Epson Printers With External Cartridges

[Abandon]

Does anyone have experience with these Epsons? the C45 + external cartridges is about 3600, and the C65 is 5300

I know that the Epson has its print heads in the machine rather than in the cartridge as the others do. But I found Epson to be perfectly reliable in the past when I had one of their dot matrix printers.

I do not really use the printer that much, mostly for personal stuff.

I have not found that refilling cartridges of other makes is terribly successful.

[lopburi3]

I don't know about that specific printer but I have had two Epson ink jet printers and had troubles with both. The last, a Photo 830, I gave to garbage truck. If you do not use daily the ink clogs and you use half a cart trying to get it working, if you are lucky. If you are unlucky you get ink everywhere and have to take the dang thing apart and clean it. Then it works for a day and quits again. Other times ink runs out like it is flood time on the Mekong. For every good print I had a bad one and at the costs for ink it just made no more sense to put up with it.

Changed to a Canon Pixma 4000 and will never turn back. Canon does not have print heads in ink cartridges either (but there print head is user replaceable) and each ink has its own cartridge. After several months usage have never had to clean heads or perform any other maintenance and photos and print are both excellent and at least five times faster than the Epson.

[khunlungphudhu]

Does anyone have experience with these Epsons? the C45 + external cartridges is  about 3600, and the C65 is 5300

I know that the Epson has its print heads in the machine rather than in the cartridge as the others do. But I found Epson to be perfectly reliable in the past when I had one of their dot matrix printers.

I do not really use the printer that much, mostly for personal stuff.

I have not found that refilling cartridges of other makes is terribly successful.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I use Epson all the time, swear by them. Good prints, pics and text, wide range of programs through the computer and as a stand alone facility, only crib has been the price of their ink cartridges, but cheaper compatible cartridges can be found for mail order via the web.

[Abandon]

lol - odd how experiences vary.

I wonder if Lopbur's bad experience is due to the external cartridge thing, as khunlung was using proper cartridges.

[sierra01]

I have the Epson 830 as well, never had any problems with it apart from the ink drying out, as has been said. Replacement cartridges are freely available, no need to bother with mail order. I use MMC brand cartridges and get good results. By the way, in the UK the ink never dried out, it only started when I moved here. My solution is to do a test print once a week, I have 4 lines of words, in each color, that keeps the ink flowing freely.

[Crossy]

Oddly enough, Epson are the only cartridges I've ever had any success refilling

After messing about refilling the cheapo pattern cartridges I bought a set of refillable cartridges (from somewhere in Fortune Town). These have self resetting chips (removing the need for a chip resetter) and I can fill a full set without getting ink everywhere (still do it in the bathroom though, just in case).

I wouldn't bother with the external ink-tank system unless you use the printer an awful lot, the internal cartridges hold a fair amount.

I was a bit worried about head clogs when the printer is unused, but after a two month visit to Manila (with the printer sitting at home unused) I returned to find only a couple of clogged nozzles which cleared on the first cleaning cycle.

Make sure the printer you buy has seperate cartridges for each colour and if you want to do a lot of photos go for one of the six colour printers (more expensive but far nicer quality prints.

Of course, as Lopburi3 found, YMMV.

[sierra01]

I don't think it's worth printing your own pics, at 3bt per print in a shop i doubt you'll do it cheaper yourself.

[lopburi3]

I did not have external tank on my printers as do not print that much. The 830 used real Epson ink most of the time but found it no better at drying out than Comax or IJ brands. It would also wake the dead everytime it got ready to print and while printing. The Canon is almost silent.

I started out liking the 830 after having an old and heavy made Color 600. It printed much better looking photos but text was never a strong point. I even recommended it several times. But just too much trouble with the ink dry and even a new cartridge would have to get cleaned several times. Probably was damage to print head but as there was no way to tell could not be sure.

All I can say now is that everything about the Canon is better. That includes the software, which will pause print to change and empty cart, noise, photo quality, text quality, speed, versatility (two feeds plus CD), speed and excellent printing software included. It is a step up from the 830 in price I admit but the difference it like day and night. But you may be right about me perhaps having a dud printer as far as the print clog problem goes. But from my reading it has been and is a serious problem for many people.

[lopburi3]

I don't think it's worth printing your own pics, at 3bt per print in a shop i doubt you'll do it cheaper yourself.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I don't print to save money and believe most that home print are in the same boat. We crop, adjust color and perform other 'darkroom' work and then print out our photos. Of course we could just put on a CD and take out to print but what fun is that?

If we were heavy printers it would make sense to print out but for the occasional half dozen prints this week and again next week the home printer would be my choice.

[sierra01]

If you're into printing your own pics then good on you Loburi3. It's not my thing though, I make my own adjustments to the pics, load them on my thumb drive and go down the shop.

It's the reason I bought the 830, then I saw how cheap it was in the shops and changed my mind!

I know the 830 isn't the best in the world, Next time I splash out on a new one it won't be Epson!

[Abandon]

I don't print much and do not care about quality. I only hate this trying to refill cartidges ... which is why I am interested in the external feed tanks on the Epson

[monty]

Had loads of bad experiences with Epson inkjet as well.

Dried out printheads etc...

For small volumes I swear by the HP-Lexmark style, where the printhead is included in the cartridge.Clogged printhead, replace cartridges and all is solved.

Less then 2000 Baht/printer.

Not cheap, but at least it works...

Need foto quality, go Kodak/Fuji-shop!

For very decent, but not yet foto quality prints I use a color laser. Epson 1100C. Not so expensive anymore at 19000 Baht, and another 16000 Baht for replacement cartridges and you're OK for close to 8000 full color A4 prints (less then 5 Baht/A4, and the printer can churn them out at 4 pages/minute at the highest quality...)

[sierra01]

Abandon, there are lots of places that will fill the cartridges for you, just pay for the ink. A few weeks ago I had my black cartridge refilled at a place in Carrefour, Chaeng Wattana, 100bt. No messy hands!

[Abandon]

I kept trying that sierra, but it still would not work. The old printer was a lexmark and I refilled maybe 15 times on one cartridge. After that it would only ever work with a brand new cartridge for some odd reason.

I recently refilled an HP too, but the colour cartridge failed too after a few days.

Anyway, so what is the verdict here? Get the Canon by the sound of it.

[hughden]

I have an Epson 925 and half of an ink cartridge was expended on head cleaning. I switced to an Ink Man external tank arrangement and the heads seem to clog less frequently; and of course the ink is much much cheaper (and comparison prints using original Epson inks vs Inkman looked identical).

I tried an A4 print from my local Kodak Express shop and it looked inferior to the same print coming from my Epson; I think many of the express shops do not maintain their equipment too well. And printing at home is half the fun!

The new Canon looks good; not sure whether I could find the original ink in Pattaya though....

[AlexLah]

I have the C45.

Works well even after long time not using

Picture print quality is good enough for me.

Yep maybe a bit more expensive then compared to bringing to Fuji shop.

i use original cartridges.

alex