Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with inkjet

Am I at the mercy of big ink?

dust of the stars — Sat, 16 Mar 2013 01:50:24 -0800

Canon Pixma printer purchased in US, specified ink cartridges not available in Asia where I live, BUT there is a different model number that looks exactly the same. Can I use it? Incredibly prescise question, but I've seen askme work wonders before. I have a Canon Pixma 490 purchased in US. Specified ink is CL-210XL (black) CL-211XL (color). Those are not available here in Hong Kong where I live now. BUT, there is a CL-810XL /CL-811XL that look EXACTLY the same save the model number. Canon customer service, both in US and here, say I can't use those and have to buy a new printer or have ink shipped from US. Can anyone say definitively I can use this ink? (Yes, I bought some by mistake--because it looks exactly the same--and can't return it.)

Recommendations for a desktop printer that plays well with DVDs/CDs

ethel — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 17:33:06 -0800

My work has to produce sometimes one, sometimes two at most DVDs when we do a transfer of an older video recording to digital file. We're looking to purchase a desktop printer for use with DVDs, and I'm hoping the mefi community has recommendations! Right now we have a Epson RX595 and have about $400-500 in the budget to purchase a new printer. Does anyone out there have a good recommendation for a printer that works well with printable DVDs in particular? I'm not seeing a lot of reviews specific to printing on these surfaces ("printable" DVDs)

I did a little research and it looks like dye based inks are bad for printing on surfaces that aren't paper because any droplet of water will smear the ink.. Otherwise we are just looking for others who have had good experiences especially for machines that are used quite a bit! Thanks in advance!

Project an image onto entire wall?

rainy — Sun, 02 Dec 2012 15:47:26 -0800

Is it possible to use a projector to project an image onto a wall that will span the entire wall, that is, do all / any projectors allow to stretch an image to arbitrary angle since the size of the room is limited? I would like to sketch an image onto an entire wall using this method. I don't think there is any way to actually print an image onto a wall using some kind of a setup with an inkjet head moving up and down along the wall... were there any experimental rigs that can do that?

When using the cleaning cycle on an inkjet printer, where does the ink go?

Caviar — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 13:52:26 -0800

When using the cleaning cycle on an inkjet printer, where does the ink go? Specifically, I have a Canon Pro9000. I've run several cleaning cycles and it's used up a fair amount of ink. Where does that ink go, and is there some receptacle that needs to be emptied if I run too many cleaning cycles?

AIO that prints and scans both sides

scruss — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 19:10:33 -0800

Duplex-scanning colour AIO: Epson WorkForce WF-7520, Canon PIXMA MX892, or ... ? Would like to replace a rather cranky HP PhotoSmart with something a bit more spiff. Must have: colour, duplex printing, network, duplex scan. Will not be doing a huge volume of printing. Scanning documents using the ADF for archiving is important (though I could just be trying to get the functionality of a ScanSnap on the cheap).

Anyone Know Where to Find Generic Ink Cartridges?

konig — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 23:21:42 -0800

I have an older Canon inkjet printer (ip8500) that has been very reliable. However, it really gripes my tush every time I have to pay a fortune for replacement cartridges that don’t seem to last much past the time they come out of their wrapper. I know the manufacturer’s game: cheap printers, audacious ink cartridge prices. Well, after buying Canon ink for years, I decided that my printer is old enough that I don’t mind buying a generic ink version until it finally buys the farm. The problem is, I can no longer find vendors online that sell generic ink. I know that a number of companies were run out of business by the printer manufacturers through some legal manuevers, but I had no idea they had chased everyone off. Is my google-fu failing me, or is there indeed no alternative to $8000/gal ink. (older reference, but prices haven’t gone down much, if at all).

I now do much less printing than I used to. I use OSX and save most of the articles that I would print as PDFs and dump them into Yojimbo where I can tag them for quick reference. Besides ink, I also save a ton of paper that way.

So, I have 2 questions for the community:

1. Does anyone know of a reputable online company who sells generic ink for a decent price? (I have limited use of my legs and would prefer not to have to go to a store)

2. In your opinion, what online printing service does an EXCELLENT job with photo prints, (4x6 and up, including picture wraps) for a fair price?

Just trying to cover all the bases, and willing to listen to any advice. Thanks in advance for any assistance!

This Canon MP495 is very sleepy...

thewalrus — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 19:43:21 -0800

Is there any way to stop a Canon MP495 multifunction inkjet printer from going to sleep? It has its own built in 802.11g/n network interface for sharing itself with the LAN, which works fine, until the printer snoozes and falls off the network... The printer in question has a built in network interface. There's a piece of software in which you manually configure the printer (using a USB cable) to tell it the SSID and WPA2/AES PSK for the AP. This works fine. Clients on the same LAN segment as the printer can print to it.

The problem is that after about 15 or 20 minutes of inactivity, the printer goes to sleep, as evidenced by its top panel lights going out. If you wake it up again by pressing the 'reset' button or any other button, it gets a new DHCP lease and shows up on the network.

This power saving/sleep mode doesn't affect operations when it's used as a single computer printer in USB-connected mode, but when the goal is for multiple 802.11n clients to print to the same wireless connected printer, it's a real hassle to walk over to the printer and poke it to wake it up before sending a print job, every time.

Is there a power saving setting somewhere in the Canon utility software that I've missed? Or some other way to do the printer equivalent of using a cron job to 'touch' a file periodically?

Please to hope me select a new printer.

pupstocks — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 06:35:13 -0800

Please help me choose a new printer for my Mac-based home office. My current printer is a Brother DCP 7020 black and white laser printer I got in, I think, 2005, and it finally seems to be about to go. I need good and fast duplex printing, a decent flatbed scanner, and good/fast photocopying. Should I move to inkjet?? Should I get something with wireless networking?? More specifics within! The Brother DCP 7020 has been acting up for a while -- sometimes not printing when I tell it to, needing to be turned off and on a lot, smearing toner all over my pages, etc -- and finally it is low on toner and I think I'd rather just go ahead and get the inevitable new printer rather than buy a new cartridge.

What I like about my Brother:
- good scanning
- no compatibility issues with our Macs
- very fast
- good quality until it started getting smeary in the past couple of years

What I wish I had:
- duplex printing (this is now a must for me and I can't believe I've lived this long without it)
- maybe color -- this is not a dealbreaker for me; we don't need to print beautiful/perfect photographs, but the option of color would be helpful sometimes
- maybe wireless networking (we have 2 Mac laptops and 2 iPhones in this house and it would be nice to be able to print from anywhere, but again it's not a make or break factor)

For price range, I am not really sure, but I mostly want to choose something that will be a good value in the long term. I guess it would be nice to keep it under $150-200, but I'm willing to go up more if needed if it would be a better decision for us. If we should be sticking with laser and we go to color/wireless, it seems like that's going to be a lot more expensive, which I am open to if it's the best option.

I don't really care about the aesthetics of the machine. It can be bulky/unsexy. Function is a lot more important to me.

I don't care about having a fax machine either.

cnet's favorite printers started me thinking about the possibility of going with inkjet, which I haven't had in many many years. The Epson WorkForce 840 looks like a good option, but am I going to get into an annoying and expensive ink- and/or special-paper-buying trap as well as have the quality of my prints suffer?

One final note - I am pretty distrustful of the HP brand. Prior to purchasing this Brother I have now, I had like 3-5 HP printers up and die on me in a row, each one crapping out just after going out of warranty. I guess I'll reconsider, though, if someone convinces me I should!!

Please be specific in your recommendation with brand name/model number if possible!! I'm a little overwhelmed by all the choices out there. Thanks for the help, guys!

I need some bulk-mailing tips

banished — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 13:32:30 -0800

I plan to mail 4,500 postcards to a different group of customers every day. And I want to do the majority of the work myself. Can you help me to master bulk-mailing? Let me explain below the different steps I see in the process (I was really surprised there was no how-to guide for this on the internet!), and perhaps you can give me recommendations as to how to improve the process. I have already decided I want to do this myself for the experience, so comments referring me to a good mailing house will not be helpful.

Step 1: Obtain a permit to use a postal-imprint so I can avoid having to manually put postage on each post card. Should cost around $175, then another $175 in annual fees for mailing.

Step 2: I plan to have thousands of postcards preprinted (including the postal imprint) from PsPrint. I will use their 14pt. C1S Gloss cover stock for the postcards because the front is glossy and the back is matte and printable. (If you have any suggestions for other / better or cheaper printing houses, please let me know). I will store the extra cards and use them as needed.

Step 3: I need to obtain software to CASS-process my addresses, print the addresses on the postcards, print the postal barcode, and also print out the postcards in presorted order to save on postage. I am currently looking at DAZzle Express made by Endicia. It costs about $300, but I can't find any reviews of it online, and there isn't much info about it on their web site. If you have any other recommendations for other software that is cheaper or better, please let me know. Remember it needs to cass-certify the addresses (I have them as an excel file), print the addresses and postal barcode, and print them out in presorted order.

Step 4: I need a printer to print addresses on the postcards, which is able to feed a large amount of 4x6 cards without any problems. I would prefer a consumer level laser printer (although I heard laser might have trouble with the gloss on the postcards due to the heat used in the printer it might gunk up the printer) or inkjet printer if possible because of the cost savings. My impression is none are really designed to feed that kind of quantity of postcards, and even if they do, they might curl the post cards or have other drawbacks.

For that reason I have been looking at the Secap SA3000 Address Printer, which is around $4,000-$5,000. I think that is kind of crazy expensive for a silly specialized inkjet printer, but it is what it is. I have a Canon Pixma 3500 sitting new in the box that I might try to use, but I don't know if it will reliably feed and reliably handle that kind of volume. I also have a Samsung ML-2010, but I think that will only feed cards one at a time which is kind of worthless at this volume.

So the main things I am looking for are suggestions for which printing house to use, which software to use, and for the printer I need to make this all work.

Much as I like stripes...

le morte de bea arthur — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 12:23:03 -0800

Is my Canon inkjet's print head broken? I have a Canon Pixma MP510 printer. When I print in colour, I get wide bands across the image. When I run an alignment test, the darker cyan band is split vertically into light and dark stripes (image here). I've tried a new cyan cartridge. I've tried cleaning the print head (via the Windows tool, and by taking out the head unit and flushing it with hot water, then IPA). No improvement so far.

So what's up with it? Has the head worn out? Is there anything I can do that stands a good chance of fixing it?

Need a Huge Image

parallax7d — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 11:52:24 -0800

Would you recommend a large high quality photo with which to put a large format printer through it's paces? Anything at all, as long as it can bring the megapixels. This thing can do 2880x1440 dpi and is 44" wide.

Very CHEAP Mac printer with CHEAP ink?

exceptinsects — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 09:56:40 -0800

What is the cheapest color printer that will work with a Mac and, most important, has cheap ink? I don't do much printing at home, so by the time I run out of ink it actually seems more reasonable to just buy a new printer instead of paying $40 for new cartridges!
Is there a cheaper solution here? It doesn't have to be fancy; I mostly just use it for printing out directions or coupons.

Who prints on the weekends?

Jon_Evil — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 18:35:39 -0800

New York print shop filter: Where can i get 30 double-sided pages of high-quality inkjet printed on letter-size matte presentation paper by monday? A friend suddenly has an interview at a design firm and needs a printed portfolio. A lot of the quality shops are closed on weekends, or have 5-6 day turnaround times. If you have a professional-level inkjet printer, live in NYC and can do this over the weekend, MeMail me and name your price.

State of the Union with color printers

crapmatic — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 11:57:46 -0800

Have <$1000 color printers (including inkjet and laser) gotten any better since 2003 in terms of output quality? I'm wanting to print about 50-100 color brochures per month. All I have is a 2003-era HP Deskjet 6800, which still works perfectly. Is it better to stay with this printer and print my brochures onto gloss paper? Or has inkjet & laser technology gotten a lot better since then? I would consider a new printer purchase if current-generation quality is better or the cost of quality (i.e. nonclogging, nonfussy viz. no continuous flow) consumables is a lot lower.

I mention gloss paper since printing inkjet color spreads onto copier paper tends to produce minor wrinkling due to ink absorption, and I get that faded, dingy look unless I'm using gloss paper. I saw some color laser units around 2001-2002, and they delivered a nice "dry" look on standard copier/bond paper but color saturation was terrible. Is that still how it is?

Finally, if I opt to go with a print shop like an average Kinkos, what print technology do they currently use for color output and is it any better in terms of color saturation and quality?

My inkjet printer won't print blue

ask me please — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 04:15:15 -0800

I have a Canon Pixma MP150 inkjet printer which is several years old. It has always worked fine, with no real problems. I've just replaced the colour ink cartridge, but the blue ink now won't print. I've tried the 'cleaning' and 'deep cleaning' functions; no dice. The blue ink is working ok in the old cartridge, it's just that it's nearly empty. I've also tried a second new colour cartridge (probably from the same batch though) which has the same problem. However, when I wipe the cartridge with a soft cloth I can see that there's blue ink in there.

What could be the problem? Is it fixable? Pardon my utter ignorance, I just don't know how these printers really work and whether there could be a blockage in the printer itself, or whether I could have got two faulty cartridges, or what.

To repeat, for clarity: the blue ink still prints when I put the old cartridge back in, it's just that it's very faint as it's nearly run out. The new cartridges don't print blue at all.

Recommend an inkjet printer

feelinggood — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 06:21:38 -0800

I need a new inkjet printer for a PC. Any recommendations? The three regular (not all-in-one) printers top-rated by Consumer Reports -- HP Photosmart D7560, HP Officejet Pro 8000 Wireless, and Canon Pixma iP4700 -- are all difficult or impossible to find in Toronto. If you can help me find one of these in Toronto, please do.

Otherwise, any recommendations for printers? Preferably printers that are economical on ink (the HP Officejet prints an 8x10 color photo for $1.05). Thanks.

Looking for a printer without the problems of finicky ink.

blueberry — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 21:36:09 -0800

[MomFilter] Looking for a reasonably cheap, reliable printer (for printing text) for an iMac. Leaning towards laser as the experiences with inkjets have been that bouts of little use lead to still full, yet dry and thus worthless ink cartridges. Looking for a printer for my Mom's iMac. She is wanting to print up a bunch of stories she has written, so the printer will only be used for text.
(No need for color, an attached scanner, or anything else)

She's had two cheap inkjets in the past where they were cheap to buy, but then you got gouged on the ink cartridges. These printers would up being a bit like "disposables" or white elephants—either getting gummed up after a while, or she'd not print anything for a month or two by which time the ink would have dried up or otherwise stopped working.

Fellow MeFites, do you own or know of any reasonably cheap (both pre- and post-sale), reliable b/w laser printers that you can recommend out there? Also, am I correct in guessing that laser toner has a longer "shelf life"?

Or, if lasers are too spendy, do you own or can you otherwise recommend an über-reliable inkjet that, say, you can just buy black ink for, and you've never had gum up or dry up on you?

Thanks all!

Recommend a printer

BeaverTerror — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 11:20:21 -0800

Please recommend a colour printer that prints 11x17" sheets. My HP 9800 was stolen this week, so I'm in the market for another wide format printer. Please help me pick one and give reasons for why you recommend it. I'd like it to be below $500 Canadian. Thank you!

A blank, my lord.

paduasoy — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 12:22:12 -0800

My inkjet printer behaves as if it is printing, but produces nothing - I'd be grateful for advice. Canon SmartBase 360. It feeds paper through and the printhead moves as usual, but nothing prints - neither colour or black and white, text or graphics. The printer was ok until a few days ago.

I have tried - turning the printer on and off; turning the pc on and off; deleting and re-installing the printer; upgrading the driver; replacing the cartridges; cleaning the sections I can get to.

Is there anything else I can try? I was planning to get a new printer fairly soon anyway, but would like to resuscitate this one to get through a stack of cartridges. And if anyone can recommend a good laser printer that would also be useful. Thank you.

Tired of being dictated to by printers

arniec — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 10:41:29 -0800

Inkjet Printer filter: My wife and I both have HP All in One Inkjet devices, me the 3310, her the 7280. Ink is a PITA. I'm looking to upgrade anyway, what should I get? My 3310 scanner glass is dirty and almost impossible to clean, plus I need a document feeder. So I was going to get a 7280 like my wife's BUT...I believe honestly that HP is bending me over on ink. Sure, all inkjet ink is overpriced, but it seems that these are ALWAYS short on ink of one color or another. Worse, unlike old ink carts which you could run dry, these actually stop you from printing ANYTHING if the printer determines one is too low of ink. I can't even choose to print in black-only mode of one of the two shades of purple is out.

I love the HP for their photo-printing capabilities, the prints really do look like photo prints, but I think I'm being taken on this whole ink thing.

Is there any better product that can scan to OCR with document feeder, mac compatible, and NOT an ink terrorist?

Anyone still remember anything about the Epson Stylus 3000?

baylink — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 14:24:54 -0800

Print Filter(heh): I just bought a spandy-old Epson Stylus 3000 Big-A$$-Inkjet, and I have a couple questions about it that fairly persistent Googling failed to answer. It came with the network interface, but no booklet, and I don't know how to set it. I'm also going to want to set it up for Bulk/Continuous Ink, but Lyson appears to have stopped making a setup for that model. And finally, Epson used to have a bundled version of (I think) Birmy's Postscript 2 RIP called "StylusRIP", but I can't find any evidence that they still do, and I'm not clear whether they sold the software, or bundled it. Any graphically inclined typed got any pointers for me?

Help me choose a colour printer PII

MarvinJ — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 02:25:27 -0800

Help me choose another printer. I got the HP 2605 from this askme and am now looking for your help again. Very happy with the printer we got and the business is doing OK too, but one of the limitations is the way the card is fed means that you can only go to a certain weight and printing on both sides by repeat feeding is out too.

What recommendations do you have for a printer out there, laser or ink jet, that is as good as the HP2605 but will allow heavy paper , light card to be fed through?

Where can I find

sevenless — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 16:24:53 -0800

I'm looking for inkjet printer paper (or an online printer) that will produce highly saturated color prints but isn't too shiny. I've been getting prints of some of my photos by Mpix on Kodak Metallic paper. I use for the very highly saturated color it gives me. Now, I'd like to get similar color saturation on paper that isn't so shiny. I'd also like to try my own inkjet paper, but I'm open to another online printer (or a local place in Seattle.)

Bonus points for paper makers that also have profiles for Epson 3800 or 4800 printers.

Inkjet or laser printer for reliability with really minimal use?

puffmoike — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 06:47:20 -0800

Will an inkjet or laser printer be more reliable if the printer will be turned off for 99.9% of its life? My mum wants an all-in-one printer (including fax), but I can't imagine she'll use it very often. In fact I suspect that it won't get turned on more than once or twice a month, and then typically she'll only print out half-a-dozen pages.

Cost—both upfront and per print—isn't as much an issue for her as user-friendliness and reliability (especially as she'll likely only print a couple of hundred prints per year). But as she isn't going to need networking ability, etc, it's likely we'll plump for a pretty basic version of whichever technology we end up settling on.

I've searched the Hive, and read half-a-dozen threads on the relative merits of inkjet v laser, but not surprisingly such minimal usage isn't typically a consideration in the discussions of the competing technologies.

(And mono will be fine—it will be used to print documents, not photos)

Need printer selection advice, please

mdrk — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 05:08:01 -0800

I need advice on an affordable inject printer that can print on paper sizes longer than 11 or 14". I am a teacher, and each week, all of us 8th grade teachers spend hours printing selected vocabulary words on sentence strips (pieces of paper that are 4" tall and 24" wide). We do not have a printer in the building that will print on paper longer than 11". If I could find one, then I could type these up just once in Word (or even Photodraw) and print out a set for each teacher.

Right now, the only way that I have been able to do this is to cut the strips in half and create a .jpg image in Photodraw. This just isn't practical because of the time that it takes to create each image, the loss of printable area due to margins, and the sheer number of little paper strips that are being created.

Any suggestions about how to accomplish this would be greatly appreciated.