OT: Had it with Epson printers!!!

Chienworks wrote on 9/12/2007, 1:51 PM

You don't know how many times i've wished there was a checkbox in the printer control dialog that said "[ ] Yes, i know it's gonna look ugly and awful with an empty ink chamber, but i'm gonna lose my job if i don't print this document NOW, so just print the doggone thing anyway or else!"

Or, better yet, one that says "[ ] Sorry, but you're just a stupid piece of software written by someone who has no idea what i need to do, and i know better than you, so shut up and do it anyway 'cause i said so."

Of course, either of these options would make the sales of ink drop precipitously. That means we'll never see them. Such a pity.

DGates wrote on 9/12/2007, 1:52 PM

And just as your car disappeared down the street, your black text document rolled out of the printer.

kentwolf wrote on 9/12/2007, 1:59 PM

I know I have an Epson R200 (w/ disk printing), I rarely ever use it and I always seem to be running low on ink.

I know for a fact that I replaced some colors, then a few days later, it's a notch down on the %-filled-meter...and I hardly used it at all.

I might give the HP photosmart a try.

Question: How much did it cost?

I know my $99 printer requires about $100 to do a full ink refill.

farss wrote on 9/12/2007, 2:01 PM

A simple bit of good management would have avoided the problem, why would anyone not have several sets of cartridges on hand, buying ink one cartridge at a time, even one set at a time is uneconomic anyway.

So now you'll have the fun of HP printer drivers nagging and trying to phone home.

JJKizak wrote on 9/12/2007, 2:03 PM

How did you ever find an HP printer with a driver that worked? I can tell you don't have all the latest XP updates.
JJK

Steven Myers wrote on 9/12/2007, 2:11 PM

$20 for one cartridge!

There are Epson clone cartridges to be found on-line for far, far less.

Dan Sherman wrote on 9/12/2007, 2:18 PM

Have had an Epson Stylus R200 printer for, must be going on 4 years.
Real workhorse, and recenlty did a run of 130 discs for a consumer job to small to farm out.
I've run thousands of discs though this machine.
Needs a little push sometimes to get it it going, as the clear plastic thingy on the end of the tray is wearing thin.
Wish I knew where to get another tray!
Reminds me in some ways of my '62 MG-A. It too needed a push from time to time.
Well, come to think of it all things British do, don't they?
I mean from time to time.
Still I grew to love it like my Epson R200.

jdinkins wrote on 9/12/2007, 2:33 PM

I had an Epson printer I got so disgusted with that I finally decided to see if it could fly. I went out on the driveway and gave it a good toss and low and behold, no wings came out and it crashed to pieces on the driveway.

I eventually got tired of needing to print and the damn thing getting a clogged print head if you don't print on it at least once a week. I got an HP instead (the print head is on the CARTRIDGE, NOT the printer itself). Everytime you replace the cartridge, you get a new print head. I don't care if it costs more.

Later

alfredsvideo wrote on 9/12/2007, 2:35 PM

Printer cartridges are the biggest con known to man. Why do you think the printers themselves are so cheap, compared to the effort and materials that goes into making them? Get your ink from one of the many ink houses and fill your own cartridges. Been doing it for years. Can't tell any difference from the original tanks, even after five years.. Also, get a Canon.

blink3times wrote on 9/12/2007, 2:45 PM

"Question: How much did it cost?"
============================================
I got a photosmart C5280 on sale for $149... not a bad price for Canada. It's an all-in-one deal...I'm only interested in the cd/dvd printing though... that and black documents.

Apparently HP is using a new technology that allows you to use ALL the ink in the tanks... unlike Epson. You get a new head with each cartridge replacement as well (the head is built into the cartridges) so there is less ink waste in head cleaning and such.

Paul Mead wrote on 9/12/2007, 2:45 PM

I might give the HP photosmart a try.

I paid USD $75 for my Photosmart D5160. New HP color ink cartridges (the "95") run about $20-25.

It prints just fine and is fast enough; it takes about 1:30 to print a single disk. Other than the outrageous racket it makes when starting up (like gears slipping) I have no gripes. Oh, yeah, the HP management software occasionally doesn't shutdown cleanly when I logoff, but that is a minor annoyance.

John_Cline wrote on 9/12/2007, 3:02 PM

I have an Epson 200 and a 320, I use them all the time. Yes, they can be a little tempermental, but they do work well overall. I prefer to use genuine Epson ink because I also use them to print photos and I haven't found any generic inks that look as good. I can buy a full set of six Epson cartridges for $50 at Costco. One of my clients uses a lot of cyan in their designs, so I run through a lot of cyan ink. Being able to just replace the cyan cartridge has probably saved me some money in the long run.

I do like the idea of getting a new printhead with every HP cartridge, but I haven't had a printhead issue with the Epsons. I've had a lot of HP printers over the years and, while I like their hardware just fine, their drivers have caused me nothing but headaches.

As far as the cost of printers and inks is concerned, they all use the Gillette business model; give away the razors, charge for the blades.

John

Chienworks wrote on 9/12/2007, 3:02 PM

If all you need to do with the printer is print, do NOT install the HP drivers. Let Windows install it's own drivers. I know XP has drivers for all the HP printers up to about a year ago included, and often an older driver of the same series will operate the newer printers perfectly well. You most likely won't have access to some features such as scanning, but on the other hand, you won't have to deal with HP's silliness either.

I'm not sure which is the worst software ever created. So far i think it's running a 3-way tie for HP drivers, Pixela camera drivers, and Wordstar (three times voted the "most difficult video game ever created").

jrazz wrote on 9/12/2007, 3:09 PM

Give these guys a try for ink. I have an epson r320 and only ran one set of epson ink through it while all the other ink has come from Abacus. Cheap and I can't tell a difference. Maybe in the long run they fade, but I have not seen evidence of that yet.

j razz

bakerja wrote on 9/12/2007, 3:36 PM

Check this little jewel out.

http://www.ssclg.com/epsone.shtml

SSC Service Utility allow you to do many amazing things with Your Epson printer :

1) Work directly with CSIC in Epson Stylus printers cartridges.
2) Reset or rewrite any chip using special addon device.
3) Freeze internal ink counters.
4) Reset internal ink counters even with empty cartridges.
5) Separate cleaning of color and black heads for all Epson inkjet printers, powerful cleaning mode.
6) Hot swapping of cartridges supported.
7) Resetting of protection counter (even then it is already full).
8) More then 100 different Epson printers supported

birdcat wrote on 9/12/2007, 3:48 PM

What - No-one is using a Xerox Ikon or Xeicon 6000?

riredale wrote on 9/12/2007, 3:56 PM

I have a professional photographer friend (a Mac bigot, but what can I say) who uses only Epson printers. Why? I think traditionally Epson has been (in)famous for its pigment inks, which won't fade after a few years the way that most dye inks (Canon, HP) will.

Up until last year I was an Epson man. Went through a C80, a C82, two C86's and a C88 before taking them all to GoodWill and getting a couple of Canon IP3000 printers off eBay. I used the Epsons to print my CD and DVD labels, which they did brilliantly--for about a year each. Then I would begin to get nozzle clog issues.

We've also had HP printers, but hated the way the HP software took over the system in a non-intuitive (to me, anyway) manner. If I just had a printer driver I'd probably feel differently about HP.

The Canon printers are terrific. Lousy-looking cases but the ink is cheap, easily refillable, and you can buy a replacement nozzle assembly for $40 if one goes bad. Plus, you can do CD/DVD printing with them (with instructions from the Internet). And I no longer need the waterfastness of the Epson pigment ink now that we can get Watershield TY disks.

JJKizak wrote on 9/12/2007, 4:49 PM

I still use the Epson 960 for discs using the later R1800 software. The R1800 I consider to be absolutely magnificent printing 13 x 19 photos on glossy paper. I finally had to get rid of my 1995 Epson Stylus Color printer with the front feed thingys worn out. I bought a CX7000 and it worked perfect. I will only purchase a printer now with back feed, not front feed. And no more parallel ports for me as the USB is light years better.
JJK

Zelkien69 wrote on 9/12/2007, 5:15 PM

One thing to keep in mind is, if you don't want to go with the cheap replacement inks that may or may not print true, if you buy Claria inks directly from Epson you can get a high capacity cartidge for 19.99. Often free or $3 shipping and an occasional 10% off coupon floats around. I keep 2-3 sets on standby for my two pinters and love the quality. The off the shelf inks at $15 each are a rip.

MH_Stevens wrote on 9/12/2007, 5:36 PM

ME TOO. Biggist mistake I ever made with technology was moving from Canon to Epson. Just a piece of dog dodo.

blink3times wrote on 9/12/2007, 7:45 PM

The HP All-in-one PhotoSmart C5280:

It's accurate... MUCH faster than the Epson R320, same side paper return, fast accurate scanning and copying. The head alignment is automatic and happens once when the cartridge is installed so there is NOT a lot of ink waste. It is quite a bit noisier than the R320 though... I guess one must sacrifice sound for speed.

Haven't tested photos yet, but I would expect the R320 to be better anyway... the C5280 does not have the extra photo ink tanks.

I am NOT in love with the cd/dvd print program!! The one that comes with the R320 is MUCH better. This one is an EXTREMELY stripped down version of Roxio's cd/dvd labeler. There is a "upgrade" button at the bottom that you almost have no choice but to use... and it'll cost another $12

Haven't tried using Epson's labeler on the HP.... but I will.

Chienworks wrote on 9/12/2007, 8:00 PM

I wouldn't bother using the labelling software that comes with any printer. I'd just use the drawing program i'm already familiar with and print from that.

Andrew B wrote on 9/12/2007, 8:47 PM

Our R220 just broke. We get cartridges from supermediastore.com and pay about $40 for 2 complete sets of cartridges! They are OEM but work just great.

We probably printed about 600+ CDs & DVDs with it, plus all the covers. Since we had it less than a year, EPSON is giving us another one for free.

We originally bought a new HP that seemed much better built, but could not get the discs to print correctly. There was always about 1mm of the white disc peaking out on one side and 1mm of ink covering the unprintable parts on the other side. After going through 3 different printers (HP sent us 2 more to test out), we found the issue was in the hardware. Plus, since there was no way to adjust using their software, we ended up going with the EPSON.
I HATE USING A DISC TRAY!!!

But the printer has performed well for a $89 investment. Plus the cartridges from supermediastore.com have made it a keeper.

Andrew

TGS wrote on 9/12/2007, 11:51 PM

My Epson R-200 is just about 4 years old. It's cranked out hundreds of DVDs and CDs. The cartridges that came with it were the only Epson cartridges ever used. All since were cheap replacements. (average about $20 for all carts). I won't say that the ink is perfect as far as correct shades in every way, but it works great for the discs and I've never had a clog. I swear, I've printed discs when a cartridge has run dry and it seems, if I recall right, that even though I ran out of black , it did print the rest of the colors on the disc. ( I think I still possess at least one of these) I'm soon to run out of yellow, so I'll be on the lookout for what happens, but I also have no discs for print for a few days. Somehow, my original tray still works, but there's only a sliver of clear plastic left on the edge. I can't complain.