My Epson Stylus Photo 700 is still a great printer and I can't beat the value of the compatable cartridges which is something to bear in mind when buying a new one.

It has started to "over print" and sprays ink all over the rollers past the edge of the paper. Can I adjust this?

I don't use it much but if I need to print something important I can't send it out with a black roller line all down the right hand edge.

If it can't be adjusted what would you recommend? And are these combined printer / scanners any good? I'd also like to avoid having to change cartridges for different print jobs, hence the reason I bought the Photo 700 in the first place. My previous printer was a Canon were you had to keep changing carts for plain text, colour prints and photos.

My scanner has not been used for a while as it is an Agfa SnapScan 310 SCSI that is not currently connected. I might use it more if it were a printer / scanner combi.

Thanks

Seems most of the compatable folks also offer cleaning carts. Might be worth a shot.

http://www.123inkjets.com/product.html?t...753&group=1

Yes, I have those and usually run them through when I change carts but they are mainly to clean the jets. The problem is the "over print" were it's actually spraying black ink onto the end rollers.

I clean the rollers, run a page through without printing to check it's clean but as soon as I print something it does it again.

According to all/most of the PC magazines and the Which? magazine tests the Canon i990 is the one to go for. It comes out tops on both printed quality and running costs.

On your second point, I know of quite a few peeps who have a devil of a time trying to get those multi purpose jobbies to install properly.

I had/have the same problem with my epson740 every now and again,
It's probably the black ink tray that is overfilled as like mine its getting on a bit
What i do is press the button like you do when you want to change a cartridge, then move the carriage further along, i then get some cotton buds dipped in water (only dipped) and use several to get the excess black in the ink tray, which on mine is situated in the far corner, bu**er to get to , then i use dry cotton buds to get any excess away and clean the rollers, feed a sheet of paper through a couple of times and that normally clears it for awhile.

Funny enough i have been reading up on the printers lately as i'm gonna change mine after christmas, i wanted a canon i865 but they seemed to be discontinued now, so i've decided on the Canon ip4000 but will check Kremmens one 1st, the good thing about the ip4000 is you can change indivigual carts when 1 runs out rather than the whole set like some.

I completely stripped mine down and cleaned the lot. Rollers, wells, dampers, everything and it still does it.

I can't find Krem's printer on Canon's site so maybe that's discontinued too.

http://www.canon.co.uk/for_home/product_finder/printers/bubble_jet/index.asp

Will be interested to know how you get on.

Can't find Krem's either
will deffo get the ip4000 after chrissy just waiting to see if someone has a better price in the new year
The cheapest i have seen a the moment is buying it online at Curry's £102 with free delivery
That's £27 cheaper than buying it in store :smokin:

Does your Epsom print "full bleed" if so you could have full blead selected instead of regular print.

Thats interesting, just pulled this from a recent Which? test :

In general terms though Canon have frequently won out in the tests due to them actually measuring the remaining ink and not counting pages printed before warning about low ink.
The comment above about photo quality seems to be consistent.
When my current HP940c finally meets that great recycle bin in the sky I will almost certainly get a Canon next time.

Just had (By request) a new Canon i4000 for my birthday.(70th.) It is brilliant for B&W and Photo. Best price online was Pixmania @ £108 d/d..Inks are cheap at 7dayshop.com @£1-99. I shall be trying a refill kit as well, later on, to see if they are any good...***** goodman

Canon all the way

got that pi$$ed off after yrs of $hitty Epsoms that I threw the 890 and the C62 out and replaced with a pair of i865's, now discontinued but the latest range of the pixmars do look nice.

Refills n/p - works out @ about 70p/cart

Will NEVER again buy another Epsom - cheap rubbish

Any thoughts on this Canon model? The price sure is right. Looking to upgrade my Epson 740 which has treated me well over the years (still cranking).

Canon i960/click here

Hi

Those Canon i9x series printers always came out tops on most of the printer reviews I have read.

The newer series also seem to be getting good reviews.

Your call whether you go for what is now an obsolete model or go for the latest.

A little harsh there Still pleased with my Epson 740. This appears to be a nice cheap upgrade that will take me to 6 inks, USB2, and hopefully more fade resitant pics. Will be a good way to see what all the Canon hub-bub is all about.

Thanks

hehe
I like the Canon stuff

If you want to follow the madding crowd (like a sheep) get an Epsom. If you appreciate quality gear that wont give you any probs, take a look at the Canon stuff

as the slogan goes..
"If anyone can, Canon can"

My first inket (Bubblejet) was a Canon. A BC600. If I remember right it was £540 and I paid an extra £135 for a 3 year on-site warranty.
It was a real workhorse, had no problem with compatible inks or refills, and I eventually sold it on with a PC I built for someone.
I`ve used Epsons ever since, currently running the R300, but am thinking of changing next time. Maybe go back to Canon.

Thanks for all your recommendations, we have purchased the Canon ip4000.

Truly amazing piece of kit, especially like the CD-R adaptor that allows you to print directly onto the disc - no more trying to line up sticky labels, and the print quality and speed is fantastic. Can't believe you can get your hands on this for under £100 and just how awful the Epson Stylus Photo 700 had got. It's amazing what you get used to.

Thanks again.

What a drag, here's a comment on the USA model:

I was excited to read about Canon Pixma IP3000 & up models with separate ink-tanks & no smart chips. Examining all the Pixma models at a local store I noticed this extra pull down tray in the front-middle. After going home to look online, talking to Canon tech support and the local store meantime checking on it... it's a disabled/never will work CD/DVD printing bay. Yet the same models in Europe have a working CD/DVD print bay.

A very wise chice m8

I've checked the printer and there is no voltage selector visible. In the user guide it states "Never use a power supply other than that supplied in the country of purchase" so it looks like you guys are not going to benefit ( unless you can use some kind of voltage adaptor? ).

Ahrrrr!

I do believe that you need special CDR's to be able to directly print on them ?

What you usin' ?

I was sent a 5 pack of Sony CDQ80P

There's a selection here ( a Marcus Bear link from another thread ) but as I don't do a lot of burning I don't know what discs are good or bad. I mainly use the discs for audio and in the past have had problems with CD players not reading the disc correctly as the burn side is too dark. The Diamond Inkjet discs on that page look appealing though as "the recording side of the disc is silver, like a shop bought (pressed) CD". The postage rates on that site are good too - 25 discs, £2.98 1st class recorded.

Ta, just curious.

Now that I have a 250Gb USB2 HDD plugged in permanently I only use CDR's for audio as well. I Ghost and Genie backup to that unit instead.

What I am have done is record most of my 45 rpm singles to CDR for the car (= 22 CDR's). I am now using WMP10 to record the CDR's in .wma format to the USB HDD so that I can re burn quickly any that fail.

Unfortunately my Inkjet is fairly new (HP DeskJet 940c) so I can't justify replacing it just yet. The LaserJet is 12 years old and still going strong.

@Kremm
In the case of a main HD failure can you boot your Ghost image off an external drive?

Hi ME

I thought of that, and if necesary I would install a new HDD, install a basic OS and Ghost, and then bring the original back that way, if that makes any sense ?

Hmmm... I'm using Ghost 2003, which has worked well. I have a Ghost boot foppy I made with W98 DOS start up files. XP startup or the Ghost included version of DOS did not work. Seeing as I boot to DOS with the Ghost floppy to transfer the image over I don't think I could access a USB drive. I will have to check the boot floppy creation process and see if it has an 'add usb drivers' option. What Ghost version are you using?

It's interseting to note that the latest Ghost is actually PowerQuest's Drive Image, which they bought. I have my image on a 40G drive which I swap in and out (as a slave) when needed.

I'm planning on buying Seagate's 300G external.

I'm also using the latest Ghost (v9) aka Drive Image that I got with Systemworks Pro 2005.

I haven't created a boot floppy because I got a boot CD included with the package.

Not looked but maybe that can load the USB drivers ?

Subject to availability I'm gonna go and get one of those Canon ip4000 jobbies as photographed above by Mark later.

Too many advantages over my current HP Deskjet940c :

Borderless photies
CDR Printing
Duplex

Recent test results


Update : Got it
etc

try duplex

OK - what do you know that I don't ? (until I try it)

Update : Nope - you got me - Duplex worked fine

You boys and your toys eh!?

Says he with his new diNova media center :clown:

Free delivery on printable Infiniti CD-Rs and DVD-Rs if you're interested.

http://www.choicestationery.com/acatalog/CDR_Media.html

Ordered Wednesday, arrived Friday.

Good innit?

that's an excellent media site Mark, but for £16.88 inc postage &vat you can get [50 twice as many] 8x [twice as fast] from SVP

I've been using that site for years, I thought you knew about them. It's where I used to get my Epsom compats from. They've only just started doing the printable CD-Rs / DVD-Rs as they previously only did labels.

Good prices on the Canon Pixma iP4000 compat carts too.

Thanks - I'll give them Infiniti's a go then.

My main prob is that I burn the CDR's for the motor and unless they are top quality it don't recognise them

I've spent the weekend burning some Imation's at 4x as a test.

I've had problems in the past were my Teac VRDS7 CD player would not read CD-Rs and found that it was only on discs with a dark burn area. The burn area on the Infiniti discs is silver with a slight green tinge and not much darker than pre-recorded discs.

I've ordered a 50pk of them there Infiniti's so if they don't work I know who to blame

GOT A MAJOR PROBLEM!!!!!

I just ran one of these discs through the iP4000 and the ink beeded! I burned a disc earlier but didn't print and as Choice Stationary only do printing related materials I thought that they would work.

I can only express my sincere apologies to you guys who purchased these on my recommendation for use with printers but I made a major ****-up with this one. Sorry!

That'll learn ya - stick with SVP

When I did my sums proper SVP were actually cheaper

Choice seemed ok for paper though so I ordered some of that.

No hard feelings M lol

So 'WhiteTop' does not indicate printable !

Back to the Verbs then !

Fortunately spotted loads of them in the shops yesterday.

I can recommend the above Verbs as they are playing OK in the car so quality is not an issue.

Be careful buying them though, I noticed in 'Partners the Stationers' that the Verbs come in 10x Jewel Case Packs in a blue box.

There are however 2 types - the printables and some other type that have an extra protective coating or something. The correct type do say 'printable' in faded text down in the bottom right corner of the box.

I got some spare CDR's then

The confusion set in after first visiting this page where they advertise Silver Top and White Top printable discs. As Choice had the discs in their labelling section advertised as White Top I thought that they would be printable White Top. I bought 25 but they will get used anyway as the burn side is very light and my CDP likes them.

This is where dealing with SVP pays off. You buy a nice Epsom printer from them, they tell you which of their discs are printable on it and they sell cartridge 6-pack sets £6ish !!! Easy

They sell Canon inks too

no use rassberrying at me m8.

You're the 1 who should've gone to SVP

Do the sensible thing buy Epson

Actually I'm quite chuffed with the Canon. Especially the printhead design.

You buy the ink tanks seperately (black, cyan, yellow, spotted, stripey, tartan, etc ) and because there is no built-in printhead ala HP they are a bit cheaper. They fit directly in the printhead cradle which is easily removeable.

Any probs with this printhead (serious ink clots, etc) and I assume that it can be easily replaced in a matter of seconds ?

My last Epson had a fitted printhead (as they all do) which is un-economic to repair due to removal/refitting cost.

Also, don't the recent Epsons have a shelf life counter alongside the no/low-ink setting that stops it dead in it's tracks and that Maplins have to sell a resetting tool for ?

Anyway, I am now the proud owner of 40 more Verbs with printable surface.

I'll maybe give Canon a go nxt time round. I'd always been an HP man till now - but hey! I'm no tick in the mud I can embrace change

I've now got a perfectly functional HP DeskJet940C in the loft with 3 black and 2 colour cartridges doing nothing - what a waste !

This month's PCFormat has performed an InkJet printer supertest and guess which printer came top

Absolutely thrashed the others.

let me guess NOT Epson? ;-)

spot on jw not the Epson

Not HP or Lexmark either