Disc Printers

leebo · Member Joined: 22 Oct 2000 Location: United States

I'm in the market for a printer that can print directly onto CD's and DVD's. I have used Epson printers in the past, like the R380. I see Amazon selling them for $300. If possible, I would prefer to spend less.
I thought the printer manufacturers made their money on ink, not the hardware. Speaking about ink, I sometimes need to print on discs in color.

I'm not really familiar with what's available today. I don't seem to see them in the stores anymore. Guess they're not very popular.

What are people here using (that's still available)?

Are there any dedicated DVD printers that cost $200 or less?
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minidv2dvd · .com Joined: 12 Jul 2008 Location: United States

aren't too many around. couple hp's listed here.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2 ... hInDesc=cd

jman98 · Member Joined: 08 Oct 2004 Location: Freedonia

I'm not real sold on Epson. To be fair, I will tell you that my story is a worst case scenario and the odds are that it won't happen to you, but the odds of it happening are also not as low as you might think.

Early last year, like you, I was in the market for a printer that could print to discs. I decided to go with Epson. I ordered it from Newegg and set it up. It got errors from the start and never printed. It refused to recognize the official Epson ink cartridges that came with the printer. I did some research. It turns out that this is a known problem. You see Epson is so paranoid that somebody (gasp!) might use an ink cartridge that they didn't make that sometimes their printers are so fussy that they won't accept any cartridges at all, not even official ones. Know what the "fix" for this is? You have to replace the printer. No joke.

I decided "Screw this and screw Epson!" I returned the printer for a refund and bought a Canon Pixma iP4500. Do note that in the USA that Canon printers do not come with disc trays, so you have to buy those on Ebay. Epson holds a bogus patent on printing to discs and Canon won't pay their license fee, so Canon printers in the US have to ship without the disc trays and in a special US/Canada mode that turns this off. It's easy to "hack" the printer to fix this. Basically you set the printer up in European mode, use the tray you bought on Ebay and boom! - it prints to discs. This website has info on the hack:
http://damnprinter.com/105/the-five-easy-steps.html

I have never used anything but official Canon ink cartridges and the printer has worked great for me. In theory you can use remanufactured ones, but it's not worth it to me. I just want the printer to work and if it doesn't work when I want it to, I'm screwed. Not worth the risk to maybe save a few dollars on ink when I know that official ones will work fine. If you go with Canon, be sure to check that your model can be hacked prior to buying. A few newer models are reported to not be hackable, but they are listed on the main website in my link.

leebo · Member Joined: 22 Oct 2000 Location: United States

Thanks both.

I am aware of the Epson issue, I actually sat in on some depositions in their law suit. I used to use G&G replacement ink, but they are no longer sold (at least not anywhere I know of). They worked great for me and saved me a lot of $!
I just bought a set of cartridges for my Epson and it cost me $80! The G&G's used to cost me about $35. We're almost at the disposable printer stage. I can see the landfills now.

The Cannon's sound like a lot of trouble to me, but a possible option.

How are the HP's print on disc quality-wise? I'll have to research the cost of ink (I wonder if there are any generic's for them?).

Does anybody make a printer that only uses black ink? It doesn't have to print on discs. I can use the disc printer strictly for discs, and use the other for paper, since I rarely print color on paper. These color printers use color ink even when only printing in B&W.
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Bjs · RoadKill Joined: 09 Feb 2004 Location: Australia

When it comes to color consumption look for printers designed with 2 x black cartridges ... these do not consume color ink but you must set the printer properties to black only beforehand.

Epsom r230 here ... no problems with cis unit ... cis unit is 8x volume for $180 vs 8 x 6 oem carts total value of $1024

R380 cis unit here

Printers with print to cd features:

Epson Stylus® Photo T50 (cheap)
Epson Stylus® Photo R800
Epson Stylus® Photo 1410
Epson Stylus® Photo R1900
Epson Stylus® Photo R2880

Canon Bubble Jet i865
Canon Bubble Jet i905D
Canon Bubble Jet i965
Canon IP5000 PIXMA

HP Photosmart D5160
HP Photosmart C5280

Lexmark conversion > guide

Under 200 would be rare > http://www.jr.com/p11-usb-cd---dvd-printer-kit/pe/TEA_P11KIT/ ... black only

TDK LPCW 50 ... nice but not under 200 ... amazon lists as unavailable.

aedipuss · aBigMeanie Joined: 25 Oct 2005 Location: 666th portal

for a black only printer look into a laser. they can be found fairly cheap at times.

hp's are ok. hp ink tends to be expensive, but so is everyone else's name brand stuff.

g&g refills are what i still use for my canon ip4000. i get them at meritline pretty cheap. they also have refills for other brands.
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leebo · Member Joined: 22 Oct 2000 Location: United States

Poppa_Meth · lil' bit crazy Joined: 11 Aug 2003 Location: United States

I've got an HP Photosmart D5160. It prints discs great. Not the best on paper though. Quality is good but it has some trouble grabbing the paper in the tray for some reason. Overall I liked the Epson R300 better but I too was sick of dealing with the ink issues and other little quirks of it. I'll never buy Epson again.
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stiltman · Hi Ladies Joined: 10 Jul 2003 Location: Studio 54