Need to buy CISS and dependable mid-range AIO...Suggestions?

[Titterbee]

My husband and I do monthly newsletter mailings to our ministry partners and need a good, dependable printer. We have a Macbook Pro and use high color/photo layouts which eat up ink. We are on a budget and would really like to invest in a system which will be dependable, efficient and produce nice print jobs.

I have used Epson in the past....one of the lower models, can't remember... and hated the print speed as well as the cart prices! What would be some good AIO models to look into? We like the Wireless feature and I have my eye on Cannon and HP, but just have to make sure everything is apple compatible.

We are looking into purchasing a RIHAC CISS.

Thanks

 

[The Hat]

tterbee

Whichever printer you decide to get you could get an extra set of cartridges with it and refill them.
With good quality ink and a resetter it would be much more dependable that any CISS and just as economical.
Most of the printers on sale today will work with Intel based Macs..

 

[websnail]

If you can get your hands on an HP L7780 then I'd definitely recommend it as they are good workhorses and considerably better than the newer officejet models now available.

The only tip I can offer is to get a decent dyebase black ink instead of using the pigment as the pigment black has a bad habit of clogging, even with regular use.

In terms of availability it's a second hand or refurb market unfortunately and I would definitely check into the driver availability for the Mac as that's something I have no direct knowledge of.

 

[Titterbee]

Thanks for the suggestions. I still feel like I'm drowning in a sea of possible printer options though. I do appreciate the suggestion to purchase black "ink" as apposed to the pigment...that may save us just in frustration alone. I'll let you know what we settle on.

Blessings!

 

[qwertydude]

Since it seems you're not going to be really into tinkering with your printers I'd suggest getting an HP and refilling the carts. Unfortunately Epson is pretty much the only name in the game that can use CISS. CISS may also prove more hassle than you're willing to deal with, you have to print regularly as in a full color document at least twice a week and if you get any clogs or air bubbles in the lines on their all in ones get ready for a really big headache. Sometimes you get really stubborn clogs and the only solution is to reprime the CISS and purge the system. And you'll never get around that slow color printing without sacrificing print quality because they can only pack so many piezo nozzles on the actual print head. Epsons are really great if you like printing photos and lots of them with a CISS.

It seems for me that Canon and Apple don't like to work with each other. I've set up a few wireless printers on Apples for friends and at work and it's never been so straight forward. With that said all the lower end HP printers seem to work fine with apple and use tri-color and black cartridges, so they end up mostly printing about the same speed. Quality is great on them, perfect for documents, but you need the photo cartridge to print on dedicated photo paper. Also refilling these is the easiest, plus if you mess up all you have to do is buy a new cartridge. The trick with these is to never let them run out of ink, just keep topping them off. Then they'll print just fine pretty much forever. My suggestion would be to have two sets of cartridges and swapping them after a few sets of prints, remember you can't let these run out or the cartridge is ruined. Refill the other in your spare time, if you need help on the refill procedure you can always post the question on this forum. This will be the most economical method considering all the other options.

 

[Titterbee]

Thanks qwertydude....all good advice that I was looking for. So far my search has landed on a HP Photosmart Plus e-All-in-One Printer - B210a. Good price and seems to have good reviews. Anyone have any personal experience?

 

[qwertydude]

The B210A unfortunately uses separate color cartridges, it means a built in print head. If you get this one you gotta keep up on the refilling procedure because mess up and if you burn out the print heads the whole print head is done for. And these print heads are much harder to find than comparable Canon's. If you want the refill friendliest printer for your use try the HP Officejet 4500 AIO.

 

[korny]

Looks like that printer can be had for $75...very cheap.

I have another variation on that series, meaning "564" cartridge-based, I have a c410a. The main thing to share, is that mine has five carts (photo black) which kicks in when you're printing on photo-paper. If you don't plan on printing on photo-paper you wouldn't use it. I cant tell you how heavy duty these things are though.

Im using a CISS (inkproducts.com) on it, now some two months later its still working really well, some 800 pages printed so far. Im very happy with the setup.

 

[Titterbee]

I like the 4500, but it doesn't seem compatible with the CISS we are looking into (http://www.rihac.com/). I'm thinking of starting off refilling carts, but would like the option of being able to upgrade later if we choose to do so. Is there a difference between single color cart printers and those with 3 colors in one cart....as it would relate to refilling/CISS?

 

[qwertydude]

If you really want to upgrade to CISS like I stated before Epson is pretty much the only name in the game. And you're going to have to take the hit in color printing speed for it. The HP 564 ink series is pretty much a copy of the Canon style printer. 5 separate cartridges with a pigment black and CMYK dye. The print head construction is similar to Canon and so isn't quite as robust as the Epsons are so even if you have success installing a CISS into it there's no guarantee that it will continue to operate with it indefinitely and with the thermal print head design also if you ever run into any flow issues, and with CISS you eventually will, your print head is toast.

I went through several print heads for my Canon's just refilling, it goes with the territory with higher volume printing. Of course with burned out print heads it'll still print decently but photo's would end up with stripes. At least with the Canon's you can easily purchase new print heads. HP not so much. So if you're really set on CISS you should just go with Epson. Get an older Workforce series and convert it to a dye base CISS (newer ones don't have CISS available yet), it won't have the tendency to clog as much as say an artisan which you have to do maintenance prints on both plain paper settings and photo paper settings.