oldabelincoln
Getting Fingers Dirty
- Joined
- Feb 13, 2013
- Messages
- 6
- Reaction score
- 8
- Points
- 20
- Location
- Silicon Valley
- Printer Model
- Canon iX6520 and MX892,
My wife and I have long been Canon users. We currently have a wide carriage iX6520 for her art work, and an MX892 for my general business use. These are our first printers with chips on the cartridges. As for us, we are retired computer professionals.
We previously had an ip5000 for her art work and an MP780 for my general use, and reluctantly dumped them when the scanner on the MP780 died and we found that ip5000 print heads had become unobtainable. We were lucky enough to grab our current units, apparently the last generation with a rear paper feed.
Before that, we had an ip4000 and an i860, and used a separate Epson scanner.
The iX6520 is unusual in being a wide body with only 5 colors, and it's a very bare bones unit, with no LCD and no duplex facility and is very low cost for a 13"x19" capable printer. Probably not good enough for professional photographers, but here it's just used to provide my wife with large copies of photos she will be painting in oil or watercolor.
Compared to my old MP780, the MX892 is a step backwards in one respect. I frequently scan items to record serial numbers and similar information from disk drives and other small electronics; this information is often on metal or plastic plates that are slightly recessed into the body of the device, and thus the scanner needs to have some depth of field to properly scan these plates, which are often a millimeter or two above the scanning platen. This was never an issue with the MP780 or any previous stand-alone scanner, so I was unprepared for the MX892, similarly positioned to the MP780 in Canon's lineup, but the MX892 has almost no depth of field, and is thus unsuited for this type of work. The reason appears to be the scanning element, which is a Contact Image Sensor (CIS) on the MX892, and was a CCD on the MP780. I wanted a fax-capable unit, hence the MX892, but even my bank now can handle e-mailed mortgage applications, so my need for fax is now almost non-existent. The auto document feed is nice to have, but I rarely use it. All told, I would have been better off choosing a model with a CCD scanning element, and ignore the FAX and ADF features.
We neither need nor use many of the other features of the MX892. We connect with USB cable, use separate USB 3.0 card readers, and share printers via Windows networking. We do not print from mobile devices or memory cards.
We refill using cartridges and ink from Precision Color, which have given us no problem in day to day use, although their resetter has been erratic. We do not calibrate our printer output or the scanner input. We use generic plain paper and Costco glossy paper on the Photo Pro Platinum paper setting with good results.
We previously had an ip5000 for her art work and an MP780 for my general use, and reluctantly dumped them when the scanner on the MP780 died and we found that ip5000 print heads had become unobtainable. We were lucky enough to grab our current units, apparently the last generation with a rear paper feed.
Before that, we had an ip4000 and an i860, and used a separate Epson scanner.
The iX6520 is unusual in being a wide body with only 5 colors, and it's a very bare bones unit, with no LCD and no duplex facility and is very low cost for a 13"x19" capable printer. Probably not good enough for professional photographers, but here it's just used to provide my wife with large copies of photos she will be painting in oil or watercolor.
Compared to my old MP780, the MX892 is a step backwards in one respect. I frequently scan items to record serial numbers and similar information from disk drives and other small electronics; this information is often on metal or plastic plates that are slightly recessed into the body of the device, and thus the scanner needs to have some depth of field to properly scan these plates, which are often a millimeter or two above the scanning platen. This was never an issue with the MP780 or any previous stand-alone scanner, so I was unprepared for the MX892, similarly positioned to the MP780 in Canon's lineup, but the MX892 has almost no depth of field, and is thus unsuited for this type of work. The reason appears to be the scanning element, which is a Contact Image Sensor (CIS) on the MX892, and was a CCD on the MP780. I wanted a fax-capable unit, hence the MX892, but even my bank now can handle e-mailed mortgage applications, so my need for fax is now almost non-existent. The auto document feed is nice to have, but I rarely use it. All told, I would have been better off choosing a model with a CCD scanning element, and ignore the FAX and ADF features.
We neither need nor use many of the other features of the MX892. We connect with USB cable, use separate USB 3.0 card readers, and share printers via Windows networking. We do not print from mobile devices or memory cards.
We refill using cartridges and ink from Precision Color, which have given us no problem in day to day use, although their resetter has been erratic. We do not calibrate our printer output or the scanner input. We use generic plain paper and Costco glossy paper on the Photo Pro Platinum paper setting with good results.
