Greetings,
I just stumbled on this forum today. I've been researching CIS for literally months now, but there just doesn't seem to be much current, unbiased info out there in the wild. Very frustrating.
I've read a ton, but a lot of it isn't terribly helpful because my situation is perhaps a bit uniqie. Maybe I'm mistaken, but in my reading, it seems that 99% of CISS users are divided into two camps:
1) Very high end professional users. Folks with photo studios who are using multi-thousand dollar printers, care about and understand color calibration, and have a great background in the professional print world.
2) Home users who want to save money on day to day printing, who are resigned that they will get lesser quality out of aftermarket ink, but they don't care, because they'll just send out to a lab for photos.
I fit into neither of these camps. I and my partner run a very small desktop publishing company. We primarily specialize in custom greeting cards and invitations. 99% of what we print is done in our home office on a Canon MX850. Thus far, we have only used genuine Canon carts.
Shortly, we will be expanding and opening up a store front. So we need to purchase at least one more printer. We'd also like to go CIS on both the MX850, and whatever other printer we use as well.
We just purchased an Epson NX415, and a Canon MX700. Neither have even been opened yet, but the sales on them were decent enough to need to pounce. I am very skeptical about both these printers. The Epson I know little about, but it seems that perhaps it's too new to have caught the attention of the CIS world yet?
The MX700, is simply a baffeling machine to me.
I understand the way the MX850 (and several other Canon models) works:
8C, 8M, 8Y, 8K are all pigment based, and are used for photos and graphics.
5K is dye based, and is used just for monochrome text document printing.
I understand that Dye and Pigment based inks don't play well together, but the way they're set up in the MX850, it doesn't matter, because they're not mixed, just used in parallel. (please feel free to correct me if this is wrong).
But the MX700 has the same system, but without the 8K cart. So it *has* to use the 5K, or mix the CMY to get (a poor quality) black. Either way quality suffers.
So my first question is is this:
With the MX700, since I'm going CIS, and choosing my own ink anyway, why not just ignore this flaw in the printer and use all pigment (or all dye) inks for the 5K, 8C, 8M, and 8Y CIS tanks? Will the printer mix them no problem, or will the printer ignore the black unless I'm printing text? Also, is there any risk in using a pigment in a print head intended for dye, or vice versa?
Next, I'm not married to any of these printers, but I do need something quickly.
My requirements are:
1) We print on heavy stock, so it must have a "straight through" paper feed. Most Canon and Epson printers meet this requirement. Most HP don't, since they bend the paper 180 degrees in a short space, so the paper comes out curled.
2) Must be able to be CIS compatible. Since we buy in bulk, the 5x7 card-stock we use for our prints costs us about $0.02 ea. But ink for a borderless print currently costs between $0.16 and $0.23 ea. (best estimates). That's by far our biggest consumable expense. So reducing ink costs is our primary motivation to moving to CIS. Also, it won't hurt to be able to do a 300 print run without changing out cartridges mid-run.
3) While our prints don't need to last 100 years, but they need to look great, and they need to last a reasonable amount of time. Most folks aren't framing greeting cards. But they shouldn't look like ass a few months either.
4) And AIO printer is preferable, but not a deal breaker. Space is at a big premium in our new storefront. And we need the ability to scan customer provided photos. Fax is not even a factor for us.
So I guess what I'm asking i given those constraints, what kind of Printer / CIS / Ink would you recommend? Both for the existing MX850, and for the second printer. I'm open to using either of the printers we just purchased, or returning them for something else new, or even searching Craigslist or eBay for a printer that's no longer being produced. We really just need a trouble free / low cost per print / high quality printing system. If we have to spend a bit more at first, so be it.
Thanks in advance. We'd really love to hear the insight of those who have some experience with these systems.
I just stumbled on this forum today. I've been researching CIS for literally months now, but there just doesn't seem to be much current, unbiased info out there in the wild. Very frustrating.
I've read a ton, but a lot of it isn't terribly helpful because my situation is perhaps a bit uniqie. Maybe I'm mistaken, but in my reading, it seems that 99% of CISS users are divided into two camps:
1) Very high end professional users. Folks with photo studios who are using multi-thousand dollar printers, care about and understand color calibration, and have a great background in the professional print world.
2) Home users who want to save money on day to day printing, who are resigned that they will get lesser quality out of aftermarket ink, but they don't care, because they'll just send out to a lab for photos.
I fit into neither of these camps. I and my partner run a very small desktop publishing company. We primarily specialize in custom greeting cards and invitations. 99% of what we print is done in our home office on a Canon MX850. Thus far, we have only used genuine Canon carts.
Shortly, we will be expanding and opening up a store front. So we need to purchase at least one more printer. We'd also like to go CIS on both the MX850, and whatever other printer we use as well.
We just purchased an Epson NX415, and a Canon MX700. Neither have even been opened yet, but the sales on them were decent enough to need to pounce. I am very skeptical about both these printers. The Epson I know little about, but it seems that perhaps it's too new to have caught the attention of the CIS world yet?
The MX700, is simply a baffeling machine to me.
I understand the way the MX850 (and several other Canon models) works:
8C, 8M, 8Y, 8K are all pigment based, and are used for photos and graphics.
5K is dye based, and is used just for monochrome text document printing.
I understand that Dye and Pigment based inks don't play well together, but the way they're set up in the MX850, it doesn't matter, because they're not mixed, just used in parallel. (please feel free to correct me if this is wrong).
But the MX700 has the same system, but without the 8K cart. So it *has* to use the 5K, or mix the CMY to get (a poor quality) black. Either way quality suffers.
So my first question is is this:
With the MX700, since I'm going CIS, and choosing my own ink anyway, why not just ignore this flaw in the printer and use all pigment (or all dye) inks for the 5K, 8C, 8M, and 8Y CIS tanks? Will the printer mix them no problem, or will the printer ignore the black unless I'm printing text? Also, is there any risk in using a pigment in a print head intended for dye, or vice versa?
Next, I'm not married to any of these printers, but I do need something quickly.
My requirements are:
1) We print on heavy stock, so it must have a "straight through" paper feed. Most Canon and Epson printers meet this requirement. Most HP don't, since they bend the paper 180 degrees in a short space, so the paper comes out curled.
2) Must be able to be CIS compatible. Since we buy in bulk, the 5x7 card-stock we use for our prints costs us about $0.02 ea. But ink for a borderless print currently costs between $0.16 and $0.23 ea. (best estimates). That's by far our biggest consumable expense. So reducing ink costs is our primary motivation to moving to CIS. Also, it won't hurt to be able to do a 300 print run without changing out cartridges mid-run.
3) While our prints don't need to last 100 years, but they need to look great, and they need to last a reasonable amount of time. Most folks aren't framing greeting cards. But they shouldn't look like ass a few months either.
4) And AIO printer is preferable, but not a deal breaker. Space is at a big premium in our new storefront. And we need the ability to scan customer provided photos. Fax is not even a factor for us.
So I guess what I'm asking i given those constraints, what kind of Printer / CIS / Ink would you recommend? Both for the existing MX850, and for the second printer. I'm open to using either of the printers we just purchased, or returning them for something else new, or even searching Craigslist or eBay for a printer that's no longer being produced. We really just need a trouble free / low cost per print / high quality printing system. If we have to spend a bit more at first, so be it.
Thanks in advance. We'd really love to hear the insight of those who have some experience with these systems.
