Cheap printer for office / low quality proofing

[paulr]

I'm looking for a printer that will not meet the fate of my current Epson 880, which is about to be dispached to oblivion with my 70cm ice axe.

I'm looking for an inkjet ... 4 color is ok, dye base inks are ok, 8.5x11 is ok. I'd love something that can take 3rd party ink cartridges, that will be cheap, and that will not break for several years.

I use it for general office stuff, and for printing images for reference, editing, etc. etc., but not for serious color proofing and certainly not final work.

Thoughts?

Ok, I have to go sharpen my ice tool now.

[paulr]

no one?

any experience with a canon pixma ip2600?

[Paul H]

Take a look at one of the (many) HP Officejet printers. There are a number of third party inks and continuous ink systems for them.

[gari beet]

I have an Epson R200 which I use for the same pupose, though no longer made its decendants would be of the same standard if not higher. The R200 is about 4 YO now and still going strong, nice print quality actually.

Gari

[Robert Glieden]

I use an Epson CX4400 I got new for $25 on sale. I use it to print receipts, business cards and misc. office stuff. It only has 2 cartridges and I use the black 95% of the time. It costs about $13 to replace the black ink - never had to replace the color after a year. It's cheap, but for the money I've only been pleased.

Rob

[Frank Petronio]

The Kodaks are supposed to be the lowest operating costs. Of course the cheapest thing to do is simply to buy a new $49 printer each time the ink runs out, since they come w ink and equal or beat the price of refills.

[David E. Rose]

Take a look at the Epson Photo R280. I use it exactly as you describe. It has large capacity individual ink cartridges (dye based), and costs around $90. The print quality on photo paper compares well with the output from my HP 9180.

[robert fallis]

I have an epson stylus D-88 in which I don't use epson cartridges as there to expensive, The compatibale ones I use are made in the USA and I've just paid £7 for three black cartridges, that includes postage..
bob

[Ash]

go for the Canon iP4500, which should come down in price since the iP4600 is now released.

I love my 4500.

[beemermark]

I want to extend this thread a little. I recently moved and no longer have room for a darkroom large enough for my 4x5 enlarger. I can scan up to 4x5. I would like a B&W printer good enough to give me reasonably good proofs up to 8x10. For wall hangers I'd rather send it out to a professional printer. I've had a number of good/ great Epson printers but because of the infrequent use the cartridges they always dry up while still half full. So I've decided never to buy another Epson printer. Of course I don't know if the Canon printers are any better.

In short I want an economical printer that can set for weeks and give me a good enough proof print to make Photoshop corrections, then send it to a professional printer for the finished product.

[paradoxbox]

no pigment printer can sit for weeks and still be ok. the canons are better than the epsons in that respect but they waste a lot of ink on cleaning cycles if you let them sit.

the solution to your problem is to not let your printers sit. if you want to own one, maintain it by hitting the test print button once a week. if you can't do that, don't buy it, send everything out to a print shop.

sorry but that's the way it is.

fwiw you can buy the old canon ipf 5000 very cheaply now and it's a great little machine that does up to 17" wide prints. i bet you can find it under 1000$ these days.

the canons also have the benefit of having cheaper print heads that are user replaceable (canon would rather have a tech do it but just do it yourself, it's easy). the downside is the printheads are considered expendable/consumable parts so they do burn out faster than epson or solvent (seiko) print heads. they're about 500$ apiece if bought online. i figure you'd get 1 1/2 years out of a print head if you hit the test print button once a week. if you don't, the life expectancy goes down.

[D. Bryant]

Thoughts?

Ok, I have to go sharpen my ice tool now.
You might look into the new Canon PIXMA MP480 - $99. 2 ink carts.

Don Bryant

[paulr]

I found a pixma 3500 for $40 ... pretty good deal. It gets good reviews. The hard part with these printers is sleuthing out cheap ink sources. Buying factory ink would be a complete folly. This pixma has 3rd party cartridges available for fairly cheap, and refill kits for super cheap.

I don't know how messy a process refilling is, but I might give it a shot. It would be nice to keep the utilitarian prints from costing much.

Anyway ... will let you know how it is once it's up and running.

[QT Luong]

the fate of my current Epson 880, which is about to be dispached to oblivion with my 70cm ice axe.


Document the event. This could be your breakout project.

[Ash]

I'd not recommend non-canon inks or paper if you can help it. usually paper is fine, but 3rd-party inks won't take to papers quite the same way, and they are often a different consistency causing flooding/clogging on a microscopic level. You end up reducing the lifespan to the point of where the cost of a new printer is equivalent to the 'saving' in ink.

I've had customers come up to me in-store, and blame their printer for rubbish prints or dodgy print-head issues, only to tell me they use third party inks.

[D. Bryant]

Thoughts?

Refurbed Epson 1400 for $179 - with free shipping.

http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/consumer/consDetail.jsp?BV_UseBVCookie=yes&oid=63072161

Don Bryant

[paulr]

I'd not recommend non-canon inks or paper if you can help it. ... You end up reducing the lifespan to the point of where the cost of a new printer is equivalent to the 'saving' in ink.

I don't think that would be possible ... a replacement set of canon ink cartridges will cost more than what I paid for the printer!

If I get even one useable refill out of some third party inks before the printer explodes, it will make good economic sense (if this pricing scheme makes any sense at all ... )