Had enough of Epson printers

izzy eckerslike · 7 Jul 2010 at 15:35

I had two Epsons fail on the Yellow jet both times, claimed under the warranty( just one month left) on the 2nd one & a bloke turned up & unwrapped a 'new' one & put my ink cartridges in it & ran the loading procedure, strangely enough the yellow wouldn't print right from the start.
Is this a new one? I asked, no it's reconditioned sir I'll have to send for another. Two weeks later the bloke arrived with another & inserted new cartridges only to find the yellow was not working again.
The end result was they offered me a discount on a new one but I said never again & got a HP & even tho it's rarely used these days it always works fine

Le_Petit_Lapin · 7 Jul 2010 at 15:37

Jonny69 said:
I don't think you can use laser printers for printing t-shirt transfers, so that rules them out for me unfortunately

You can get Laser Transfer paper, have a box of it by my feet now as it happens.

Musty Pie · 7 Jul 2010 at 15:55

Just to give you a heads up (used to work for an epson service centre) the machines warranty will be void if you use a compatible cart even once!

compat inks are cheap but contain more chemicals etc that damage the internals of the printer over short time so epson don't warrant this.

Mobius 1 · 7 Jul 2010 at 16:20

i have a canon MP210. and ive used it literally till the inks that came with it ran out. have never bothered buying more inks for it, too expensive. i have better things to spend 30 quid on unfortunately (aimed at canon). if i want to print photos out i just go down the high street to a photo printers and get it done much cheaper than any inkjet can get it done. as for documents, rarely ever do i need to print those out and if i do i just nip to the library.

ElectroBlaster · 7 Jul 2010 at 17:36

I had this same problem recently and not for the first time I might add. I gave up with epson stuff because they just drink the cartridges and before you know it its time for a new set, those refill jobs are rubbish aswell imho!

So we tried a Canon MP160 until that decided to never print black anymore and that thing uses tanks with the print head built in so you always get a new print head when new carts are fitted. The price was a killer tho just like epson.

So this time around we bought a kodak because of the crazy low price for their carts, I can get a genuine black and colour set for around £16ish and we use the printer quite a lot for work. It makes sense to us as we are not using carp refills and we are not getting stung for using the correct stuff

lurkio · 7 Jul 2010 at 18:03

With Epsons , you have to print a couple of pages a week to keep
the from blocking up , its a pita

Cosimo · 7 Jul 2010 at 18:11

lurkio said:
With Epsons , you have to print a couple of pages a week to keep
the from blocking up , its a pita

You certainly don't have to do that on their larger format printers.

Tomsk · 7 Jul 2010 at 18:52

I got my first Epson when they were first out with a Photo inkjet printer years ago. Great prints (at the time) but a real PITA 'cos the heads kept blocking if it wasn't used.

Since then I've used HPs which always worked, but are expensive to run. Now I've gone back to Canon and mine sits for weeks without being used (I have a colour laser as well) but when I do need it it works first time.

Incidentally, my first ever inkjet printer was a Canon BJ-10sx which I purchased in 1988. I treid it last month for the first time in about 2 years and after a few cleaning cycles it produced a perfectly acceptable print!

Jonny69 said:
I don't think you can use laser printers for printing t-shirt transfers, so that rules them out for me unfortunately

Le_Petit_Lapin said:
You can get Laser Transfer paper, have a box of it by my feet now as it happens.

Try http://www.craftycomputerpaper.co.uk/default.asp for more printing paper (and fabrics) you shake a match at!

Energize · 7 Jul 2010 at 22:02

Laser > Inkjet.

Inkjets are so unreliable I can't stand them.

Dell colour laser printers start at £187 and a full set of compatible toners only costs £80 for 8000 pages, way cheaper to run than an inkjet.

singist · 7 Jul 2010 at 22:34

Always had Epsons: now got a Photo 950 with something like 7 cartridges so use a continuous ink system .... can clean and fiddle as much as I like and it still costs very little.
Google print head cleaning and you may well find a guy who will send you the details of how to clean the heads for a few pence .... worked for me on many old Epson printers.

I find that it is drivers that are the problem .... i have to use a XP machine to print as there is no support for anything OS later.

The printer cost me somewhere in the region of £350 some years ago and works well with XP so I don't want to get rid but they seem to want you to get a new printer every year; will stick with the system I use fo a while ....

ElectroBlaster · 7 Jul 2010 at 22:40

Energize said:
Laser > Inkjet.

Inkjets are so unreliable I can't stand them.

Dell colour laser printers start at £187 and a full set of compatible toners only costs £80 for 8000 pages, way cheaper to run than an inkjet.

I really have considered one of these for the missus. ocuk were or are selling a dell one, almost bought it but then stumbled accross the kodak one whilst in town. If we end up loosing this printer to the same problems I will just go straight for the laser option.