Here is what I print. Please reccomend a printer and CISS.

[June1999]

I have been printing for ten years so I've used a number of printers and a lot of ink. I have had way to many printer problems.

Home based business printing maybe one ream of paper per month. I need color part of the time. I print 20# bond, Card stock and envelopes. Printing photos is NOT important to me.

To a degree I don't care what the printer costs if I can keep the ink cost low. I was loyal to Epson for a long time using Chinese non-OEM cartridges. When new cartridges are $1.50 to $2 if doesn't seem worth it to me to refill. But I have been using some newer printers: Epson NX515, Epson Stylus Photo R280. I had one bad experience with a CISS but want to give it a try again.

My printing requirements seem quite basic. Most anything sold today will print for me. I care about:
Overall Printer reliability
CISS/ink reliability

If I thought a HP OfficeJet Pro 8500 Premier at $350 was best I'b buy it in a heartbeat. But they seem to have a poor reputation. What combination printer, CISS, and ink do you suggest I consider?<P>
Why is everything under the sun reviewed but no one has done cost analysis on printing costs using different inks and delivery systems?

 

[qwertydude]

I think you should get an Epson still since they are pretty much the only choice if you must have CISS. If you get the Artisan 50 for it's outstanding photo quality you will need a CISS with a reset button, ARC chips don't work. If you want to use pigment inks the Workforce 30 series is more suited to it, and it's very fast with documents with two black ink carts, though I don't know if they are ARC compatible. With that much printing I would recommend getting a basic printer and separate scanner or all in one for faxes, copies etc. That way if you happen to actually wear the printer out you're not throwing away needless peripherals. I really like my Artisan 50 since it's waste ink is easily bypassed without tools. Just extend the hose into a bottle.

 

[irvweiner]

My ink choice is OCP for the R280, excellent ink quality at $16/pint, presently running in my wife's R280. I also use the OCP ink in my Canon Pixma Pro 9000 for my landscapes and panos.

Rjettek is the US rep, http://rjettek.com/
The compatiblity list from OCP is: Your R280 cart is the TO77x or TO78x, x=color code Go to page 15 for the R280
http://www.ocp-inks.com/content.php?seite=seiten/support_compatibilitylists_en.php

Rjettek also has the resetter you need ~$12

Contact Linda Hunt 1.800.688.0129

If you are looking for hi quality printer get my Canon Pro 9000, there many showing up on Craigs list for resale in box for $250-300. Canon was promoting a $400 rebate if you bought a Camera and this printer, many were just reselling the printers. My OCP ink ($12/pint) refills cost $0.24 per cart, the CLI8 carts are easy to refill and can refilled many times, just give TLC. Resetter is also available.

good luck irv weiner

 

[strobemonkey]

I think you should get an Epson still since they are pretty much the only choice if you must have CISS. If you get the Artisan 50 for it's outstanding photo quality you will need a CISS with a reset button, ARC chips don't work.

May I ask what version ARC you use. I use V6 chips and they work flawlessly. You just have to wait for the printer to report that ink is finished then you just remove the particular cart, refill it, put it back then presto.

If you remove the carts without waiting for the printer to report they are empty, when you put them back, they won't reset to full capacity. The Artisan 50 is quite clever, it memorizes the chips. I tried swapping 2 sets of refillable cartridges and the oem set and the printer knows the capacity of each chip.

 

[qwertydude]

That's why on an Artisan you need the one with the reset button. You don't even need to remove the cartridge just hold the reset button. It's convenient because when one "runs out" all 6 carts reset with the button. With the ARC chips on the Artisan when you "run out" of one ink you end up having to remove the cartridge, or the whole set if CISS, press the ink button on the printer and let the printer attempt to refresh without carts, error, then press the ink button several times to get the carriage back into the load position. Insert the cartridges then press the ink button on the printer which starts a purge prime. This is a lot of work which you'll have to repeat a lot and waste tons of ink since all that procedure will only reset the one that "ran out" and inevitably you'll have another one close to "running out" Why couldn't they clone the 77 high capacity chips?

 

[printfan1138]

I have an Epson 1400 which I bought directly from Epson refurbished for $149.00. Then I added a cis system from Ink Republic and they threw in a complete cis for another Epson I mentioned that I own for free. Later I found InkJetCarts which has excellent inks for half the price of IR and they also sell cis systems empty for about $80.00 which is an excellent price since they are the latest auto setting chips and damper systems. I pay just under $60.00 for 6 bottles of dye based inks from InkJetCarts and I'm talking 240ML per bottle which works out to about 120 OEM Epson cartridges or right around $1260.00. Kind of a no brainer isn't it? When I realized the savings and saw how great it all worked and the prints I'm getting I bought another Epson 1400 for $149.00 and it sits in a closet until I need it. Gosh! I love the smell of naphalm (ER), "INK" in the morning! Happy printing! Printfan1138

 

[printfan1138]

I used to have a Canon some years back that used 6 cartridges with sponges and it did print great photographs. It worked well for a long time then suddenly I was getting page after page that was all magenta and I mean ALL. Changing carts made zero difference, the pages came out of the printer totally soaked with magenta and I never got it to work again. I was not very up on how to trouble shoot a printer then ( Not much better now), but I decided to take the printer apart to see what made it tick. That is when I found out that an "InkTank" was nothing more than a diaper without the Baby. Now the wife and I are using Epson Stylus printers and are very happy with the photo prints they produce and the fact that they take a cis system without any problems to speak of other than the usual occasional glitch common to all inkjet printers eventually no matter how you treat them. I will say that since we started printing a lot and most everyday, we have had no problems except one printer has the habit of spitting out blank or half done printer pages on occasion and that is probably more a software or driver problem than a glitch with the printer. Getting back to canon is not an option at this point but I imagine they have had a load of improvements to them. Are they still using thermal printheads? I do read that the piezo heads Epson uses are less apt to quit on you! We threw out the baby with the "inktank when we set up the cis. In other words we hooked up an exterior inktank bottle which fills up with an amazing amount of ink given the fact that we hardly ever do a clean cycle anymore. No need since we print so much and we just run a purge page occasionally. Your Canon fans out there let me know how the newer ones work, ok? Happy Printing, Printfan1138!

 

[qwertydude]

I think you should get an Epson still since they are pretty much the only choice if you must have CISS. If you get the Artisan 50 for it's outstanding photo quality you will need a CISS with a reset button, ARC chips don't work.

May I ask what version ARC you use. I use V6 chips and they work flawlessly. You just have to wait for the printer to report that ink is finished then you just remove the particular cart, refill it, put it back then presto.

If you remove the carts without waiting for the printer to report they are empty, when you put them back, they won't reset to full capacity. The Artisan 50 is quite clever, it memorizes the chips. I tried swapping 2 sets of refillable cartridges and the oem set and the printer knows the capacity of each chip.

Removing just one cartridge is the exact problem. A CISS system has all the cartridges tied together. Removing just one is a hassle because you have to remove them all. And the newer printers do memorize the chip so even when you wait for it to completely run out you still can't just put the cartridge back in you have to let it try to read an empty carriage before it accepts the same ARC cartridge. A CISS once installed you shouldn't have to remove the cartridge. ARC chips may work for refillable carts but they are a real hassle for CISS cause when one nears running out inevitably you've got 5 others that are near running out. Every time you have to remove and reset one it begins another purge cycle which really wastes the ink and ensures that by the time you get through all 6 cartridges the first one that ran out is around halfway depleted just from all the purge cycles. The button CISS resets all cartridges simultaneously so only one purge cycle is done instead of six in total by the time all the cartridges are reset.

 

[Soap printer]

I'm looking for a CISS system and printer with clean empty cartridges and clean empty CISS tanks that I can fill with my own solution of 99.9% water and .1% soap. Sometime I will be using a pigmented system with very low concentrations of pigment with very very fine particle sizes.

Can anyone please help me find a supplier who can take this unusual request?

Thanks

 

[qwertydude]

Just search ebay. Plenty of people willing to sell empty CISS systems. But you really should have started your own thread with a request like that.