Epson Artisan 725 for $85!

[Des]

Well, after being pretty unsuccessful fixing a Lightscribe issue https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/342509-Lightscribe-issue-with-DVDs-but-not-CDs and having a temperamental HP disk printer I decided to invest in a new printer.

Went to the Epson website and ordered a Artisan 725 all in one that is on sale or $99, and found a coupon code: BTB15 for an additional 15% off

Seemed like a real good deal to me and the WiFi printing is a big plus to me!
Also, it never hurts to have another scanner.

--dES

[MJA]

how much is the refill for this bad boy?

[Des]

The individual Epson brand color cartridges seem to retail for around $12.99 each and $19.99 for the high-yield black.
There seem to be a lot of after market options with good reviews too.

--dES

[jman98]

Yea! You listened to my advice!

Be sure to get some of those Taiyo Yuden Watershield CD-R and DVD-R discs to print to. There's not a better printing surface on the market. You'll be VERY happy with the results.

[MJA]

isn't chipped?

[Des]

isn't chipped?

Probably is, but there are ways to reset them. Here's link to Supermediastores inks:
http://www.supermediastore.com/category/mo/epson-artisan-725-ink-cartridges
I've had good success with them in the past for Canon chipped cartridges.

--dES

[Des]

Yea! You listened to my advice!

Be sure to get some of those Taiyo Yuden Watershield CD-R and DVD-R discs to print to. There's not a better printing surface on the market. You'll be VERY happy with the results.

I did! And, since yo are not my wife, I have no reservation about telling you that I believe you are right
I'll order the Taiyo's today too.

It should arrive Monday or Tuesday, so I get to play with it next week

--dES

[fritzi93]

I've had the same printer for a year now. Very happy with it.

[Des]

Printer arrived today. Wow, I am definitely a convert to inkjet labels now (Thank You Jman98), not so much the whole monochrome vs color thing, that part has it's plus and minuses over all (from an artistic point of view), but because it took lees than a minute to print out a full color label on a DVD where the lightscribe equivelant took 26 minutes!
Color has made my world more efficient

--dES

[NJRoadfan]

I'm hesitant in buying another Epson printer after the Stylus Color 900N I owned had started clogging up its print heads. They are fine if you use them all the time, but if you are an infrequent printer, shop a model with interchangeable print heads.

[Des]

Yeah, I had that problem with an old Epson 820, and my brother had that problem with another model. That's why I used to prefer HP, but for th past few years they're build quality and support have gone way down the tubes.

When I as researching printers last week it seems that Epson has gotten past that issue; maybe fritzi93 can lend some insight...

--dES

[fritzi93]

I haven't had one problem with mine. It gets used every day, if for nothing else, my wife prints out her sudoku puzzles on it. I probably do a few discs a week.

It does have in "Maintenance" a few utilities: "Nozzle Check", "Head Cleaning", and "Head Alignment". Can't say how well they work.

I did try some refills once, but couldn't get the printer to reset and see them as full. Unplugging the printer for a while is supposed to do the trick. Probably just the outfit that did the refilling (I think I got them from InkGrabber). Haven't tried refills from anyone else. I usually get the cartridges from SuperMediaStore, about $70 bucks a set, IIRC.

Good luck.

[Des]

Thanks for the info fritzi93, I don't see using the printer daily, but more like several times a month. Guess we'll see how it goes.
When the time comes I'll probably order aftermarket ink from Supermediastore and see how they do.

So far I love the machine, but it's still a new toy. Will give the scanner a real workout tomorrow, see if it's up to par with my Canon or Microtek.

--dES

[holeweat]

Will the Epson Artisan 725 print to Blu-ray discs? If so, what's the exact type of DVD/BD media I need to purchase that will work with the product?

[OllieTSB]

On the Artisans... you'll be facing three issues with the Epsons: (1) how does In-The-Process-Of-Printing handle an out-of-ink condition; (2) price of cartridges, and (3) quality of those cheapo Clone cartridges.

We've used, literally, hundreds of Epson disk printers (from the years-old R200/300 series, thru the current Artisans), and we find the Non-Black Clone Ink is generally decent enough, but we never get the same quantity of output. However, if we get 50-75% of the output, at 25-30% of the price - well, that's the definition of Value.

Clone Blacks have a BAD habit of clogging within a few prints. Inserting a Genuine Cartridge can be used clean the heads, and then I have pulled the Genuine out and taped it 'closed', then re-inserted the Clone. It will clog again, and again, and again.

We often see "Cartridge Not Recognized" error messages on the Clone Cartridges, and there are a variety of voodoo methods that supposedly alleviate these, but we've never found any of them to solve the problem consistently. "But at $5 a cartridge, oh well..."

There was a time, at the end of the R300-series and the beginning of the RX500 series, where it seemed that Epson's driver was doing auto-updates and was suddenly more thorough at detecting "clones" and stopping printing. We went into our computers' software-firewalls and disallowed all Epson software from "phoning home", and turned off all Auto-Updates. We couldn't prove what was happening, and at the time, we made a 200+ purchase of the then-new HP Deskjet 5160s - also a wonderful direct-on-disk printer. Alas, HP made 3 follow-up models and decided that wonderful service wasn't beneficial TO THEM. Grrr...

HPs are definitely all we recommend to anyone who doesn't print every few days. Canons, Epsons, Lex's - all have the nasty habit of clogging up unreplaceable print-heads. "Send it to our service center and, for $75-125, we'll clean those and return the printer within 3 weeks."

One other note: we recommend buying 2 identical Epsons. One of them WILL wear out in a year or two, and rather than toss out all extra cartridges, the 2nd printer can be unboxed and will run like a champ for another couple of years. Feed rollers will be the cause of most "put downs", as a veternarian might say.