Greeting Card Stock 85lb - 110 bl won't feed thru my new Epson

[azmanatheart]

Hi Everybody,
I have read previous posts and see similar question have been asked, but I am still uncertain, so I would really appreciate somebody's help.
We do custom invitations and announcements and have always had decent results with the Epson Stylus C series, starting with the C80 and ending with the C88. It handled all weights that we hand fed, but when it died and I bought a NX400 to replace it, I found that it would not even feed a 55lb card stock. An important feature of any printer we use is that it feeds from the back or top, so it does not have to make such a hard turn as one that is loaded in the front and has to turn 180 degrees to come back out the front.
There does not seem to be a standard specification as to the weight of paper a printer can handle;sometimes it will list compatable branded paper such as 'presentation quality matte' and it will have a metric square grams/centimeter which is basically un-decipherible!
We don't need the best and we certainly don't want the worst. The Epsons had print head clogging problems which we finally figured out happened less often if the printer was turned off whenever not being used. Supposedly the constant charging of the ink made it thicken and clog the heads more frequently. Based on Neils site, I'm about to be a Canon convert, although I will say that the fast drying of the Epson, especailly on glossy paper or business cards is very convenient. I tried to print glossy business cards on an HP inkjet multi function machine and it never dried.

Can someone please tell me how to determine what weight paper an inkjet printer can handle? Also, if there are any pro or semi-pro printers out there, I would really appreciate a printer recomendation that won't break the budget of our little home business.

Thank you so much in advance.

 

[fotofreek]

I'm using a Canon i960 six color printer (circa 2002) and printing greeting cards on double sided Staples photo supreme paper. This is an excellent card stock for greeting cards and can be printed on both sides.

For color photos I've found that regular card stock doesn't print photos well, and they print extremely well on special coated inkjet stock. I have to hand feed each page to assure that the feed wheels pick up every page, but the printer handles this stock quite well. The weight of the stock as listed on the package doesn't always tell the whole story. Different card stocks have different stiffness characteristics.

If you have a store in your area that has demo printers you can take samples of the stock you want to use and see if they work in the printers they sell. I did that with my last laser printer purchase and was glad I did as the less expensive printers munched envelopes and wouldn't handle any stock heavier than 24# paper!