Did I Make a Mistake Purchasing an HP K8600 for CD/DVD Label Printing?

[ACaD]

I have an Epson R300 which is occasionally used for printing directly onto CDs/DVDs. In recent weeks I have had to print on several hundred DVDs and the R300 was too slow. It took about 2.5 minutes to print a full-colour picture on the disc. It would also sometimes not align properly, causing delays.

I decided the best way was to print on labels using a fast inkjet printer and then just stick them on. I settled on the HP K8600. I also ordered a CISS from RIHAC last week but it has yet to arrive.

Printing is much faster than the R300. It can print about 3 A4 sheets (2 labels per sheet) in about a minute. I still felt, however, that printing directly on the disc was better so I searched online for faster CD/DVD printers. I found out that the Canon iP4500 printed onto a disc in about 1 minute. I eventually found this forum and a user posted about pooling more that 1 printer to increase print speeds. This was something I had never thought about. I realized that for the price I paid for the K8600 and the CISS, I could have bought 2 iP4600s and CISSs. I could also still use the R300 and get even more throughput.

Did I make a mistake buying the printer and the CISS? Should I sell it and buy 2 Canons and CISSs instead? It's still not as fast as the K8600, but I could in future buy another one (or two). Also, the cost of the labels and time involved in sticking them on the disc has to be considered.

If you guys were in my situation, what would you do?

 

[websnail]

Knowing the K8600 as I do, it can be a really good printer so I wouldn't worry about that too much but as you say, direct printing is considerably better in terms of reducing the hassle factor.

That said I'd question whether the iP4600 is going to be better than the iP4500 because the build quality went down noticeably after the 4500 generation... As for pooling, well that's definitely a plus but have you considered the hassle involved in fitting CIS kits to Canon printers. Rihac do appear to have nailed it to the best of anyones ability but I know from painful experience that Canons are anything but CISs friendly so you do need to factor in the potential for problems with the CISs themselves that might overshadow the label grief.

Before you write it all off though you might want to look into this:
http://www.videohelp.com/forum/arch...et-does-6-dvds-in-30-seconds-wow-t377019.html


No idea how feasible it is but possibly worth a little look...

 

[stratman]

Disk Makers has printers and combo duplicator/printers for CD/DVD printing. They also will do short run printing of disks and covers.

I learned of them on the internet while first researching Taiyo Yuden Watershield CD's. They offered a free blank. All I've ever received from them are catalogs. Even a phone call to inquire on my unreceived free sample resulted in another catalog.

 

[The Hat]

ACaD..

websnail is right the newer the canon printer the more fussy they get. If youre not up to speed with the CISS system I would say, think twice before you buy the newer models. Defiantly not for the faint hearted they could cost you an awful lot of time setting them up..

 

[ACaD]

Sorry for the late reply.

Thanks guys for the replies. After reading the responses I've decided to keep the printer and not buy another.

Looking at the link provided by websnail I found this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQWMNdDi6UY

Would it be easy to modify the printer to print on discs? Does anyone here have the service manual? This is something I would really like to do as it would save a lot of time and money.

I have looked at other companies who offer disc printing services, but all of them are much more expensive than doing it myself, at least for amount of discs I print at a time. If I ever have several thousand to print, I may decide to use them.

I have since received the CISS from RIHAC and have been using it for the last few weeks. It's been working without problems except for the black ink. I'll post the problem in the appropriate forum.

Thanks again!