Buying a new printer, please help with suggestions.

[jayjay22]

Hello, I am currently in the market to buy a new printer and CISS system for it. Just for background, I have owned a Canon IP4000 which I refilled, had moderate luck with that. When that dies several years ago, I got an Epson stylus photo r380 with a CISS which I think I ordered from newegg. It worked well for a couple years though I allowed the printer to sit for a couple weeks at a time often without printing anything. For this reason I ran into head clogs many times and spent countless hours trying to clear them. The r380 and CISS are currently sitting in my closet because it is unable to be cleared this time. To tell the truth I have not tried that hard because it is time for a new printer anyway. I am definitely wanting something that I can hook up a good CISS to and also the ability to print directly to DVDs is needed. I was looking at the HP Photo-smart Premium C309a along with a CIS from Inkproducts.com after reading the review by kgvickers here. It looks like a quality printer, and seemed to work well for kgvickers, and it prints to discs. I am wondering if anyone can recommend a better one? possibly newer and more updated? I hear that the canons do not work very well with CISS, and due to the bad experience I had with my epson R380 (I know it was mostly my fault for leaving it sit, but it still makes me not trust epson), I would like to stay away from epsons. HP seems like a good choice to me, am I wrong? The last question I have is how the print quality will compare between the R380 and the HP c309a printer? will photo prints come out as well? Thanks so very much for taking the time to answer me, I would like to purchase this within a week, so please advise your recommendations.

 

[mikling]

Based on your requirements, you may end up spinning your wheels on ice. The R380 is not a a bad printer at all and in fact can be seen as a very desirable model. You should have had zero problems with your R380 with proper quality equipment, supplies and a good install. Any one or more of those three can make for a bad experience if it is not good.

There are significant benefits to the R380 over most of what can be obtained today.

The grass is not always greener when it is newer. Keep that in mind. Just make sure you keep your grass in good shape and feed it properly.

Do a search and read up on how to unclog and maintain the printer.

 

[jayjay22]

Mikling, I do appreciate your expert opinion and thank you for taking the time to reply. May I ask what it is about the r380 that is so much better than something like a c309a? My main requirement is a CISS and ability to print to CD/DVD disks directly. The 309a can do both, and kgvickers seemed to have a wonderful experience with it. I am just wondering what is so great about my 380 that I should keep fussing with it and hope I can get it to work? In the time I had it with the CISS hooked up, sometimes it worked well, but if allowed to sit for more than a few days sometimes I had to do endless cleanings to try and get a satisfactory nozzle check. I really don't want to go back to that. Also, I have a feeling that at this point the actual printhead may be damaged by the constant cleanings I have run on it. I must have run hundreds of cleanings in the few years I had it, many times 3 or 4 in a row (which I understand is a no-no) I want to be able to spend more time printing than I do cleaning nozzles, and it sounds like with something like the c309a I may actually be able to do that. Please correct me if I am wrong. Thanks again for your time

 

[mikling]

The R260 and R380 are literal twins except one has a display and the other does without. Add to that the aspect of the reset algorithm that is unintrusive and has little ink wastage. It also does DVDs. I don't know why you are experiencing problems but I can leave the 260/380 for weeks without having to perform a head clean before proceeding again. That is a clue to your problems.

Like I said, I don't know if it is the ink you are using, the CISS or the install itself BUT the 380 is a fine printer and even better than an Artisan 50, R280 etc. as long as it is set up properly. Head cleanings do not break the heads it only fills up the waste pads and on this printer is likely to take 6 times longer to fill the pads as opposed to an Artisan 50. That is like having a waste ink pad six times bigger than normal!

It's like throwing out a good car because the spark plugs you bought afterwards were not correct or installed improperly or maybe bad gas.

 

[jayjay22]

OK, thanks again for taking your time to help. I will take the printer out, set it up and start researching about how to clear the heads. at this point it has been in my closet for a good 6 months, so the heads are probably pretty badly clogged. If I have good luck getting things unclogged and going again perhaps I will get imagespecialists ink since I hear that it is one of the best. I honestly do not remember where the ink i was using in the cis came from, it has been so long since I purchased it. perhaps it is just an issue of crappy ink? Hopefully. Anyway, thanks.. i'll see what luck I have with getting this old beast running lol