Looking for a better and reliable CIS. (Limited Discussion)

[sandralink]

The reliability and longevity of CIS is always my concern for the past few months. It's even more important than the cost of such device. I would like to pay a little bit more if it can last longer. Time can tell the initial investment is worthy or not.

I have seen many people talking about ebay CIS and refill cartridges.
I did use JWL system and was quite happy for a while. however, after 3 months, it started to clog once a while, and at the 4th month, 3 of tubes, print heads are totally clogged. no more ink. Even I pull out the JWL system, and use alcohol to unclog the print head, it still didnt work. Fine, my R200 was totally dead. I then went to CompUSA and bough a newer Epson printer - R800.

With bad experience toward jwl r200 cis, I asked many questions before heading to another CIS. This time, I was totally upset by this ebay seller. This r800 bulk ink system was clogged after 4 days, AND Chipset was unable to reset. They promised to send a new one to me from hongkong, but it never ever arrived. I've tried very hard to email them, but no response. I am sure they would lose money if re-sending me a new system. That's fine. I can live with it.

BUT the truth is, I cannot handle the downtime of CIS and I cannot handle buying CIS every several months. That wastes me more money rather than save, not to mention the clogged printer where I lost even more.

I am not blaming on anybody, you get what you pay. Try and Error.

Obviously, I wont take the route of buying expensive cartridge, CIS is still my first choice.

I post this new thread is to find a BETTER CIS system, just dont want to join ebay CIS discussion anymore in case of off topic or non-related followups.

I found several websites like: Weink.com, 9to6.com, think4ink.com ...etc are all selling same or similar system like ebay's one. I AM NOT interested in such system anymore.

On the other hand, I found a different system which doesnt use auto balance ink bottle but uses spongeless cartridge and auto-reset 99% chipset to waive cleaning cycles:

http://www.inkrepublic.com/ProductDetail.asp?item=R800

InkRepublic seems to be the "BETTER" choice according to huge amount of photographers who have been using InkRepublic's CIS for a long period of time and have been very pleased by its performance.

I read many reviews on its site and their customer's, it appears it should be the one I am looking for.

http://www.ningalooreefteach.com/inkrepublic/ink.htm
http://www.InkRepublic.com/reviews.asp

If it is as reliable as everybody said in the reviews and feedbacks, I would like to pay a little bit more to get one from I.R.

I emailed InkRepublic before, they said they have customers turn their system to CD/DVD printing robot. Hence, I would like to know if anybody has used InkRepublic.com's R200 or R800, R1800 CIS to print CD/DVD ???

*** Again, NO discussion on any auto-balance ink bottle CIS from ebay or online stores. They are NOT working for Epson R800, R1800 nor for R200 series whatsoever. I need a better and more reliable CIS.

[samgodwill]

I think you can try refillable cartridge instead of CIS. It may br more work but people said they won't be clog. If that happens, it will because you use different brand name of inks and mixed that.

[sandralink]

Actually, even Epson's ink would clog print head. But the problem is it's easy to remove clogs if they are developed by cartridge.

refillable cartridge may not be on my list, since it is not that convenience and sometime it wastes me more ink.

I think you can try refillable cartridge instead of CIS. It may br more work but people said they won't be clog. If that happens, it will because you use different brand name of inks and mixed that.

[Redim]

I have been using refill catridge, no "BIG" problem though sometimes too much hassel.

what's the advantage of using CIS over refill cart?

[sandralink]

I have refill carts too but for general homework or office printing. It
which works fine if you have patience and don't mind a little mess.
For me I would prefer CFS.

[sandralink]

Just let you all know InkRepublic.com has some special offer:

InkRepublic.com is offering 15% off on all items. This offer is good through Jan 7th, 2006.

As long as you submit pictures to them, they will credit 15% back to you.

see details:
http://www.InkRepublic.com/special.asp (submit picture and get 15% off)


currently I am using Inkrepublic's system, am very happy with it so far.

[Redim]

I just got R300 CIS from http://www.InkRepublic.com last week.
Installation is quite easy, and system works very well.
I should have it earlier rather than using refill cartridge.

[dancob]

Does anyone have tried this epson refillable cartridges.
They are also called Continuous Ink Cartridge (CIC)

They have metal ink tube between two reservoirs which acts like Continuous Ink System (CIS)

http://www.ez-fill.com.tw/utech-e/m_cfse.htm

http://www.peripower.com/eapm.html

[sandralink]

dancb,

PLEASE, this thread is only talking about http://www.InkRepublic.com Epson CIS system, not other CIS, refill cartridge.

THEY ARE NOT WORKING FOR ME AT ALL. I already approved it, so did other people.

If you want to talk about refill cartridge, please open up your own trhead.

I already declared in the very first post, this is only for InkRepublic CIS, not others. Thank you.

[sandralink]

Update on my usage of InkRepublic R800/R1800 system:

1. I like the video instructions and pictures provided to help with installation. This part is better than any other CIS. Most CIS dont even show the details of the setup on the site, but InkRepublic has very clear instruction on their knowledge base as well as their installation page.

2. The way the reset chips work is very well thought out and helps make further savings by reducing ink charging wastage.

3. The spongeless damper design should avoid the blocking issue caused by foam.

4. The reset chips are, unlike many other CIS, able to reset to 95% and don't actually reset until they reach around 5% full so you avoid the issue "100% full" chips cause whenever they reset (ie: full ink charging which wastes a lot more ink than a standard cleaning cycle). If your printer is switched off every night then this can make quite a difference to your ink usage.

Overall, it's more than a month, it still performs very well.

[sandralink]

One thing I found out that InkRepublic's CIS actually has one major advantage over any other CIS kit if, like me, you can easily purge/replace ink.

[Redim]

just wanna update my usage of InkRepublic.com CIS too.

I just updated my CIS by switching from InkRepublic Dye inks to InkRepublic.com Pigment inks.

In the beginning the colors are a little bit off. After using hair dryer to soften tubes, and profiling, it seems not too bad. The most economic way to go pigment.

http://www.inkrepublic.com/KnowledgeBase/ColorOff.asp

[sandralink]

I know a lot of folks have taken to buying printers on the cheap (like those $16.89 ones Target had yesterday - black friday), or snapping up clearanced ones, taking the ink carts out, and donating/selling/chucking the printer itself. Sad but true. you can see how expensive ink cartridge is....

[sandralink]

found some interesting pictures from InkRepublic site:



not sure it would be better if using nipple bottles....