Wow, did Epson screw up!

JJKizak wrote on 5/18/2005, 2:53 PM

Normally I get about 120 disc printings on a set of ink cartridges on my 960 but this last set is up to 196 and still going. Default settings with half of them print to hub. I think the guy filling the cartridges went to get coffee.

JJK

PS: It's up to 214 now and just started printing another disc design with black text and light yellow background. All of the other discs were full color with a wide variation.
PS: Up to 265 discs and still going on one set of cartridges. I think they left out the sponges by mistake.
PS: Up to 275 discs and still going on one set of cartridges.

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Comments

MichaelS wrote on 5/21/2005, 3:15 PM

Mmmmm...

Sorry about that...I just checked it out and found the same problem. I was merely quoting my lovely, adorable wife who ordered the trays a couple of months ago. Perhaps they have discontinued carrying that part...or maybe demand has exhausted their supply...I don't know.

She did say that the referral to National site came directly from the Epson support site. I'll have her research it Monday and try to find the link on the Epson site. I know she ordered the trays from National because I have 5 of them. Epson may have changed their parts referral to a different company.

I'll keep "pluggin" at it and let you know what I find.

Avanti wrote on 5/21/2005, 3:53 PM

Greg,

Switch the default media type from CD/DVD to plain paper. I buy generic ink for about $6 each.

Sidecar wrote on 5/22/2005, 8:05 PM

If you really need a lot of ink check out

http://www.inkrepublic.com/Index.asp

It's an aftermarket system that replaces all those tiny and very expensive "tanks" with 100ml bottles that sit outside the printer. A little pricy at $275, but if you are printing DVDs till the cows come home this will keep the printer in ink.

Works on both the R200 and R800.

planders wrote on 5/23/2005, 10:20 AM

I moved up from an R200 to an R800 a few months back, and the first thing I noticed is that the tray mechanism has been enhanced quite a bit. No more nudging or wear and tear! The tray gets inserted right under the rollers, which then clamp down when you push the paper feed button. Also, discs print in 45 seconds or less, and the print quality looks even better than on the R200. It's a more expensive printer, but still far cheaper than the dedicated disc printers out there.

Now if only I could figure out how to set up Photoshop to print directly to discs without making a horrible mess while experimenting...

Jsnkc wrote on 5/23/2005, 11:27 AM

On my R-200 I just shove the disc in there so it's about half way in the printer, I don't line up the arrows or anything. Somehow the printer lines it all up and prints perfectly on center every time.

NickHope wrote on 6/14/2005, 11:35 AM

Has anyone found a supplier for replacement CD/DVD trays, or a way to rejuventate them?

There is definitely a problem with the lip on the front of the CD tray getting worn thin by the rough roller underneath it. It happened to me after about 100-150 DVD's. Epson Thailand told me the tray is not covered under warranty so my only options are to buy a new printer or manually nudge the tray in each time until it grabs. So I feebly accepted Epson's cr*p and bought a second one.

Partly because I'm doing a lot of printing and partly as an "up yours" to Epson I've modified this one to accept a system of 100ml feeder tanks that I bought in Bangkok. Seems to be working very well although the first ink I'm trying is not quite as good as the original Epson cartridges. The tanks are balanced so they don't flood onto the paper or DVD and I've added a tank at the back so the waste ink from head cleaning etc doesn't soak into the absorbent pads in the bottom of the printer as normal. These printers have a built-in counter that needs to be reset by a service engineer after a certain number of prints, but with this drainage tank there is no need for that and I'm looking into this utility to reset or freeze the counters myself.

Nick

edit: That utility ran fine and the "reset protection counters" did exactly what it says :-) This is an R210 by the way, basically the same as an R200.

Quryous wrote on 6/14/2005, 12:00 PM

Has anyone had any experiences with the new R1800 Photo Printer?

It uses 8 (I think) cartridges and can also print wide and very long paper. Looks very nice, and the in store samples are outstanding.

jimingo wrote on 6/14/2005, 12:40 PM

I just got an epson R800. I printed my first 40 disks and the ink cartriges still say they are full. Has anyone tried using the gloss option on the R800 for DVDs. You have to tell the printer that you are printing on photo paper in order to have the gloss option, but I'm not sure if it would mess up the printer or not (since you are actually printing on a dvd). Has anyone tried it?

R0cky wrote on 6/14/2005, 1:19 PM

what a gloss option does is vary the amount of ink and how it's put down. Photo printers lay the ink down over multiple passes. This does 2 things - it averages out dot placement errors by using different nozzles to fill in a given area and it slows down the rate at which ink is laid down.

You need to slow it down depending on the media you're printing on - various bad things can happen if it goes down too quickly - the net result being poor image quality if it goes down too fast OR too slow.

Rocky, an inkjet printer designer

jimingo wrote on 6/14/2005, 4:48 PM

I think this is a different kind of gloss option...There is a seperate ink cartridge called "gloss optimizer", and it goes over top of the ink.

R0cky wrote on 6/14/2005, 8:32 PM

2 possibilities for what "gloss optimizer" is. One is that it is a clear catalyst that causes the colorant to precipitate out quickly on the surface of the media, reducing how much goes into the body of the media. This increases saturation and could increase gloss by having more of the ink on the surface. The other is that it is a clear coat of some kind. Have to ask around, somebody I know knows what it is.