morimoto,
I bought the canon ip4500 and it does a AWSOME job.
No dithering and never has jammed once.

I did a 50 disc job and it was pretty quick when considering 1 at a time.

one thing you could do is have someone with different printers send you a sample and you could feed back to us what you think.

I'd be willing to send a sample.

Aug

I have an Epson R300 that works OK, but cannot print too many discs one after the other without a misfeed. Ink cartridges are so small you won't get too many print jobs out of them.

I also have a Canon iP4300 that I modified to print DVDs. That feature is crippled on Canon printers bound for the US, but there are instructions available all over the internet on how to enable the feature as well as trays available that work really well.

The Canon works much better than the Epson and the inks last a lot longer as well.

John

OK I tried it,

I have never sprayed the discs, but this thread inspired me. While they look good I ruined some of them.

First off I bought the Patricia Numnuts clear acrylic spray from Walmart as recommended above. For $5 a can that stuff spits all over the place when you try to spray it. The $3 can of Krylon sprays much better and looks the same. So that went back to Walmart.

I substituted Saran Wrap and ruined about six discs when the spray was wicked under the edges. The cans will also not spray at an angle perpendicular to the surface. One must angle the can somewhat for it to spray. After the Saran Wrap fiasco I ended up just using cardboard which worked much better because the cardboard absorbed the overspray immediately when spraying.

Damned if they don't look nice though !

John

Even nicer than the Watershield disks?

Also using a Canon "tweaked" printer here, an IP3000 that seems to be bulletproof. No misfeeds, and the tray registration is good enough that I commonly feed the disk in twice to get more saturated colors.

According to the debate (link-a few posts above) between the Watershieds vs Verbatims. Almost all said the watershields look better. But apparently, that finish is easily damaged.or scuffed, to the point that one guy was spraying his watershields.

Interesting thread indeed!

Got excellent results, as far as my eyes can see, with a Canon MP600 and Verbatim media

Epson R220

I agree about ink prices, that's why I have a Continuous Ink System (CIS) attached to it.

To read more about it, read THIS. Direct link to the CIS.

MsMart
========================
That thread was really interesting. I liked the idea of the modification to collect waste ink in a container behind the Epson printer rather than have to go through a major disassembly and service procedure to change the waste pads.

I couldn't help but notice this post in which the author posted this jpg of modified collection container and made the following statement:

I just emptied my waste ink bottle -- not for the first time, it had about 3 months accumulation in it.

This serves to illustrate my point about Epson printers and the high cost of ink for them. Seems unnecessary that Epsons waste so much ink. I am sure you all remember the court case Epson lost regarding what appears to be their intentional practice of ink shortchanging.

Also consider Epson's insistance upon using a separate ink print head that clogs easily, needs frequent cleaning (which wastes ink and purges the good cartridges as well as the bad ones to reduce their ink content faster), and their making it difficult to remove when it becomes really clogged up.

Thus you have a good case for buying a Canon printer and going around the antitrust practice of allowing Epson to corner the US market in Disc Printers by easily modifying it to be a European model.


John

The CIS systems can be good or bad. Subtle design differences can have an impact, like causing all the ink to syphon out of the bottles. The biggest supplier of a system down here also has a gadget for cleaning the print heads on the Epson printers as well as cleaning cartridges. They claim mixing 3rd party inks can cause problems, so if switching brands it can pay to flush the heads out.
I've been meaning to buy one for years on and off. What puts me off is my very old Stylus Photo 900 just keeps going. I had to import it from the USA (5 actually, resold 3 of them) and wire it upto a 110V transformer. At the time Epson's only CD printer sold down here was an A3 model that cost nearly $2K.
What I really should buy is a robotic printer, shuffling DVDs through a printer is the pits.

Bob.

Even nicer than the Watershield disks?
==========
I haven't tried them Riredale.

I just tried the spray yesterday, but I have nothing to compare the results to.
As long as the Watershield discs are as reliable as my MCC 02RG20 ink jet printable discs in terms of universal playability I wouldn't mind trying them. I will order them and test them out.

John

Is there anyone who has ordered a CIS system for an Epson R300 from a place other than EBAY?

If so, do you like it?

I avoid EBAY because I don't trust PayPal.

John

Over the years I have read so many hand-wringing threads discussing the various techniques of spraying disks, etc., and I just can't help but wonder, why? Are there that many customer groups that are influenced by the subtle differences of print quality? I mean, how many people (other than the perfectionists creating the disks) will even notice if the print quality is razor sharp vs very good? I suspect that most people glance at the disk to see if it is the one they want and then shove it in the player without taking any time to examine the color saturation or sharpness of the images on the disks. Yeah, I think that the quality should look good, but does it really have to be excellent?

auggybendoggy,

i checked the reviews of canon ip4500 on Amazon (very good reviews by the way) and could not find anywhere in the description that it prints directly on discs. Is there a separate attachment that allows you to do this, or is it just not mentioned as a feature?

Glad to see this thread getting activity! Very interesting topic!

Over the years I have read so many hand-wringing threads discussing the various techniques of spraying disks, etc., and I just can't help but wonder, why? Are there that many customer groups that are influenced by the subtle differences of print quality? I mean, how many people (other than the perfectionists creating the disks) will even notice if the print quality is razor sharp vs very good? I suspect that most people glance at the disk to see if it is the one they want and then shove it in the player without taking any time to examine the color saturation or sharpness of the images on the disks. Yeah, I think that the quality should look good, but does it really have to be excellent?
==================
It's probably just us.

I get your point and I agree to an extent. Most of the time I create a reallly nice jacket and use a non-printable DVD inside with a date neatly hand printed inside the hub or when I do disc printing I leave them as is.

But I have to admit, they did look better when I sprayed them yesterday (albeit a PIA to do) and it is hard to fault wanting to make our discs look as good as our work. Interesting question.

John

Yes, tape.com has a http://www.tape.com/products/epson-ink-cartridge.htmlcontinuous ink supply system[/link]. They are a reliable supplier I have done business with for close to 10 years now. I did in fact buy one of these but haven't actually installed it yet [now that I'm itching to do it, the Epson has become very thrifty in its use of ink.]

Regarding all the other reports about the R200 being an ink wastrel let me state this:
I've been using it for about two and a half years now, several hundred discs printed, mostly with aftermarket generic ink cartridges (from the aforementioned tape.com) and have NEVER had to do a cleaning cycle on this printer. NEVER, not once, NEVER. And the print quality is still excellent. As to the disc tray problems? At the beginning I did have some issues with the feeding, but once I devised a technique for feeding the tray, I've been getting 100% reliability in the process.

Thanks Bayside. I think I'll order one.
What is your method of feeding the tray into the R200/300?

John

Insert the tray so the triangular marks either side of tray align with the corresponding marks on the tray guide. Perfect alignment not critical, within a sixteenth of an inch, or so, works just fine. I also painted the raised black plastic marks silver [use a silver Sharpie for this, it also works great for labeling tape cassettes, no messing around with labels] for improved visibility. When the print job engages, the Epson partially ejects the disc tray about 3/8 to 1/2 inch in two steps. At that point I gently raise the tail end of the tray about 1/2" by pushing up from below and hold it there until the feeding mechanism grabs the tray and pulls it in. This method works virtually 100% of the time. It used to drive me nuts to have the tray misfeed at least 50% of the time.

Insert the tray so the triangular marks either side of tray align with the corresponding marks on the tray guide. Perfect alignment not critical, within a sixteenth of an inch, or so, works just fine. I also painted the raised black plastic marks silver [use a silver Sharpie for this, it also works great for labeling tape cassettes, no messing around with labels] for improved visibility. When the print job engages, the Epson partially ejects the disc tray about 3/8 to 1/2 inch in two steps. At that point I gently raise the tail end of the tray about 1/2" by pushing up from below and hold it there until the feeding mechanism grabs the tray and pulls it in. This method works virtually 100% of the time. It used to drive me nuts to have the tray misfeed at least 50% of the time.
=============
Thanks for the tip. I will certainly try that.

John

I also use a modified Canon IP4000. Works like a charm!

dave

Morimoto:

All the Canon printers of that generation (you know, the kind that look boxy and have an auto-duplex capability built-in) have a little pivoting door just above the output slot. If you open the door there's just a piece of plastic there. Turns out that Canon designed these printers to be very decent CD/DVD disk printers also. Printers sold outside the USA have a little slot behind that door. The idea is you load your disk on a small black plastic tray and slide the tray into that slot, where it is grabbed by rollers. Tell the printer to print to CD, and it rolls that tray in, does a slick calibration every time with the built-in mirrors on that tray, raises the inkjets up to accommodate the added thickness of the tray, and prints onto the disk. The tray never misfeeds and you can be as sloppy as you want in loading the tray, since the printer is doing a calibration every time (takes just a few seconds).

So what do you need to print CD's? You need the tray, a roller assembly to replace the plastic part currently blocking the CD slot, and a new printer driver. Oh, and you need to tell the printer firmware that it's allowed to print CD's. The whole changeover sounds complicated, but it's not, and only takes about 5 minutes. I think Craftech linked to a website earlier on this thread. Check there for more information about which printers have the inherent ability to print CD's.

I chose the IP3000 in the series because it was the last of the 4-tank, non-chipped printers. This means it's dirt cheap to run; you only need to bother with CYMK colors and you can easily use aftermarket inks.

Craftech:

The Watershield disks have this really interesting surface. It's very white, very glossy, and feels a bit soft or rubbery. You can easily make an impression with your thumbnail but the mark doesn't really show unless you use reflected light. The big thing besides the gloss for me, however, is that the ink is permanently on there. You could run it under a faucet with no smear. Closer to reality, you can't smudge it with a moistened thumb. As far as I know, only Taiyo Yuden makes them, but that's okay with me because they have a really excellent reputation for first-quality CDs and DVDs.

You can only get the DVD Watershield blanks as DVD-R, though, not DVD+R (yet).

Craftech:

The Watershield disks have this really interesting surface. It's very white, very glossy, and feels a bit soft or rubbery. You can easily make an impression with your thumbnail but the mark doesn't really show unless you use reflected light. The big thing besides the gloss for me, however, is that the ink is permanently on there. You could run it under a faucet with no smear. Closer to reality, you can't smudge it with a moistened thumb. As far as I know, only Taiyo Yuden makes them, but that's okay with me because they have a really excellent reputation for first-quality CDs and DVDs.

You can only get the DVD Watershield blanks as DVD-R, though, not DVD+R (yet).
================
Thanks Riredale,

I went to order them, but could only find TYG03 (16X) Watershield media. Do you have a link to the TYG02 (8X) Watershield media?

Or have the TYG03 improved in terms of compatibility?

Thanks again,
John

Disc makers has them as well but they call them hydroshield.
Just a rip off of TY but they work just fine. Only prob I have is that
stupid band you can see near the center ID.

Aug

Craftech:

Nope, all I see are the 16x TY disks.

I also note on the Meritline website that there is a new competitor in town, called "Optical Quantum." Their waterproof disks are slightly cheaper than the Taiyo Yuden WaterShield disks, but I'll reserve judgment until I see more than the one review here.