I have an XP-610 and just ordered an XP-640 - need education

I've been having printer problems for several years and guess that I need to learn more. Most of my printing is paper and photos, but an occasional DVD (maybe 10/year). I had an HP 5250 and was totally satisfied with it until it quit a couple of years ago. I got the Epson 610 and though not as convenient as the HP, worked okay until a few months ago when I got banding and occasionally dropped blobs of black ink on a photo or DVD.

I've been living with the problems but they are getting worse. I recently replaced the cyan cartridge at about $20 and the others except yellow are about half full. Now the printer is complaining that yellow needs to be replaced. I tried to do a nozzle cleaning but the printer won't do that w/o replacing yellow. Getting thoroughly disgusted with the printer and the extortion of money for ink, I decided to buy another Epson 610 and use the inks that I already have when needed. Found that the 610 is no longer available. It's updated to an XP-640 - which of course uses different ink cartridges. I ordered the 640 anyway because on sale it was less than twice the cost of a new hi-capacity ink set and the 640 will come with ink.

By browsing this site I find that Epson (maybe all) printers will sabotage your printer if you use non OEM ink. Maybe that's what happened to mine? I did save substantially by using after-market ink. Also used Costco refills on my old HP 5250.

So when my new 640 arrives will I need to use only OEM ink? I'm thinking that I may keep the retired 610 and buy a refill kit for everyday printing and use the new 640 only for pristine photos and DVDs.

Any comments or education on printers and non OEM ink is appreciated.

it is your decision whether to use OEM or NON-OEM ink because you are the one who will face the problem if it happened ,each of them has its own pros and cons, there are good experts in this forum and they will give you their experience for each of them . if you will choose NON-OEM then go for good quality ink ,there are good suppliers . for me i am using continuous ink supply system (CISS) from day one ( the OEM cartridges are still in its plastic seal cover) and i am happy with it .it is much more cheaper than the OEM cartridges.it truly cuts more than 90% of printing cost. the printing report showed more than 76.000 pages (text and photo)printed.

when you buy a new model you might get into the problem that 3rd party solutions - cartridges or refill options - are not available yet for the new cartridge type. I think you should ask yourself several questions - whether you need a combo with scanner - whether you really need DVD printing - what your overall printing volume is and your print frequency - what your photo print quality expectations are - and some other features which are a must for you - e.g. like direct printing from an USB stick - WLAN , whether you are willing to do refill cartridges at all or rather like to avoid the handling mess etc .
Just to give you an idea which other models might meet your needs - an Epson L850 with an integrated ink system with external tanks - no cartridges at all , the unit price is pretty high , but you get a very good ink supply with it - approx 7x more than what you get with the XP640 - and supplement inks , even the Epson inks, are much cheaper than ink in cartridges. You may look to Canon models, but I don't know at this time which one does DVD print.

you can look for Canon G series , Epson L series and Epson ecotank ( ET )series.

Because I need the DVD print option I purchased the 640. So now I have the two almost identical Epsons, the XP-610 and the XP-640.

After doing all the setup alignments for the 640, I decided to print a picture to examine quality. I made an error and put the photo paper wrong side up. Now I'm getting blobs of ink on printed material. I'm tempted to return the printer. But the inconvenience of doing that I'm hoping to clean rollers or whatever is needed to make the new printer acceptable.

Maybe this question is for a different thread - but how do I clean the print path? Will it void the warranty?

just print several white pages with paper wetted along the tracks you have marked above with window cleaner, you'll see the spots getting smaller and disappear, and then pritn a few more blank normal pages.

It looks like the underside of your print head has pick up the wayward ink that was floating on the back of the photo paper, so all you need to do is to clean it.

There are many ways of do this, so here goes, just turn on the printer and allow the print head to move and when it does pull the power cord from the wall.

Next fold a kitchen paper towel up until it’s about an inch wide x 8, then pour quite a lot of Windex onto it and place it down on the table to fully soak in.

Now move the print head by hand over to the left-hand side of the carriageway, then place the damp towel onto the platen area where you have the black sponge, now move the print head slowly over the paper towel, making sure that you don’t snag any of it.

When you have the print head centred over the paper towel, just move the head back and forth sideways for a minute or so over the towel and that should clean off any of the misplaced ink, if necessary replace the paper towel and repeat, once you satisfied that its clean then remove the paper towel and plug in the printer again, job done...

Thanks to you both. Cleaned and now working properly.