?

wu_trax · 29 Sep 2004, 09:59

i igonred all good advice and bought some lexmark-all-in-one-thing. it was cheap, looks nice and prints 'ok', but thanks anyway everyone.

meglamaniac · 29 Sep 2004, 10:14

Eww.
I hate lexmark mainly because of the incredibly annoying printer drivers, but also their terrible lack of support for any O/S other than WinXP.

djbass · 29 Sep 2004, 13:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by flapjack

I'm using a canon I455 USB printer here. Permanent print head, so you only need to replace the ink itself.

Recently there was a test of various 3rd party ink sets and refiller sets, obviously they also tested the original ink. Came out that the 3rd party ink I'm using now was better (and probably still is) then the original ink Canon sells.

If you do it right, 3rd party ink can be cheaper and better at the same time.

I don't recommend refiller sets tough, they're often clumsy to use and can easily mess things up.

I couldn't possibly see how when the Canon ink is specifically designed to work with their printers technology. 3rd party ink manufacturers have absolutely no way of telling the exact chemical makeup of the original ink. It's much more complex than simply being coloured water, it has to be right makeup between whether it's a dye or pigment based ink, what the consistancy of the liquid is and whether it has lubricants in the solution to protect the print head from damage.

I've heard of some of the less reputable 3rd party inks using food dye to refill their cartridges. In my own personal experience while you can get a good print from a non-genuine ink cartridge, it will never be exact as it should be and this is obvious comparing samples side by side.

It's probably not as much of an issue for people with cheaper printers like yours that utilise a tri-colour cartridge, but you would be wasting your money on any of the photo printer range. The reason for this is they use special photo colour cartridges in addition to the standard ones that must be exactly the right colour or the finer details, tones and shading will come out all wrong.

Quote:

Originally Posted by wu_trax

i igonred all good advice and bought some lexmark-all-in-one-thing. it was cheap, looks nice and prints 'ok', but thanks anyway everyone.

You certainly couldn't get any cheaper than Lexmark, they consist of 99% plastic housing and 1% actual printer. You may find yourself getting stung on the replacement ink / parts though, they are more or less a 'disposable' printer.

Luckeh!!!! · 29 Sep 2004, 13:36

I've always used HP, right now I got an ancient DJ930C, and have always used generic carts for around £10 or less for either black or colour cart.

No real problems with using them but sometimes it gets a bit messy, highly likely due to the dusty location of my printer rather than hardware fault though.

SYMM · 29 Sep 2004, 17:13

Aren't Lexmark cartidges about twice the price of the printers? :|
(they were for the free printer we got a few years ago...)

Androme · 2 Oct 2004, 23:33

I've had the HP Deskjet 5650 for 2 years now - does the job for me.

wu_trax · 30 Oct 2004, 15:58

ok, so lexmark wasnt such a good idea. i printed 2-3 covers and im already out of ink