New Espon CD Printers

[watch22]

Epson released two new printers that print on CD/DVD, the Epson Stylus Photo R300, and the Epson Stylus Photo R300M

http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/consumer/consDetail.jsp?BV_UseBVCookie=yes&oid=37368458

I will pick one up as soon as I can find one in stock.

[The village idiot]

Currently available at the epson store!

Look for the model 900 prices to drop!

One problem with the newest machine, it still does not use the pigment inks! What is Epson thinking?

[watch22]

Currently unavailable on the Epson Store

[The village idiot]

Most be the product page doesn't check the stock on hand.

[jawgee]

...One problem with the newest machine, it still does not use the pigment inks! What is Epson thinking?

Please forgive my ignorance, but what does this mean? What will "pigment inks" do for printing quality? How much of a difference in quality will the new printers provide over the older 900?

Thanks,
jawgee

[The village idiot]

Pigmnet inks do not fade as quickly, and they are waterproof.

[jdizzy40]

I bought the R300 two days ago, just for the purpose of printing to printable DVD media. Works great. Burn first then print. Simple software to use as well. I like the 7 seperate ink cartridges.

[iooi]

Boy are epson ripping you off for price in the states.....
The 900 is retailing at £75 to £100 in the UK
Thats $127 to $169 to you...

[Bob W]

I paid $150 for my Epson 900 three months ago here in Reno, Nevada.

[The village idiot]

I would hope that the 900 will go down to about $100 now that they have another disk printer out.

[watch22]

jdizzy40

Where did you buy your at?

[jdizzy40]

I went the local gotta have it now route, Best Buy.

[lanph]

I bought my r300 from Best Buy last week. It was $179. Print quality is fantastic. The only thing I need now is print to the hub media. Which is the best print to the hub media that doesnt cost an arm and a leg?

[The village idiot]

My BestBuy sucks! They don't carry any of the Epson print on disk printers. Neither does my CompUSA.

[rebarlow]

This is pretty aggravating. Looking at the specs for the R300 series, they have a lot of editing and enhancement capability built into the printer itself.

I would much rather use my own editing software than edit the image on a printer. My editing programs are more powerful than anything they could offer. I can use my own monitor, a bit better than the small lcd on the printer. I can also save my edited image to disk.

It couldn't be that expensive for Epson to modify an inexpensive version of their printers to allow a straight thorugh path capable of handling CDs and DVDs. Couldn't they offer a stripped down version without the bells and whistles?

Why do they have to bundle the CD printing ability with this unwanted editing/processing crap?

[The village idiot]

They do, its the 950/960, or 900

[iooi]

THink its more a case of CD printing is a extra that they have added in.
If you want cheap option then look no further than "The village idiot's" posts and how you can modifey a old printer.

[The village idiot]

Possiblity of some more newer printers to add to the list. For you Mac fans, the XXXX from Epson model # removed to prevent others from profitting from my free work!looks like it will be a working model, and should be easy to make. Kind of a mix between the Lexmark and the 640, but with no metal cutting. Will also look cool with some cold cathode lighting inside. I just started on this, and with some other things that are going on, it might be a little while before any type of guide shows up. I also have an undisclosed printer from a different manufacturer that will be worked on, still not sure if it will work, but it is a new model, only about 6-9 months old, and also super cheap to buy!

[Holden]

I hope that dude who figured out how to make a CD printer's name is "The Village Idiot", because I'd hardly call some one who MacGuyver'd something like that successfully an idiot.

Anyway, my Epson 960 just arrived tonight along with a box of printable DVD's. I'll post on it soon.

Greg

[The village idiot]

BTW, if I was buying a new printer to print disks, and photos, the 960 would be the choice. High resolution, and seperate ink tanks make this one very good. Let me also add, beware cheap refill kits! The cheap inks can be more headache than the lower price is worth. Cheap inks tend to cause headclogs, and poor printer performance, as well as color shifts, and premature fading. The only after market inks I have used have come from http://www.mediastreet.com and at that, I have only used their pigment inks, though I would say that since they got the pigment inks correct, the dye inks should be fine too. The downside of pigment inks is that they do not reproduce the colors the same as dye inks, so you will need some color correction to print correct colors. Maybe Epson will get the message and make a pigment ink printer that will print onto disks too.

If you plan on refilling your empty cartridges, here is a tip:

Get a second set of cartridges and keep them in some kind of container that will seal so that they will not dry out between uses. When one cartridge runs low, fill up the spare cartridge. When it is ready, maybe the next day, change the full one for the empty one.

If you take the empty cart out, and then fill it, the printhead will dry out in the process, and you may have a clog. An empty set of cartridges is cheap and will help prevent problems.

There are other ways to keep the head from drying out, but they are more complex, and may void your warranty.

[unloaded]

Hey village idiot, I'm not sure if you're familiar with newsgroups, if so alt.binaries.e-book.technical has a lot of service manuals posted for Epson and HP printers. They might provide some good info to help ya with your mods. If you aren't familiar with the ng's shoot me a PM and I'll help ya out.

peace.
unloaded

[TomVeil]

Epson was selling the 900 for 150.00 on their site a month ago. I found out about it from this forum

Another deal that was also on Fatwallet was the ink from Monsterinkjet.com. I was able to get 10 color cartridges for 30 bucks free shipping. The only difference I notice is the ink smells alittle and I have to clean the heads more often.

[The village idiot]

Hey village idiot, I'm not sure if you're familiar with newsgroups, if so alt.binaries.e-book.technical has a lot of service manuals posted for Epson and HP printers. They might provide some good info to help ya with your mods. If you aren't familiar with the ng's shoot me a PM and I'll help ya out.

peace.
unloaded

Actually, you're a few days late Just wish I could trip over some of the newer models. Like the C84 BTW, same nick in there as here, and surprised to see the 9000 in that group. And funny, since I got into a fight with Fred Farkle, he seems to be very distant lately, wonder what nick he is using now, I still see his Ebay listings for questionable goods though.

[The village idiot]

Sorry folks, no more public printer mods! Good luck with what is there, while it is there. :/

[golfnut]

Village idiot would you recommend one over the other, 640 vs. z25 as far as quality, ease of mod, ink refills, etc. I am going to try your mod but just trying to figure out which printer to buy. Thanks for your help.

[The village idiot]

The 640 type is the easiest, no metal cutting, less plastic cutting. Refills are the same. The Lexmark can be a little twitchy. Both need the rollers cleaned after using papers, Espcially the Lexmark since it only uses 3 rollers to drive the caddy through the printer. The easiest to find is the Lexmark, walk into Walmart, and buy one for $35USD. You can also get them on Ebay for $5 plus shipping (total was $15) for a rebuilt. If you are good with tools, The Lexmark is a quick one, if you have several good used computer stores, you might find the Epson, take note of all the models that will work.

Soon you will be able to buy something similar to the Epson, even built on the old and outmoded 600 series platform. I really hope it is very different. If you put all kinds of photo 900 parts on the 600 series printers, you can make nearly the same thing as the photo 900. Things may change a lot when I can see more than just an artists rendering of this "new" disk printer. But I bet it will be expensive. They are selling Epson 1520 printers with a "mod" for disks for $300 above the price of the printer. And all they are doing is using a tractor feed caddy, and raising the printheads. They claim it will still print onto paper, but I wouldn'y use it for anything thinner than HEAVY weight papers and envelopes, the things that were once printed on the + media thickness setting.

Yes you too can make a 6 or 8 or more disk printer from an Epson 1520, and I might just show you how, all depends on this "new" 600 series mod. I'll make ALL the models that they sell, if it is a direct copy of my work. I'm not going to point out who this is, because at this time, I am mearly concerned, when it is proven to be a rip-off, Then I'll let you know. Kind of the same thing that happened to this: If you don't know, don't ask.

Golfnut, I know you don't I?

[nailzer]

Dudes! Doesn't anyone follow the bargain sites?
Go to Office Depot's site, put in the search Epson 900 and look under Epson Photo Printers. The 900 is on sale for $199.92. There is a $50.00 rebate from Epson until 1-31-04!

[golfnut]

To: The Village Idiot, thank you for the reply, I think I will probably get the 900 and a printer that will do both, photos and CD printing, may even attach continuous ink flow system to it. In reference to your question about knowing me I don't remember ever meeting or emailing you prior to this incident but maybe we have. Anyway I really appreciate someone as bright as you obviously are in sharing your talent with us on mods and printer questions. Thanks so much.

Golfnut

[The village idiot]

Dudes! Doesn't anyone follow the bargain sites?
Go to Office Depot's site, put in the search Epson 900 and look under Epson Photo Printers. The 900 is on sale for $199.92. There is a $50.00 rebate from Epson until 1-31-04!

You can add this on top of any other offers you might find:

http://www.epson.com/cmc_upload/pdf/SP900-MemCD-30-c16260R1.pdf

It says you only need a copy of the receipt and a copy of the barcodes from each item, and they can be purchased seperately, which means you can buy them from different sources. The disks are $15 at CompUSA on the shelves, or order from many different places, including the Epson store, with only about $1.50 for shipping! So that's another $15 off of the printer price, plus a bunch of test disks!

Also, those of you waiting for the best solution for photos and disks might want to wait a few more months!

C11C550011
Our Price: $399.00

Product Available February 2004
Epson UltraChrome Hi-Gloss pigment ink for archival quality glossy and matte photos lasting up to 80 years
Eight individual cartridges, including matte black ink and gloss optimizer
World's first 1.5-picoliter droplets and up to 5760 x 1440 optimized dpi for unsurpassed clarity and detail
Prints a 5" x 7" color photo in as fast as 45 seconds and black text at up to 17 ppm¹
True BorderFree photo printing in popular photo sizes (4" x 6", 5" x 7" and 8" x 10")
Print directly on ink jet printable CD/DVDs
Fast connectivity with built-in USB 2.0 High Speed and IEEE 1394 FireWire®

[golfnut]

Thanks a million for the rebate info village idiot.