Recommendations for buying CD/DVD Printer?

[marieparamount]

Hi everyone,

Hopefully this serves as a nice break from all the typical support requests!

I'm looking to buy CD/DVD printer and am wondering if anyone has any suggestions,mainly I want it to be cheap to operate.

My current printer is a Primera Bravo Pro, for which the ink cartridges are little bit pricey. Unfortunately the printer stops working for several reasons. So i want to try the another brand that fulfill my needs.

[coasthi]

I been using a Canon ip4300 It's been working very well for CD and DVD, it has four dye-based inks Black, Yellow, Magenta and Cyan; and a pigment based black ink -- PGBK) which has a number of advantages. Firstly, it is a cost saver as you only need to purchase the individual ink cartridge that you need as opposed to an entire new set each time you run out of one particular colour.

[steptoe]

Have a look at Epson printers, compatable inks are very cheap and if you can get refillable cartridges it gets even cheaper

If you intend to do a LOT of printing, consider a Continous Ink System but does mean 'altering' your printer to allow it to fit, its designed to be pretty much a permanent feature so you need a good sized table where teh printer won't be moved to often

I had an Epson R220 which wa svery good for my needs, but it finally wore out with issues effecting the CD tray refusing to feed in CD/DVD for printing which was 'fixed' but still had problems later

I now have an Epson R285 which uses a lot more ink as it has double the number of ink jets, but the difference in the quality of printout comparing the R220 and R285 is quite a lot

I have refillable cartridges on the printer which when the printer says its empty I simply remove, refill with 10ml of ink and put it back in, by which time the cartridge has reset itself so the printer now 'sees' a full cartridge. Great saver on ink and throwing away empty catridges for no reason at all


Regardless what printer you go for, if you intend to use it often check that you can actually buy compatble inks for the printer before you buy it. You can also get printers that will do nothing but print discs and these apparently give higher quality than printers with an optional CD/DVD printing tray as they are designed purely to print onto discs and physically cannot print on paper

You can also buy much higher quality 'business' inkjet printers that also do CD/DVD printing

[fritzi93]

I just bought this Epson all-in-one printer:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16828103478

I see the promo is over now, too bad. I paid $109.99, shipped.

Here's one that can do it, no scanner though:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16828103390

Remanufactured cartridges can be had from InkGrabber for about $7 bucks each. I went ahead and ordered a set (of 6), got them yesterday. (You can buy individual cartridges of course).

[sambat]

I been using a Canon ip4300 It's been working very well for CD and DVD, it has four dye-based inks Black, Yellow, Magenta and Cyan; and a pigment based black ink -- PGBK) which has a number of advantages. Firstly, it is a cost saver as you only need to purchase the individual ink cartridge that you need as opposed to an entire new set each time you run out of one particular colour.

I don't know of any current Canon printer, for sale in the US, that can print on disks out of the box.
Previous models (up to the IP4600?) could be modified in firmware.
AFAIK, some current Epson models have this capability.

[jman98]

I have used a Canon ip4500 for a couple of years now and I'm really happy with it. Same inks as what coasthi says. I have never used anything but official inks, so I cannot comment on 3rd party inks for it. There's one negative about Canon though. They won't pay Epson the patent licensing fee to license their bogus patent on printing to CDs/DVDs, so all their printers sold in the USA don't come ready to do this. If you buy Canon you need to go to this website
http://pixma.ulmb.com/
and follow the setup instructions for your printer. Your printer MUST be in the supported list for the steps to work. Also you must buy a CD/DVD tray on Ebay to use with the printer. Basically you reset the printer's firmware to run as a European printer as the Epson patent is not valid in Europe so Canon printers running in Europe are ready to do this.

I originally bought an Epson of some model that I forgot to print to CDs/DVDs but the damn thing refused to recognize the official Epson ink cartridges that came with the printer, so I never used it. Replacement of the printer is the only "fix" for this problem, so I returned it and bought the Canon instead.

[classfour]

I'll go with steptoe on this. I've been through an Epson R300 (killed the printheads), and am using an Artisan 800 with refillables at the moment.

You can get a good deal the the Epson store online, other deals if you look about.

The refillables I bought from an Ebay seller - buyinknow123, but there are others on or off ebay.

[stiltman]

Guess I'm the only one who's going to recommend HP. I've had 3 Epson R series printers and all of them have failed. I switched over to a HP because it was less expensive than the Canon modifying route. I haven't had any problems with my HP

[flyin-lowe]

If anyone is still looking I just bought an Epson Artisan 810 from Epson's web site. It is an all in one copy, fax, scanner. It prints on CD/DVD. It is normally $299.00 and they have them marked down to $169.00 with free shipping. I haven't got to use it yet so I will have to rely on others reviews. But it is a lot of printer for the price.

[filmboss80]

If anyone is still looking I just bought an Epson Artisan 810 from Epson's web site. It is an all in one copy, fax, scanner. It prints on CD/DVD. It is normally $299.00 and they have them marked down to $169.00 with free shipping. I haven't got to use it yet so I will have to rely on others reviews. But it is a lot of printer for the price.

Epson has a deceptive way of making you pay. Their printers seem like a lot of bang for the buck, but where they kill you is the ink cartridges. They have a short life and replacements will drain your wallet. Good luck with that.

[flyin-lowe]

So far I have found aftermarket replacements for as low as $40.00 for all. I am just going to have to research which aftermarket carriers are reliable/dependable. The good news is that I only print a hand full of disk's a year and I don't print a lot of photos at home. So hopefully I can stretch them out.

[rcubed]

Hi,
I have a Cannon Pro 9000 (not cheap) with 8 ink cartridges. In the US there is a royalty issue that Cannon doesn't want to get involved with so the printer that can print have the CD/DVD printing disabled when sold in the US. This can easily be circumvented. I refill the Cannon cartridges and it is a lot easier, since the print heads are not part of the cartridges. A chip resetter may be required to reset the monitoring chip on the cartridge. The CD/DVD tray can be bought on line. I haven't had any problems refilling the cartridges. Be careful where you buy the ink however. There are differences in the ink formulas for different manufactures using the wrong ink can plug things up. One fits all ink solutions are probably not that. The site I'm posting the link to has recommendations on refilling.

Here's a website that has a lot of info on inkjet printers etc. www.inkjetHelper.com

I also have an HP inkjet printer and I rarely use it anymore do to the cost of the cartridges and the difficulty I have had in getting them primed properly after being refilled. Some printers/cartridges in the printer will get plugged up if you don't periodically print a sheet to keep the ink flowing.

rcubed