My trusty Epson 900 Photo looks to have devloped "issues". Either that or it has reached puberty! Anyway, it now refuses to tidy it's room, and won't print any of my DVD's. It just spits them out no matter how many times I tell it to work. Even harsh language is having no effect.

Anybody found something wonderful that they would recommend? Likewise, anything I should avoid like the plague?

Low ink? Will it print paper?

All the usual stuff checks out. I think the poor thing has just had it's day. Heard that Espons can get funny after about 200 DVD's are printed. Must be well past that by now. Shouldn't really grumble.

Just curious to hear who thinks what is good/bad

If its any consolation my Canon ip4300 has started behaving senile. It prints normal paper etc as normal, but when I select the DVD printing tray it prints with what seems to be only the magenta and cyan inks, no black and not really any yellow. Have ran a million clean cycles, changed ink tanks and so on.
All my previous printers have went senile after about a year and a half to two years moderate use.
I've always used compatible inks (much cheaper) and maybe this has something to do with it but with the money saved on ink I can just buy a new printer and still be quids in. Sorry, didn't mean to hijack the thread but these consumer printers are just not made to last.
Hope you do get it sorted though ;)

All the usual stuff checks out. I think the poor thing has just had it's day. Heard that Espons can get funny after about 200 DVD's are printed. Must be well past that by now. Shouldn't really grumble.

Just curious to hear who thinks what is good/bad

Yeah, that may be true. My Epson 200 started going nuts, I had to push the tray along. I found out it was the wear and tear on the tray after I bought a 220 and tried the new tray. (btw, its easier getting a date with Brittany Spears than getting a tray for and Epson printer)

So when I got the 220 and still have the 200, I can print identical disks and the 220 prints much brighter, so there may be something to you theory about old age.

You really have two options:

1) a cheap inkjet for printing DVDs. I currently use the Epson R260 (< $99) but these cheap printers do bite the dirt fairly quickly. I have been through 5 variations of the R200 model(s).

2) Bite the bullet and buy a Primera system (http://www.primera.com/). Depending on printing/duplication needs it might be hard to justify the ROI.

On a side note, using non-branded ink will generally void your warranty. Part of the issue is that the branded ink uses anti-coagulates to prevent the inkjet nozzles from clogging. Keep in mind that these nozzles are microscopically small! So if the nozzles get clogged, then it's time for a new printer. And I imagine running a clean nozzle utility without an actual cleaning agent in the ink won't do too much!

Mike

The Epson 900 is getting a bit old. You might want to spring for one of the newer ones. I don't know how the pricing is there in Scotland, but I just picked up a RX595 for around $100usd straight from Epson.
This was after my year old RX580 was injured in an unfortunate office accident. It was well before his time to go... so sad.
By the way, it's NEVER a good idea to clear a paper jam on one of these Epsons by pulling the paper out backwards. ALWAYS pull it out forward. Learned this the hard way. Dang it.

Interesting fact. Why are HP print cartridges more expensive than Epson. Because the HP ones INCLUDE new print heads whereas with Epson, all you are doing is changing the tanks. The WORST thing you can ever do is leave your printer with tanks that have run out. You WILL kill your printer doing this. Always have at least one spare set of cartridges sitting. Also, lack of use kills em as well.

I can get the RX585 for about $160 in the UK which will kill two birds with one stone and clear some space on my desk (printer and scanner)

I should add I HATE HP as we have them at work and they drive me mad. They seem to suffer from PPT (Pre Printing Tension) and if they run out of paper god help you. It would happily print little symbols and wipe out entire rainforrests of paper from here to enternity.

I WAS going to suggest that HP has had a CD/DVD printing model out for a couple years now, I've got the first one, and aside from having to be creative to print (I design the entire label in advance on a DVD template I made up - the included software is PFFFFT!), it seems to work quite well.

I even picked up a backup on closeout for less that a set of ink cartridges... they were bringing out the newer model, so I got a deal!

I've had so-so luck with Epsons (although I got a little dedicated 4x6 printer for Christmas that absolutely blows me away with its print quality!), but my HP's seem to last pretty well, retiring before dying... but the ink is pricey!

My Epson R1800 devloped an attitude for about a month where it simply refused to print CDs/DVDs. After trouble-shooting it to almost unending frustration and coming up with NO answers from Epson or anybody else, it just started working again one day. That was about 7 months ago now, and it's been working just fine.

Alastair gives some valuable advice. Keeping the heads exercised is extremely important to keeping the printer in working order.

It's not *that* hard to get a new tray for an epson printer. I found a parts dealer (located in Portland, OR no less) and got my tray the next day for about $6 (after seeing them on Ebay for $15-20

Happy Valentines Day! I'm in love again!!!!!

Me and my Epson sat down and had a long heart to heart about what we both felt had been going wrong. She felt I had been neglecting her, so I made the effort and gave her a little attention and used some compressed air to give here a thorough clean.

Result is, she's agreed to come back to me, and we are now "an item" again. She's actually sitting here, right beside me as I speak, printing DVD after DVD.

I think it may have been something like a dust ball or maybe I dislodged some ink build-up when I blew it all out.

Don't you just love a happy ending!

I have a R380 that I am mostly happy with. For some reason it will not print the DVD insert (A4 dimensions) properly. I have no problems printing the inserts with my wife's HP. Any ideas?

Ron

LOL Alastair, your post made me laugh for the first time all day, although it does sound a little dodgy hehe.
Lesson of the week: Don't let your ink build up, blow it all out!
Classic.

LOL Alastair, your post made me laugh for the first time all day, although it does sound a little dodgy hehe.
Lesson of the week: Don't let your ink build up, blow it all out!
Classic.



Man...and I thought I had my mind set at "gutter level". Even worse, have you seen how many posts you have made!!!!!!!!!!!

I have had my Epson R320 for a little over a year and had NO issues. I think I paid $79 for it. I recently bought a CD/DVD tray off of a company I found using that difficult GOOGLE thing, and it has worked great from the FIRST disk, and I am very happy with the disks I have done so far. If I did a lot of duplication I might get a primera or whatever, but at $79 - $150 these things are disposible. If I get a year of use out of a printer, then I am golden. This one has been great.
Bill

Hi guys,

I have had an Epson R300 and now own a HP D5160. Bad thing about the HP is that you cannot calibrate it when it is out of center. So, I'm looking for something else. Yesterday I found this link.

Please take a look at it!

http://global.dymo.com/enUS/DiscPainter/default.html

Anyone using this?

http://dvcreators.net/discuss/showthread.php?p=62690

Pros and Cons review

Will be £249 in the UK (Good old rip-off Britain!) and is due for UK release around April.

I got an Epson R200 about four years ago and it's still printing disks just fine. Probably punched out at least 3 or 400 so far ... and all with brand X ink.

Last year I picked up a Lightscribe burner to provide a different look and for backup in case the R200 dies at just the wrong time. It doesn't use ink, but it takes about 20 minutes to inscribe an image on a disk, vs. about 3 or 4 minutes with the inkjet. The cost/disk is about 2x or 3x more than an inkjet printable disk.

I learned my lesson a few years ago with an HP CP1700 printer we used for printing DVD inserts. I hadn't used it in a few months, then went to use it and the output quality was horrible. I went through the motions of running the "clean print head" utility which is simply shooting lots of ink through the heads to flush them out, but it never recovered. I didn't want to shell out the $$$ for a set of replacement heads, so I got rid of it then bought an Epson R260. Since I don't use it that often, I have a reminder set in my Outlook every 2 weeks to run a 'test page' print just so it doesn't dry up on me. That methodology has been working perfectly for the past year or so :)

I guess it's sorta like your water pipes. If you let 'em sit for a couple months without turning on the faucet, you're gonna get all sorts of junk when you do turn it on. Of course, the water usually runs clear after a while. I wasn't so lucky with my old printer...

Peace!

I have had several Epson printers which worked fine for documents. I experienced problems with all of them after a short while when using them to print CDs and DVDs. All Epson printer models tend to have feed tray problems. Yes, many don't have these problems but fully 50% experience them. Also Epson printers ink jets clog over a relatively short period of time. Epson tech told me that I had to turn off the power to my printer when not in actual use printing a disc. When told this I was stunned. This is obviously some design flaw that Epson needs to fix. No device should require turning the power off to function properly.
A commenter above asked about the Dymo DiscPainter. I switched to it and now own several units at work and one at home. They are small dedicated disc printers that print full color image labels directly on any printable disc. The text feature is very easy to use and font, size, color and location of text are all intuitive selections. As this is a dedicated disc printer there are no configuration requirements to worry about other than switching from a regular disc to a mini disc. I have printed close to 1000 discs with my oldest DiscPainter and have never suffered any malfunction or ink head problem. I have been getting close to 200 discs per ink cartridge. All in all a very easy, fast, colorful way to make professional disc labels.

I have had several Epson printers which worked fine for documents. I experienced problems with all of them after a short while when using them to print CDs and DVDs. All Epson printer models tend to have feed tray problems. Yes, many don't have these problems but fully 50% experience them. Also Epson printers ink jets clog over a relatively short period of time. Epson tech told me that I had to turn off the power to my printer when not in actual use printing a disc. When told this I was stunned. This is obviously some design flaw that Epson needs to fix. No device should require turning the power off to function properly.
A commenter above asked about the Dymo DiscPainter. I switched to it and now own several units at work and one at home. They are small dedicated disc printers that print full color image labels directly on any printable disc. The text feature is very easy to use and font, size, color and location of text are all intuitive selections. As this is a dedicated disc printer there are no configuration requirements to worry about other than switching from a regular disc to a mini disc. I have printed close to 1000 discs with my oldest DiscPainter and have never suffered any malfunction or ink head problem. I have been getting close to 200 discs per ink cartridge. All in all a very easy, fast, colorful way to make professional disc labels.


Did you feel you were spending a lot more on ink with the disk printer? I tried to figure out how much ink costs, but after 15 minutes of looking gave up.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?cpncode=08-12581884&srccode=cii_9992221&A=ShowProduct&Q=&O=&sku=528759

The ink is $40.

I hope I don't regret getting an Epson last week. I didn't know about the Dymo. I got an R260 and ordered a continuous ink system (CIS) for a total outlay of $120 for printer and ink.

I have been printing my DVD with Epson R200. Nice print quality and cheap. However, the no-brand ink gave me a lot of headache. The print came out is very greenish. I figured out the Cyan ink is the problem. Tried another brand, it's the same. Now I need to buy genuine cyan ink. BTW, the epson print head gets clogged a lot!!

I will buy the Dymo printer if the quality is indeed good and the head does not get clogged for low volumn uses.

I have ben using an R200 for about 3 years and added an R380 about a year ago. I had problems with the 200's original tray and picked up a couple of spares and it has been OK but both printers like to cough up a hairball now and then. I use only Epson inks. The R380 has been more reliable than the 200 and it is a little faster. Mind you neither one will win any speed contests.

I had a couple of high volume disc jobs recently and decided to get a Microboards GX auto printer (just the printer, no duplicating).

Gotta say the ROI might be tough for some to justify but the speed and 50 disc capacity alone made it worth the $$. I've printed about 140 full color discs since I got it 6 weeks ago and I am still on the original cartridge. Not bad. HP inks with an HP print engine and less than 60 secs for a full color full coverage disc. Great image quality using Taiyo watershield discs. Start printing the next big job in a couple of weeks and I'll let everyone know how far the current cartridge goes.




Reed Gidez

Hi guys,

I have had an Epson R300 and now own a HP D5160. Bad thing about the HP is that you cannot calibrate it when it is out of center. So, I'm looking for something else. Yesterday I found this link.

Please take a look at it!

http://global.dymo.com/enUS/DiscPainter/default.html

Anyone using this?


I bought the disc painter 2 months ago. With their highest quality supplied media & highest quality settings - it was grainy looking. I was sooo not satisfied with the quality that I returned mine. So beware!

Do you happen to have any of your "coasters" left that you could post an image of? Sure there would be a lot of interested in seeing what the quality looks like.

I've been using my wide carriage R1800/Ultrachrome for almost 3 years now. For what it is worth I've done about about 200 13x19"s, a couple of thousand 8.5x11s and at least 250 DVD or BluRay discs, all with superb quality and no media feeding issues.