Inkjet printable disk printers

[easytimes]

Now back to the dreaded US Canon / Epson disc printing battle, the plot thickens ..

Don't forget about HP disk printing. Additionally, you can get CISS systems which work with the printers (supposedly).

I had HP printers from 1995 to about 2003, and now have nothing but Canon for daily work. For me, the difference in functionality and stress on my computers was dramatically different. Any HP printer I had with card readers required the readers to be disabled, so as not to hang up any search functions. Printing was nice with HP, but ink was expensive... that issue may have changed, by now.

I have read some reviews by people who have had Canon disk printers and tried the HP versions... and they seem to think HP handles disk printing as if it were an occasionally performed novelty. Like I said... the lack of disk printing is a deal breaker for me.

I wonder how Epson could have bamboozled Canon into disabling their disk printing, but didn't hook HP on that issue? That license excuse never has made sense to me. I asked Canon, as far as I could reach by email, and they never mentioned anything about licensing.

As far as Epson goes... reviews of their products, throughout the product line, appear to reflect a part time printer building operation. Their printers seem not to be able to recognize their own new cartridges... paper jams have been a recurring problem, from all I read, and aside from excellent photo printing capabilities, there isn't much to distinguish them from the other two of the "big 3 print guys".

Breaks my heart to say this, because I have an Epson Perfection 4490 Photo scanner that I really like, now that I have moved away from Win2k operating systems. I would constantly have to do a uninstall of the Epsonscan program, and then scour the registry to allow a clean reinstall... since XP and now Win7... my scanning has been golden.

Oh yes... in JVC/TY disk area... I used the valueline for a while... but that only gave me about 5% coaster burning, and for my situation, that's unacceptable... I compromised by using the 8x premium line... makes for a nice price, and I can count the coasters on one hand for a year. The speed difference between it and 16x isn't enough to justify the extra expense... my Samsung burners on fresh builds with Win7 (Ult/Pro) OSs burn those 8x disks at 12x speed, if the burn monitor can be believed. When the the 16x disks hit 29-32 cents a disk, I'll make the change to speed burning. While they hang near 40 cents/disk... I'll wait the few minutes it takes to burn a full DVD 5.

CISS???, is anyone here doing anything with cont. ink, or is that just a legend? I don't know if I need to go that far, but I'd like to know more about it. I'm so crowded, right now, I don't know if I could squeeze out more space for the multi-disk print setup, I have seen... but I am not above a complete redesign of my little 10x12 computer room, to get a good result. It looks like a hi-tech rat's nest, right now.

 

[The Hat]

easytimes

I dont think HP is in the running on this forum its mostly Epson and Canon that are doing the rounds.
The problem you will have in getting a printer from the UK is the cartridges, unless you buy a set of replacement cartridges with auto reset chips for that ip4700 and remover the chips from the replacement cartridges and put them on the Canon cartridges, that might work.
There is a Canon all in one printer in the US that has CD printing I believe but dont know which one.
You could always go that route if you have enough space in your little den.
On the subject of CISS for Canon, ouch dont go there.
Refilling the OEM cartridges is as good as CISS any day and far more reliable.
CISS on a Canon printer is a match made in hell and as I said you dont want to go there.
I got 3 Canon printers left on CISS at the moment but as soon as each one plays up (and they will) I will switch them back to OEM cartridges and not bother repairing the CISS anymore.
I have an Epson 4490 scanner as well that I keep on a sliding shelf under my bench; I pull it out only when I need to use it.
I am in a small den myself 14x8 and space is very tight, I keep 3 of my printers on shelves up on the walls.
I have nine shelves on my walls packed with all sorts and the only place I havent tried yet for more space is digging down..

 

[easytimes]

Well... maybe I did the wrong thing, but as I was looking around, I noticed that the IP4700 was being discontinued... coincidentally with the hack being confirmed for printing disks on it. As I said to another person about this... I panicked and bought one... so now, I will be ordering one of those disk printing trays for it... G, I think it is... but whichever it is... if I can get one, I will. I noticed that the hack for this one includes not only the firmware, but a registry fix, too.

Sounds like your computer cave and mine are quite similar. Other than the size and scanner, I have some of that industrial grade closet maid shelving... the gray stuff, on one whole 12' wall of mine... five lines of shelves... and two smallerthree tier pieces on the opposing wall. I have a Mac Powerbook on a very small desk/table on wheels... and I have one of those corner unit desks for my two newer computers and two printers, one of which is still an old HP Photosmart, connected to my Mac... just for emergencies. I opened the last of the HP cartridges for a booklet printing, I did, recently. I quit after it started jamming multiple sheets of paper into the printing zone prior to the duplex turn. My other two computers are in the living room and front bedroom. Only one of those is on my wired Ethernet network. Oddly enough, they are all well used, except for the Mac... I do small video projects with it... it's only a G4 1.5 with Panther.

I have something similar to your scanner slide... for that HP printer, I made a shelf with a sliding platform on the bottom... it allows the HP Photosmart 1218 to slide out far enough to open the top and change the cartridges... it's all birch plywood, but I capped the edges of the ply with poplar and painted it silver to look like solid aluminum. The Canon sits on top of it, with the standard print paper supply in the middle shelf. Works great to be a homemade product.

I hate that Canon makes it so difficult on the disk printing, but I can never remember having a paper jam with either of my Canon printers, and I have had this IP8500 nearly from the first year they started building it. I'm pretty sure it said that was a new model in the description. I know I've had it for quite some time, and it's been printing disks for nearly all of it. I had my disk tray for the IP4200 before the printer arrived, and it's my main disk printer, because the IP8500 gets a little more sloppy with overspraying the edges and wetting the tray, so the roller mark the disks if I don't wipe the tray each time it prints. It's one of those things that is a problem, until you know what to do about it.

Well, I've yapped enough, for sure.

 

[The Hat]

easytimes

I have two iMacs, three PCs and eight printers crammed into mine, all connected together with a usb share hub + four usb hubs and when I turn out the main lights the whole place is lithe up with dozens of little coloured led lights.
Now I found your problem with the over spray interesting and taught could you not reduce your outside dia. of your Print area just a tad to minimise the over spray or even reduce your output to a lower quality setting.
I have seen some people print black text only documents on high quality setting and end up with spray all over the place after only a couple of hundred sheets..

 

[easytimes]

easytimes

Now I found your problem with the over spray interesting and taught could you not reduce your outside dia. of your Print area just a tad to minimise the over spray or even reduce your output to a lower quality setting.
I have seen some people print black text only documents on high quality setting and end up with spray all over the place after only a couple of hundred sheets..

To explain... I use Nero Cover Designer to print my disks. It gives you the opportunity to pick a black or otherwise colored background to the disk... when I insert an image, I can select the black/gray/blue background to go with the image. That is usually when the overspray problem happens. It also happens more times with my IP8500 printer, which is quite a bit older than the IP4200 in the living room, and less articulate about printing the disks. I use Nero 6 Disk Designer on the IP4200 and Nero 8 on the IP8500, but the worst overspray was when I had version 6 installed on the computer with the IP8500... if that is any explanation that might indicate a problem area. The IP4200 will occasionally do it, but not as much as the IP8500. As long as I keep the disk tray cleaned after every disk, it doesn't mess up the next one. I just get a little ink on my fingers, until I finish printing.

Now that it's on the way to my hot little hands, I think I will connect the new IP4700 to my next to newest computer, but it won't be very close to it. It's pretty crowded on my desk with a Cooler Master HAF 922 and Cooler Master CM 690 II Basic computer cases, two 23" Samsung monitors on the same desk, and that homemade print station I mentioned, with the IP8500 on top... the HP Photosmart 1218 in the bottom of it, and a full ream of paper on the middle shelf. Oh yeah, and the Epson 4490 scanner on the far right extreme, but in the same line with all of those other pieces. The Mac sits right in front of the scanner on the same wall. I know I could have gone smaller on the computer cases, but with Core i7 builds in them, I prefer to have the superior air circulation/cooling, rather than desktop acreage. Tough life.

I do like hearing about other folk's setups. I'm old, but I have never had a problem changing a setup, if I think it will work better for me. I just went through a process of gutting four of my computers to update my junque, and build a new system for my step-daughter. No more old modified Gateway computers... everything is my own build and has recently been uprooted from one case and reinstalled in another... or it's newly rewired. I can probably ride these babies to my grave, if they last as long as that last Gateway did. Don't mean I won't change 'em, tho'.

 

[The Hat]

easytimes
I see you use Cooler master as well.
I have PC one a Coolermaster Stacker 830 with 1000W power supply, Intel Core i7 Extreme 980X @ 3.33 GHz, 12 GB Corsair DDR3 RAM, Gainward Geforce GTX 480 (x2 in SLI ) , 2 Hard Disks (32 MB cache) x 1.5 TB &1. TB, Vista Ultimate 64 bit SP2, Eizo Flexscan 24 inch HD LCD.

PC two AOpen H600A Tower Case with Corsair 1000 Watt Power Supply, 4 GB Corsair DDR3 RAM, Gainward Geforce GTS 250 Graphics card, 2 Hard Disks (16 MB cache) x 320 GB. & 160 GB, Windows 7 Ultimate 64, Dell Ultrasharp 24 inch LCD.

Mac Mini, 1.66 GHz Intel Core Duo. 1 GB DDR2 RAM, Intel GMA 950 Graphics, Hard Disk 60 GB, Tiger 10.4, Dell 19 inch Ultrasharp LCD.

Mac Laptop 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2 GB 800 Mhz DDR 2 RAM, Hard Disk 160 GB, Duel Boot Leopard 10.5 / XP Professional.

PC 3. Coolermaster Elite with 300W power supply, 2 GHz Intel Celeron, 512 MB DDR 333 RAM, Hard Disk 160 GB, Geforce 2 MX 400 Graphics, Duel Boot XP Professional / Win 98, Dell 24 inch LCD.

I have this lot cramped into my little den and they are all coupled together with USB hubs and Switches, not to mention my scanner, printers some external hard drives, backup DVD writers a ton of differant size reams of paper (rolls included) and most important of all Fans to cool the place.
I have more fans than the average pop singer and the Temp. Is still 75 F.


I can mumble on just as good as you..

 

[VSS]

I am considering the purchase of a Canon printer from the UK, if I can get one or two...

While I note your reservations about auction sites, I would have thought the cost of shipping Stateside from the UK would be excessive. I haven't looked into this, so I could be wrong.

I'm based in the UK and am just about to replace my 3 year old Pixma iP5300 (a UK only model I believe). It does excellent printing on printable CD/DVD disks. Oh, it does not use obsolete inks. It uses PGI-5BK, CLI-8B, CLI-8C, CLI-8M, CLI-8Y, which are widely available as Canon originals or compatibles.

If you were interested, I would happily provide a fair price and find out how much the shipping costs are. THe only reason I'm replacing it is because I want the Pro9000 Mk ii. It has and still does a good job and CD printing is important to me too.