No home should be without one!

[ed731pdh]

One of the worst rip off printers for cartridge prices is Lexmark. You get a cheapo printer, then pay through the nose from then on.

[g0pkh - pete]

At the moment, I think Kodak are one of the cheapest for ink cartridges.

I still use an elderly Canon Pixma 4000 machine. One of the last that don't use "chipped" cartridges. I have only ever bought two sets. Just keep refilling them.

Pete

[Yorkie]

I had an HP Photosmart which was excellent but gave up the ghost towards the end of last year, by which time the cartridges were getting dearer and dearer. It produced excellent transparencies for PCB masks with totally opaque tracks and no pinholes at all, but when printers pack in, it's just not an economical possibilty to get them repaired when all the print clean and other efforts fail.

I replaced it with an Epson SX535WD, which had a lot of good reviews, and which prints ok on paper, but is very disappointing when printing PCB artwork onto ink-jet acetates, even though the artwork itself when viewed on screen down to single pixcels has no defects. It matters no what quality setting I try it on - I've tried them all from high quality text to glossy photos. Epson also claim that the printer produces 'lab quality' prints, but it seems not to live up to this claim - I've printed off pictures at home using Epson paper but when I put them on a memory stick and take them to the local photoshop the prints are far superior, and judging by the ink consumption from the tiny cartridges in this printer, the prints are probably cheaper from the shop anway.

Given that the printer is almost new and still under warranty, I've only used genuine Epson cartridges. When I bought the printer I never thought to check if it produces good quality acetates - I just assumed that it would, but perhaps some printers don't support this facilty. My disappointment was made worse when within a few weeks of my buying it, it was on offer at half the price.

Price wise, printer ink is dearer than the dearest champagne or the finest wines - 5ml ink for £15.00 = £3,000 a Litre! Cheers - down the hatch

As has been said, Kodak come out cheapest in independant tests.

[Radio Fixer]

I dont know your printer David but for me the 6 colour Photo series are fantastic. My old one, 10 maybe more years old produces stunning prints using OEM ink and paper (not so critical). I have tried it on acetates and at the time it was good enough for projection purposes... I dont know for PCB.

As to the price comparison of inks to champers (Yep! luv it) that to me David isnt a reasonable comparison. The development costs on bubbly was worked out centuries ago and the stuff is made in huge tower like vats. I just wonder how much time and money went into the development of the inks used in my Epson cartridges? I bet it was huge and are they better than the cheapo refill ones ... well I gave my opinion in a previous post. Do you need them to be so good? Not for any odd print of the family etc but I have used them on radios (like Philips did with Arbolite or Phillite as some call it) and I like to think that those efforts will be around long after I care about the radio.

It seems the fierce competition and cloning knocks the profit out of the hardware but the ink isnt so easy to do... so it aint as good. For me, for the number of prints I do, the price is OK. I really would hate to see Epson fold and the corporates can afford to keep them afloat with the ink. The newspaper I ended up with used loads of cartriges and no one worried over much.

Gary

[Yorkie]

Fair comment Gary, but £3k a Litre does seem to be pushing it a bit!! It also gives competitors a lot of headroom to market substitute inks.

I don't know if there has ever been any scientific objective comparisons of maker's inks and substitutes, but I have a friend who works for a manufacturer of printing inks for currency notes the world over. I had a chat with him about this topic and he says that in his experience, there will almost certainly be variations in quality because ink is basically solid pigments in solution. He tells me that under a powerful microscope, the pigments even the finest inks look like rubble.

Given how sophisticated the print heads are and what they have to do, clearly the more finely ground the pigments, the better the quality of printing will be. Whether this is discernible is a subjective matter, and much will depend on whether we're just printing off a document or webpage, or photographs. You've already alluded to the longevity of OEM inks as compared to substitute inks.

Were I an impoverished student writing several drafts of a dissertation I think I'd go for a cheap printer and use cheapo inks, but as I don't need to skimp, I use Epson cartridges. If I ever get round to making water slide transfers, which I hope my SX535 would make a better job of that than it does of OHP acetates, from comments you made earlier Gary, water-slide paper degrades over time, so maybe the sheets I bought a couple of years ago and have yet to use will be past their best, then I'd most likely blame the printer or my own ineptitude!

How times have changed since I used a dot matrix bubble jet printer with a Sinclair QL!

[Radio Fixer]

I have often marvelled at the technology David. Do inkjets work on the cathode ray tube principal with the ink firing out to the charged paper and being moved around by deflector plates? If someone told you that he was going to try and make such a device you possibly would tell him he's nuts!

I have just tried using paper intended for laser printers for decals. This doesn’t need lacquer before application, which for me isn’t easy to spray in winter as the garage is unheated. Apart from cutting out a step it may make the decal more flexible. I dont have a laser printer but Staples will print a sheet for you for 35p. This was only black on clear and I forgot to ask them about colour.

On your acetates for PCB's, I read that Aerodyne put them through the printer more than once... 3 times from memory. Guess it depends on how fine the tracks are and what you are layiing out for. Its going to work for discretes but IC's maybe not

Gary

[ed731pdh]

I do PCBs using nothing more than a b/w laser printer, printing directly onto WHS 80gsm tracing paper. Do two of these, sandwich together to make one print die, and use in a uv box directly onto pre-sensitised copper clad board. About six minutes exposure time does the biz.