My Pixma is hanging it up, what's a good replacement?
August 2, 2007 4:24 PM Subscribe
I think I need a new printer for my eBay business. Can you recommend a quality replacement for my beleaguered Pixma?
I have an eBay business selling tiny buttons with pictures of wonderful things. My Canon Pixma iP6000D is dying. Usually refusing to print correctly, taking up lots of pages (and ink!!) with constant nozzle cleaning and test patterns.
The quality when it works is great, and the 6 different ink tanks provide great colour. I do tend to use off brand ink though, as it is much much much cheaper than official ink.
So I need a nice model to replace this sad thing. Since I'm selling a product and the buttons are quite small, definition is key, and richness of colour is also important. My immediate thought was to get another Pixma, but the line seems to be all low end and combination printers now, and doesn't use as many coloured ink tanks.
So the questions are: What printers (brand doesn't matter) are available to fulfill my needs? Budget is about $300, I think there must be something nice around that price, but I could be wrong. I'm in Canada if that makes a difference. And about using off brand ink, is it horrible to do so? I have never had a problem quality wise, but could it gunk up the machine?
Thanks so much, I know there are a lot of printer questions, but I didn't see any in the last year or so that applied.
I have an eBay business selling tiny buttons with pictures of wonderful things. My Canon Pixma iP6000D is dying. Usually refusing to print correctly, taking up lots of pages (and ink!!) with constant nozzle cleaning and test patterns.
The quality when it works is great, and the 6 different ink tanks provide great colour. I do tend to use off brand ink though, as it is much much much cheaper than official ink.
So I need a nice model to replace this sad thing. Since I'm selling a product and the buttons are quite small, definition is key, and richness of colour is also important. My immediate thought was to get another Pixma, but the line seems to be all low end and combination printers now, and doesn't use as many coloured ink tanks.
So the questions are: What printers (brand doesn't matter) are available to fulfill my needs? Budget is about $300, I think there must be something nice around that price, but I could be wrong. I'm in Canada if that makes a difference. And about using off brand ink, is it horrible to do so? I have never had a problem quality wise, but could it gunk up the machine?
Thanks so much, I know there are a lot of printer questions, but I didn't see any in the last year or so that applied.
Off-brand ink is a bit of a lottery, especially with the ultra-fine nozzles in your iP6000D, and may well end up costing you more per page simply because you're forced to waste so much of it on nozzle cleaning.
Have you considered simply replacing the print head? This is a simple snap-out-and-replace operation on Canon machines (unlike Epson, where it's a technician job) and doing so might cost you marginally less than buying a new printer.
If you're going to go off-brand with inks, you might consider getting a Continuous Ink System retrofitted. That way, if you luck onto a supply of decent ink, it will last you a good long while before you have to spin the roulette wheel again. Of course, if you buy a big bottle of duff ink, that's bad and expensive.
If I were using an inkjet printer to make stuff for sale, I'd be using the printer manufacturer's ink, and pricing my products accordingly.
posted by flabdablet at 5:36 PM on August 2, 2007
Have you considered simply replacing the print head? This is a simple snap-out-and-replace operation on Canon machines (unlike Epson, where it's a technician job) and doing so might cost you marginally less than buying a new printer.
If you're going to go off-brand with inks, you might consider getting a Continuous Ink System retrofitted. That way, if you luck onto a supply of decent ink, it will last you a good long while before you have to spin the roulette wheel again. Of course, if you buy a big bottle of duff ink, that's bad and expensive.
If I were using an inkjet printer to make stuff for sale, I'd be using the printer manufacturer's ink, and pricing my products accordingly.
posted by flabdablet at 5:36 PM on August 2, 2007
This thread is closed to new comments.
It has 2 ink cartridges - one for normal printing, and one for photos. It can be set to use only the normal cartridge, or both.
WRT cheap ink, I used it in my old Epson, which was a load of sh*t anyway, but I wouldn't use it in the Canon. The logic being that low grade ink wouldn't harm the Epson - it's already rather naff. In the Canon, I get such good quality from the manufacturers ink it's worth paying the extra for.
posted by Solomon at 4:59 PM on August 2, 2007