Epson L210 printer with ink tanks - any good?

[lungbing]

At the moment I have a Canon printer with added ink tanks, but the ink feed pipes continually jam the cartridge and often the ink doesn't flow either leading to empty tubes that then need bleeding. So in desperation I have pulled the tubes out and I now refill each colour as and when necessary with a syringe. The printer itself is fine.

I have today seen the Epson L210 that has ink tanks fitted as standard and wondered if anybody out there has one and, if so, would they recommend it?

Only for home use, although that does include two Mathayom level daughters doing their homework!

Ta very much.

[lopburi3]

Kind of scares me when they mention having to purge the ink lines and be sure you have full tanks first - if you lose that much ink it may not be too great for economy. It is the same feed system as you now have so likely subject to the same issues. HP make some models with reasonably priced ink carts that might be worth checking. If buying a new unit would be more inclined to be looking for WiFi to take care of all the tablets and phones easier.

I did just did check that specific printer as noted it being advertised but from check it also appears to be discontinued model (or I read wrong). Understand the daughters doing homework - have grand daughters here and they can print a bunch at times.

[SUBSAILOR]

Yep! I had a TX101, very similar, for several years ...until I destroyed it trying to clean out an ant nest. anyhow, the L210 is very similar in function and reliability. Had no problem for several years, but if I didn't use it enough I had to go thru the head cleaning routine to fill in the empy ink tubes...no big deal. I have had the L210 for about 2 months now, no problem. the ink tanks last about a year for me and simple to refill. I bought a full set of spare ink for about 900 baht. no grandkids tho.

[avidflyer]

I have used the the L210 over the past 1.5 years. Prior to using the L210, I used printers with after factory add on "continuous flow" systems (poor).

Pro: The printer and printing costs are way cheap. The continuous flow on the L210 has worked flawlessly. I have not needed to add any ink. I will add black in a couple of months but I am guessing the colors will last for the life on the printer. (I don't do lots of photos,)

Cons: It's slow. The print quality is just okay. (I have a dedicated photo printer... so no big.)

Take away: I'm just a home office and I will happily replace the L210 with the L520 (or what ever) when it conks out.

[schondie]

I just came across the Epson L210 at work today, they bought one for the new foreign teachers office. My first impression was that it prints very nicely and much faster than my Canon inktank printer at home.

Lungbing, I had exactly the same problems with the Canon (a workhorse of a printer) until I found a decent computer shop to sort everything out. A new black cartridge, refills for all the tanks and a general service to get the printer back into shape. No more air blocks or other problems anymore. The whole lot cost 700 baht, a bargain as we print hundreds of pages a week.

Back to the L210, one problem I had was that you must "charge" the ink tanks before you can print anything. I followed the instructions and then Googled and found many people had the same problem. It doesn't matter how long you press the reset button or combinations of buttons the thing still tells you to "charge" the ink tank. After checking all the connections of the tanks and what not I tried again and gave up.

Tomorrow the shop that supplied it is coming out to have a look as after I gave up the IT chap took a look and also gave up.

Once it's working I would buy one myself as the printing looks very good and the speed makes the Canon look comatose in comparison.

[lemonjelly]

they're ok, not lightning fast. make sure you buy genuine Epson ink, the imitation stuff is bad for the heads.

[rajyindee]

I had an Epson TX101 and replaced it with the L210. I find the 210 is a lot faster and the ink seems to go on forever. I reckon the cost savings on the ink will probably cover the cost of the printer inside 18 months.

[Madgee]

I bought the L210 a few weeks ago.

Similar to the OP, I needed a printer for use by my two teenagers and also a limited amount of use by myself. As they tend to do a reasonable amount of colour printing for projects I wanted a printer that was economical and quite hardy as it would often be moved from room to room. Wi Fi was not a valid option as a fair amount of scanning is required by us all.

The L210 fulfils our needs and is easy to set up. I recommend downloading the latest software and drivers from the Epson website and not use the supplied installation disc.

Printing quality is very good and I was surprised how quiet the machine is.

Scanner is a little slow but the scanning mode options available are excellent.

Very economical on ink usage.

For the price it is a good little ink tank printer which fulfils our needs without having to worry if the ink will dry up on the print heads if its not used for a few days. I like it.

As with any inkjet printer, it is advisable to print a test page every few days to keep the inks flowing. I left the L210 for 8 days without use and had no issues with it on return, unlike my old canon ink tank printer which would dry up after only 3-4 days of non-usage.

[roban]

The "printer unit" is ok, not that fast, but usable.

The "copy unit" is unusable and annoying, if you need more than one copy.

It's not possible to select any amount of copies, you have to restart the whole copy process, include scanning, each time new.

Unfortunately, I noticed that too late....

And not to forget, my printer needs ~3-4 minutes time until it's ready after power outage.

Edited April 29, 2014 by roban

[lungbing]

Everybody: Thank you so much for your comments. Wi-fi capability would be nice but it's not essential. The general comments seem positive so I think I'll go ahead and get one.

Thanks again, Thai Visa at its best.

[Pib]

lungbing,

I have a Canon MP287 printer with external/added tanks and "had" the same problem you have in terms of ink flow from the external tanks. After bleeding and getting everything to work fine, after a few weeks I would get air in the lines and other problems. But that problem has been solved by proper "height adjustment" of the external tanks. In the stores you will see the external tanks mounted on the side of the printer to where the "bottom" of the external tanks is almost level or level with the printer bottom. I've never been able to get that setup to work properly for me.

I fixed my problem by raising the height of the external tanks to where their "bottom" was "level/even" with the "bottom" of the internal cartridges/printheads. I did that over six months ago and haven't had a problem since...see below picture. I still need to make a prettier/permanent tank support versus the temporary one I have now and just using the double-sided tape don't seem to hold very long so that is why I have the tanks temporarily supported. The little yellow stickies on the tanks was just me marking the ink level in the tanks (which I filled full) when testing this particular height setup...needed something to better tell me the ink was indeed flowing from the external tanks over time....the ink was at the top of the yellow stickies six months ago.

Now DO NOT, repeat, do not make the bottom of the external tanks much higher than the bottom of internal cartridges/print-heads as that may cause the pressure differential to be great enough to cause "slow, continuous" ink flow through the print-heads even with the printer turned off....it happened to me and caused a little bit of an ink mess inside the printer. But fortunately I spotted the problem a few days after I tried setting the tanks "on top" of the printer...the ink from the external tanks would indeed flow and keep air out of the feeder lines but the pressure differential was just too great and caused slow, continuous ink flow through the print-heads even with the printer turned off.

Now even with good ink flow/no air in the links, the ink at the bottom of the print-head/located in the print-head nozzles will begin to dry-up when the printer is not used and cause poor printing patterns or worst yet no printing pattern because the print-head is clogged-up right at the nozzle. I find that if I don't print a page or two approx every 3 weeks or so I can notice the print quality go down/poor printing pattern. So, what I do is print out a solid black and 3 colors pattern every two weeks or so to exercise all 4 print-head nozzles. Like one of the first few color patterns shown at this Google Link where I just googled "color patterns."

I printed-out the color pattern and kept a copy laying in my printer/scanner top which allows me to just turn the printer on, press the scan/copy button, and let it print out the color pattern. No computer needed. Actually it's not a full page pattern...I only print about an "inch's-worth" of the pattern which avoids excessive ink usage but still enough to exercise/clear the print-head nozzles. I'll let the latest pattern printed page usually stay in the output tray and on it I'll write the date I did this printout which helps me to remember how long its been since I used the printer because my printing needs tend to come in spurts, every once in a while.

So, you might want to try bleeding your lines again, filling up the external tanks, and then positioning the "bottom" of the tanks to be level with the bottom of your print-heads (give or take a little bit). It worked for me....it might for you. Good luck.

[Mario2008]

Epson has several Inktank printers, I believe one of them has wifi capabilities.

I am satisfied with the 200 and 210 printer. A bit slow, but no problems with the ink flow. many people prefer the canon for the colour, but believe you can adjust the colour settings to your liking.

The canon software is more to my liking.

If Canon where to make a similar printer, I would probably buy that one. But I am satisfied with Epson.

[lemonjelly]

The "printer unit" is ok, not that fast, but usable.

The "copy unit" is unusable and annoying, if you need more than one copy.

It's not possible to select any amount of copies, you have to restart the whole copy process, include scanning, each time new.

Unfortunately, I noticed that too late....

And not to forget, my printer needs ~3-4 minutes time until it's ready after power outage.

I get around that by saving the scan to my hard drive "images" folder and printing them off from there.

[roban]

The "printer unit" is ok, not that fast, but usable.

The "copy unit" is unusable and annoying, if you need more than one copy.

It's not possible to select any amount of copies, you have to restart the whole copy process, include scanning, each time new.

Unfortunately, I noticed that too late....

And not to forget, my printer needs ~3-4 minutes time until it's ready after power outage.

I get around that by saving the scan to my hard drive "images" folder and printing them off from there.

Yepp, that might be a "workaround" assuming the printer is connected to a PC which is already on, somebody is able to execute these steps and you have enough time to waste.

But in my case, this printer is connected to a wifi print server in my wife's office, where it's mainly used as a printer and "one-click copier".

I've already scanned all her important documents and saved them on her Laptop for easy printing, but sometimes, especially when you're in time pressure....

My very cheap Canon, which died before and every "one-in-all", I've owned in the last 15 or more years, could be used as a "standalone copiers" with the multiple copy feature.

So I not even wasted one thought about that...unfortunately.

Just annoying, that a printer in this price range lacks such an important feature.

Edited April 29, 2014 by roban

[topt]

The "printer unit" is ok, not that fast, but usable.

The "copy unit" is unusable and annoying, if you need more than one copy.

It's not possible to select any amount of copies, you have to restart the whole copy process, include scanning, each time new.

Unfortunately, I noticed that too late....

And not to forget, my printer needs ~3-4 minutes time until it's ready after power outage.

I get around that by saving the scan to my hard drive "images" folder and printing them off from there.

Yepp, that might be a "workaround" assuming the printer is connected to a PC which is already on, somebody is able to execute these steps and you have enough time to waste.

But in my case, this printer is connected to a wifi print server in my wife's office, where it's mainly used as a printer and "one-click copier".

I've already scanned all her important documents and saved them on her Laptop for easy printing, but sometimes, especially when you're in time pressure....

My very cheap Canon, which died before and every "one-in-all", I've owned in the last 15 or more years, could be used as a "standalone copiers" with the multiple copy feature.

So I not even wasted one thought about that...unfortunately.

Just annoying, that a printer in this price range lacks such an important feature.

I agree, seems a strange omission and frustrating if you were not aware.

By the way what sort of price point are we talking about for this machine?

From the comments already made assuming I use the printing/copying feature infrequently,(say with gaps of 3 weeks when it is not used at all)would it be fair to say that unless I am prepared to diligently manage it a la Pib's method, an ink tank product is probably not going to be ideal?

[Pib]

Turning the printer on every few weeks to print a little is to keep the print heads unclogged, with "or without" external tanks.

Sent from my Samsung S4

[roban]

I agree, seems a strange omission and frustrating if you were not aware.

By the way what sort of price point are we talking about for this machine?

....

It was ~4800 Baht when I bought it.

My cheap Canon was ~2700 Baht (incl. separate ink tank system CISS) and worked good until a lightning killed him.

I had to replace the Canon the next day and thought, that an external ink tank system, fitted by the manufacturer should be better and more reliable than a "tinkerers solution"

And yes it is.

The Epson has a (slightly) better print quality, is more quiet and no messing around when refilling the ink.

But...........

[guzzi850m2]

My L210 can't print without "stripes" anymore. I have just done 2 power ink flushing and 6 head cleaning.

I tried the print head alignment and No1 is bad, it's not a square like no 2-3-4-5 are. suspect the nozzle is partly blocked, fxxx me.

The pattern on the black ink are broken even after trying above.

Now I am printing plain A4 dark photos to try unblock it but don't hold my hopes up too much.

Further more, if you print out a A4 photo (on glossy photo paper) and hang it on the wall without glass the picture fade away quickly and yes I use original ink.

Okay my printer sits 2 month without being used when I go overseas for work and they don't like that at all.

If I can't get it to work I will use a photo shop in the future for printing photos. I think there is a shop in Tukcom that can print really big poster size photos if needed.

I was thinking about getting a A3 photo printer but with all the problems I had with printers and cost of ink, no thanks, it's not worth the hassle since I only print photos now and again.

[roban]

My L210 can't print without "stripes" anymore. I have just done 2 power ink flushing and 6 head cleaning

Dito.

I have to use always "best quality" for decent prints.

But standard quality causes stripes.

Crap.

Seems, I have to take out the print head and clean it.

This was definitely my last ink printer, independent from the brand.

[innerspace]

Seems like some bad experiences but mine have been positive with 2 from their built in inkjet range. Certainly beats the home made inktank systems.

[AyG]

I bought an L210 a couple of weeks ago. Still can't get it to print from Linux. In fact, can't even complete the process to add it as a printer. Frustrating.

[roban]

Seems like some bad experiences but mine have been positive with 2 from their built in inkjet range. Certainly beats the home made inktank systems.

Like guzzi850m2, I didn't use it for a few weeks (4) and the problems started after that.

The printer might work properly, if you print on a daily base, but if not...

Ah and has somebody noticed that the printer needs ages to be ready for a print job, if it was disconnected from mains before?

First time, I thought the printer was dead, but after 5 minutes (or more) it started to print.

[guzzi850m2]

Well today I printed a couple of A4 pix and used high quality print on glossy papers and the prints are okay.

Since the L210 don't have the tanks over the nozzles like most do, I don't know how to move the sledge into maintenance position where you can get to the nozzles, hmm.

I looked on YouTube and goggled around but no.

Fingers crossed that it keeps working as the printer is good (not excellent) for photos and hopefully when I put the printed pictures in a frame they will last longer and it's very economical with the huge tanks, I think the 4 refill bottles from Epson cost app 1000 baht. I can see after all my flushing/cleaning yesterday that the black tank is a bit low now but the 3 others still about 60% full.

[Janders]

Hi Gents,

First post on this forum. I have used this forum many times as a visitor and thought it was time to give some info back to members. I have a Epson L800 continuous feed printer that works in a similar way to the L100 and 200 (6 ink tanks, instead of 4), My printer is over 12 months old and the heads have started to clog like all continuos systems do over time. Over many months I have used the head cleaning programs to blast clean the nozzles with more ink, but the heads became so clogged that the printer failed to print the most basic task.

After some research, I discovere that the issue is the sheer amount of ink building up in the heads, that dries and blocks the nozzles. The link below provides the fixes to this. I used a syringe, plastic pipe and windex. Injecting 1ml of windex inside each nozzle disolved and cleaned out all the excess ink. It now prints like new.

This fix may not be only for Epson printers, but it suits the design of the Epson units because the cartridge or ink feeds can be easily removed from the rear of the head unit to expose the nozzle intakes.

I hope this assists.

<<<< Link to another forum removed >>>>

[metisdead]

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