Epson wins! Canon loses :(

[chirantha7777]

When it comes to refilling I think Epson is the best because

1. Pigment Ink is really cheap... just $10 per 1 liter.
2. People have made resettable cartridges
3. People have made softwares to reset waste ink pad
4. The Print Head does not burn up and die because you run out of ink
5. There is no sponge inside the cartridges.... no need of flushing...
6. Many places to repair the printer...

I'm gonna by a Epson T10 soon and throw away the IP3600... but the only thing I'm worried about is the waste ink pad of the T10... I can reset the counter... but what happens when it overflows? Will it destroy the printer or has Epson made a hole for the ink to leak out? OR should I make one? and if so where do I make it?

With refilled Epson... my max (A full painted like) cost for a A4 is 0.002$ .... + power usage... thats less than the price you get from a printing press!

 

[johnwarfin]

When it comes to refilling I think Epson is the best because

1. Pigment Ink is really cheap... just $10 per 1 liter.
2. People have made resettable cartridges
3. People have made softwares to reset waste ink pad
4. The Print Head does not burn up and die because you run out of ink
5. There is no sponge inside the cartridges.... no need of flushing...
6. Many places to repair the printer...

I'm gonna by a Epson T10 soon and throw away the IP3600... but the only thing I'm worried about is the waste ink pad of the T10... I can reset the counter... but what happens when it overflows? Will it destroy the printer or has Epson made a hole for the ink to leak out? OR should I make one? and if so where do I make it?

With refilled Epson... my max (A full painted like) cost for a A4 is 0.002$ .... + power usage... thats less than the price you get from a printing press!

I came to exactly the same conclusion.

What puzzles me is this seems to be a "Cannon forum" which is strange because 3 out of 4 locals have Epson.

 

[qwertydude]

I don't know what planet you live on, but in general quality pigment inks cost nearly double that of quality dye inks. Over here stateside $10 of even "cheap" ink like Stratitec will only buy you about 6 ounces which in metric speak is only 170 ml, pigment black will cost you about roughly double color even more so. On top of that a decent Epson photo printer uses 6 inks, it is also well known that pigment inks have reduced gamut compared to dye inks as well. Since we're refillers here we have come to terms that refilled ink may or may not have the "100 year" claimed lifetime of oem inks so we aren't as concerned about the longevity of pigment vs dye vs oem vs third party or any combination of those and oem and third party paper. We're more concerned about two things print quality and print cost also ease of refilling both of which Canon beats Epson. With the german method just about beating all other refill methods hands down, Epson doesn't seem so appealing even if you can get resettable carts I don't mind popping open the printer every now and then to manually check the carts as I do that anyway cause sometimes I just like watching the printhead move back and forth lol.

Just wanted to play devil's advocate here.

 

[pharmacist]

When it comes to refilling I think Epson is the best because

1. Pigment Ink is really cheap... just $10 per 1 liter.
2. People have made resettable cartridges
3. People have made softwares to reset waste ink pad
4. The Print Head does not burn up and die because you run out of ink
5. There is no sponge inside the cartridges.... no need of flushing...
6. Many places to repair the printer...

I'm gonna by a Epson T10 soon and throw away the IP3600... but the only thing I'm worried about is the waste ink pad of the T10... I can reset the counter... but what happens when it overflows? Will it destroy the printer or has Epson made a hole for the ink to leak out? OR should I make one? and if so where do I make it?

With refilled Epson... my max (A full painted like) cost for a A4 is 0.002$ .... + power usage... thats less than the price you get from a printing press!

1.Not true: pigment ink is way more expensive compared to cheap dye ink
2.Canon has autoresettable cartridges too and you can use resetters (both for CLI-8/PGI-5 and soon for the CLI-521/PGI-520).
3. the wast ink pad of most Canon printers can be reset with some "secret" button key pressing sequences and for the latest printers there is software utility too.
4.This is true: but unclogging clogged piezo heads is much more cumbersome
5.that's true: but the most annoying problem will be air trapped inside the cartridge
6.Can you confirm this ? With some help from nifty-stuff.com most problems can be resolved, before you will need to send this to Canon.

 

[leo8088]

My ip4300 ran out of ink sometimes. As long as it was spotted immediately and the empty cartridge got refilled immediately there was never a problem whatsoever. I do not have a resetter but I never worry about the printer running out of ink. I have had the printer for more than 2 years. Always refilled with Hobbicolors ink. I tried to remind myself to check the ink level more often but I forgot to do it from time to time. I almost never execute cleaning cycles. The waste ink tank has never warned. I used to do nozzle checks but not any more. I have printed documents on more than 2 boxes full of letter sized paper through this printer. That's more than 10,000 sheets of document printed. My color cartridges (OEM) gets refilled once a month but the large black gets it once a week.

Believe it or not my ip4300 was purchased when there was a $30 rebate given by Canon. The cost was $39. The only problem I ever had with this printer is in the power button. It has nearly worn out I think. I had to press it much harder to turn on/off the power. This printer is being used like a color laser. It just does its job faithfully everyday. I don't think there is any Epson printer that can beat this one. I do have a couple of Epsons that are accumulating dust right now. Epsons are far more difficult to refill. They are dogs in terms of printing speed.

Just wait until you get your Epson and see if you will still believe Epson wins.

 

[lolopr1]

I think that both brands have their strong and week sides. When you talk about entry level dye ink printers you just can' t beat canon and those that are been able to work with both brands and have had the opportunity to used the more expensive epson and canon printers (pro models) know that epson comes out wining in this area (specially speed & media handling). I personally think that all comes down to taste and for what you use your printer (also on how much you want to spend). I think is unreal and misleading to say that a pigment based printers are cheaper to run and maintain, just look at the initial cost of the printer, that will give you a clue.

 

[chirantha7777]

In Sri Lanka a 1000ml dye ink bottle costs Rs. 4000 (Rs. 115 = 1$). And a 1000ml pigment ink bottle only costs Rs. 1200...

Many shops here don't even have good dye ink.... most refill shops mix water to the ink as well.... once I asked a shop why they don't import dye ink and their response was "dye inks are cheap inks"......

 

[IanYY]

... "dye inks are cheap inks" ...

I wonder why your refill shop says dye inks are cheap when they charge 3 to 4 times as much as pigment ink, based on your figures.

There seems to be an opportunity here for a Sri Lankan entrepreneur to export cheap pigment ink to the UK - your price would only be a fifth of normal UK prices even after adding international carriage charges.

Ian

 

[qwertydude]

But the hard part would be to ensure quality. Somehow I can't believe that a decent pigment ink can be made that cheaply, and if so if it can match the correct physical properties needed to print well and not clog, even good pigment inks are notorious for clogging. Maybe if we can at least see the bottles of ink we can take a look and see if it is indeed at least pigment ink and not Chinese "UV" ie dye ink.

 

[The Hat]

chirantha7777
I have had Epson printers in the past but they were dog slow when switched to quality mode, one of the reasons I changed to canon was for speed and quality. I use bulk dye ink and I have had terrible problems and results from cheep ink in the past i.e. clogging heads, cleaning cycles etc..
Now I only use the best ink I can get a hold off and yes not cheap but quality you just print and go no cleaning or clogging to worry about. When you turn on a canon printer it works no messing, the one thing about Epson printers is how long it takes to print a single sheet after wasting half your ink on a cleaning cycle. I now have separate dye and pigment canon printers so I know that dye ink is quicker and cheaper that pigment. As Ian YY says, if you can get that ink to the UK youd be on to a winner.. The only thing I miss about my old epson is it could do banner printing ..