[ale] Picking a home paper / photo printer

[aaron]

On 2009, Aug, 02, , at 1:50 AM, Jim Kinney wrote:
> It really depends on which Epson model you have as to the nozzle
> clogging problem. The cheap ones for home owners will clog unless you
> print one page about daily. The higher end models have a better
> fitting nozzle cap (some really cheap models don't have one at all -
> think single-tank color and black). Once you get into the $200+ range,
> they are all pretty good.

[scissors of brevity]

Maybe I'm just lucky, but I haven't had any of the head
clogging problems being discussed with the Epson Inkjet
printers I've worked with over the past few years, and
some of them may sit for days or even weeks between uses.

The models I've used most are the Stylus Photo 2XX series,
which I and my clients have purchased because we bought
them for less than $100 and can print on CD & DVD for our
media production work. These employ a 6 cartridge color
system and can produce very nice photographic quality
output (though I agree that a photo printing services are
a more cost effective and higher quality choice for any
volume photo work).

Most all the models I work with use the T048X cartridge
set, but the most recent purchase was a model 280 that
switched up to the slightly more expensive "Clarion" inks
(small argh that have to stock 2 kinds of cartridges now).
We don't attempt refilling the cartridges or using 3rd
party brands; we just bite the (~$70 per cartidge set)
bullet and use the recommended Epson brand cartridges.
I have even used a couple sets of cartridges that had
passed their "use by" date without apparent problems.
We mostly print black text only on our CD's and DVD's
and I guestimate we get about 200 from a (~$15) cartridge
of black ink in addition to 50 or so gray scale full
pages.

While it should make absolutely no difference in regards
to head clogging issues, I will add that all of these
printers have been connected to Mac OSeX systems and
are run using the factory supplied drivers. Mac OSeX
is still CUPS and the printers run their head cleaning
functions at power on, so I don't see where running
from Linux would make any significant difference.

Last note is that we have had head clog problems with
the HP (5120?) inkjet that one client purchased without
consulting me.  It prints on CD/DVD as well, but the
HP inks tend to blotter and bleed more so the quality
is not nearly as good as with the Epsons.

HT02H!

peace
aaron