Epson R200 R300 ink bulk buy

[Alan69]

As per this site:

http://www.jondokken.com/Epson2200/a2200Epson.htm


I'm thinking about organizing a group buy. Just got my R200, and while I haven't used it yet, I will use it heavily soon for pics and discs. And I much prefer the idea of $25 for a refill set of Epson Ultrachrome ink instead of $60+. But I don't really need 35 refills and $800 of ink laying around.

So in a month or so, I plan to order reset tools, and hand pumps and bottles for 7 people. Then get the money in, order the ink, divide it up and ship it out. Should work out to around $160 or $170 per with tools etc for 5 refills worth instead of $180+ for 3 by buying the cartridges retail. Maybe less, can't remember if that was the 6 or 7 people cost I worked out last night. Even cheaper if more was needed later since you'd have the tools etc. Money handling would be formalized with a buy it now setup through my Ebay account just so there wouldn't be any issues. Not really looking to make a profit on this other than get the ink cheap without the full $800 invested, so just absolute divided costs +$5 to cover running around etc.

Again it'll be a month or so before I'm needing to do this, but I may get things moving sooner if interest is high, just going ahead and checking interest. If enough others are wanting I may set up additional buys as well, but I'd probably bump up the overhead to $10 if I wasn't in it just so I wasn't doing it for nothing.

Thought about just putting it up for sale on Ebay at large, but I'd really rather do it with people here with higher specific interest and a bit more of a clue than just general Ebay folk. Could even split it up a bit more, but with tool and material overhead costs the 6 or 7 person range looks most effective for splitting up the 500ml tanks of ink, and 5 refills each should last most for a decent while. I also do microcontrollers, may even make up my own reset tools and save everyone that $20 too.

Alan

[The village idiot]

You mentioned UltraChrome inks, just to make sure you are clear, the R200 and R300 do NOT use the UltraChrome inks. One of the most highly recommended inks (from drycreek photo) is the MediaStreet Plug n Play inks. You can buy them in bottles of 4 ounces up to bottles of a gallon each color. Here's the link:

http://www.mediastreet.com/cgi-bin/tame/mediastreet/ink_bottles.tam?&case=epson#order

If you put the UC inks in your R200/300 you WILL need custom profiles to correct for the color shift.

[The village idiot]

You can get all the plastic bottles, tubing, and such from http://www.usplastic.com

[overloaded_ide]

I just bought an R200 myself about a week ago. Printed many disks already. Newegg now has this printer for $88 and free shipping! Beats the pants off the $100 plus tax I paid for it! I couldn't find a it there before I bought mine though.

Looks to me refilling will be very easy as it has 6 seperate color tanks plus black. I geuss these are the tanks with chips so need a resetter and syringes and I think thats about it. Maybe a hot glue gun to reseal the hole you make for the syringe, taht's how I do my canon cartriges.

As for inks, I agree with village, not all that expensive. I was talking to an ink dealer awhile back about canon inks and asked about epson inks. I was told the canons are a pigment ink, most epsons are a dye ink, or at least the ones I asked about. I don't think these models R300 R200 use the UltraChrome inks ones either, so good quality inks like the plug and play inks Village mentioned should be just what we need.

Be sure to keep your inks labeled if you get for several types of printers. I know I will end up with 3 sets now probably. I would hate to confuse what ink goes to which printer.
Good dye ink for the Epson. For disks, maybe some photos.
Good Pigment ink for the Canon, most my normal printing and photos, flyers, posters.
Cheap dye ink I already have, for using in other printers for just plain old printing quality does matter that much like letters and wrapping papers.

Yea wrapping papers. Why buy expensive birthday and holiday wrapping paper when you can print your own custom papers
I do that myself, like today I printed up some birthday wrappers for birthday presents for a kid.

Hey village,
You know a ton about printers, what would actually happen if I used pigment inks in a dye ink printer? Will it print normally, mess up the quality but not the printer, or plug up the print heads in the printer?
Better to ask before finding out the hard way!

[Alan69]

You mentioned UltraChrome inks, just to make sure you are clear, the R200 and R300 do NOT use the UltraChrome inks. One of the most highly recommended inks (from drycreek photo) is the MediaStreet Plug n Play inks. You can buy them in bottles of 4 ounces up to

Actually yes it appears to be the archival not the ultrachrome that's the matching ink for the R series. And while he mentioned using the ultrachrome inks on the refill page, all three types are available in the 10600 tanks as with most wide format printers. The ultrachrome ink seems to be preferred even over what ships with the printer, just not normally available for the narrow printers, and I believe I already ran into info on drivers modded for the ultrachrome. Still have a month or so to research fully and determine the best option.

http://www.anestoday.com/epson2200/faq.htm

While I'm open to other options, most of the 3rd party inks seem to have somewhat lesser quality and other minor problems like rub off etc. I'll be coating my discs but also doing photos etc. Still may opt for 3rd party if something is found acceptable, but $25 for a refill of the Epson inks seems pretty reasonable..

Alan

[Alan69]

I just bought an R200 myself about a week ago. Printed many disks already. Newegg now has this printer for $88 and free shipping! Beats the pants off the $100 plus tax I paid for it! I couldn't find a it there before I bought mine though.

Looks to me refilling will be very easy as it has 6 seperate color tanks plus black. I geuss these are the tanks with chips so need a resetter and syringes and I think thats about it. Maybe a hot glue gun to reseal the hole you make for the syringe, taht's how I do my canon cartriges.

As for inks, I agree with village, not all that expensive. I was talking to an ink dealer awhile back about canon inks and asked about epson inks. I was told the canons are a pigment ink, most epsons are a dye ink, or at least the ones I asked about. I don't think these models R300 R200 use the UltraChrome inks ones either, so good quality inks like the plug and play inks Village mentioned should be just what we need.

Be sure to keep your inks labeled if you get for several types of printers. I know I will end up with 3 sets now probably. I would hate to confuse what ink goes to which printer.
Good dye ink for the Epson. For disks, maybe some photos.
Good Pigment ink for the Canon, most my normal printing and photos, flyers, posters.
Cheap dye ink I already have, for using in other printers for just plain old printing quality does matter that much like letters and wrapping papers.

Yea wrapping papers. Why buy expensive birthday and holiday wrapping paper when you can print your own custom papers
I do that myself, like today I printed up some birthday wrappers for birthday presents for a kid.

Hey village,
You know a ton about printers, what would actually happen if I used pigment inks in a dye ink printer? Will it print normally, mess up the quality but not the printer, or plug up the print heads in the printer?
Better to ask before finding out the hard way!

Yep $88 beats the 108 I paid hands down. And also yep on the easy refills, looks simple enough..

Pretty sure the R200 has the pigment inks, many dye ink sets for the R200 come with fluid to change out the original ink. And the 3rd party stuff is not microencapsulated, and also tend to not have the color range of the originals. Cheap ink is good but I want to keep the quality at max for photos and discs, I have an older HP with refilled ink for general use..

They warn against mixing the ink types, not sure if it really does anything much or you just get uneven prints for a long time while it changes over though..

Alan

[The village idiot]

Any place selling archival, pigment, or any thing besides normal dye ink for the R200/300 is selling the WRONG ink! The archival might be considered a replacement for the DuraBrite inks, which are pigment inks. I know for a fact that the R200/300 use a simple dye ink, using anything else will give you color shifts that will make you want to go back to Epson carts. This goes for the 900, 950, 960 printers too. The only pigment models are some of the all in one units, C82, C84, maybe C40/42, R800, 2200, 4000, 5500, 7500, 9500, 7600, 9600, 10000, 10600, and the new 4x6 printer. Basically if it doesn't have a DuraBrite or UltraChrome emblem stuck to the side of the printer, then it uses dye ink. They make the emblem VERY visible, there is no way to mistake it for anything else.

You are welcome to put any kind of ink in your printer that you want. But when you come back and ask why the colors are all wrong, the first thing I'm going to ask is if you are using a third party ink, and what type. Not all inks are the same! Some inks will mix with the Epson inks and form a sludge that can not be removed. If you put UltraChrome inks in your R200, you will very likely see this first hand. The same goes for the DuraBrite inks into a dye ink printer. You MUST flush the heads clean with a cleaning fluid before using those pigment inks. The only pigment inks that I have tried that are compatible with the Epson dye inks are the Generations inks from Mediastreet, and at that you must read their warnings, as the newest ink, the G-Chrome, is not compatible. There are other manufacturers that say their inks are OK, but I haven't tried them. All pigment type inks will require color correction to achieve

As for any Canon printers, the only pigment ink is the black ink.

[overloaded_ide]

As for any Canon printers, the only pigment ink is the black ink.

Hmm, so my I850 is black pigment but dye colors? I wonder if my newest inks are correct then? I got pigment Black, but I think I also got pigment Yellow. Still had plenty of the Cyan and Magenta left. My printing looks great and it did not gell so I am happy with it. I did notice the yellow looks red in the cartrig whereas it used to look yellow in the cartrig. Both yellow inks looked red in the large bottle in bulk. My printing looks great, maybe even better than before anyway.

Back to the R300 R200.
I was on a website that sells inks and other stuff today. What they sell is not expensive, they have refilled carts, bulk ink, chip resetters etc..
I did see them say that the OEM carts that came with the R200 cannot be refilled correctly. They do have replacement cartrigs for sale they say can be refilled properly.
So the question is, since they sell chip resetters for Epsons what has Epson done that make the carts not be refillable? Anything? This was about the only type printer I checked on that poped up with a warning about not being able to refill oem carts!

Epson Chip Resetter - $24.95 - This is required to reset the chip on your empty cartridge. The resetter works on all the cartridges in your printer.

Refillable Black Cartridge - $12.95 - Your Epson OEM black cartridge can't be successfully refilled. When this cartridge runs empty it can be refilled over and over.

Refillable Color Cartridges (3) - $29.95 - Your Epson OEM color cartridges can't be successfully refilled. When our cartridges run empty they can be refilled over and over.

Refillable Photo (Light Cyan and Magenta) Cartridges (2) - $19.95 - Your Epson OEM photo cartridges can't be successfully refilled. When our cartridges run empty they can be refilled over and over.

I had not seen or heard of anything like that till today, and I did buy inks from this place before for other printers, seemed like a good place, talked to them on the phone and they seemed knowlegable about the products they sell.
$8 per black or color at this place for thier Compatible Cartridges, I wonder if those are supposed to be re-fillable then? That's less than the cost of the refillables listed above that they sell.
Ink-Refills-Ink.com was where I was at then.

[AlexT]

<spam>

[soundforbjt]

Here's a tip for all of you Epson Inkjet printer owners. To make sure you get the use of all your cartridge's ink, do a search on google for Epson SSC service utility version 3.61. It allows you to reset your cartridges, do thorough cleaning, etc. It's also free!!

Works on R200, R300, and most all models!

[Burning Zombie]

I would be Interested in Going in on this Ink Buy, I am just mad as hell, that the ink smudges so easily.

But you can count me in!

[jaxxboss]

You still going to do this?