Continuous Ink Systems

[dcbradshaw]

Anybody have any experience with these? I'm looking to purchase one, but I'm a little leery and wanted to survey the board to see if anyone has any suggestions or recommendations.

I currently use an HP Deskjet 5650, which has been good to me and I absolutely love it, but it's a few years old and starting to show it's age a little bit, and isn't supported any more (the Win 7 drivers are now generic--no more utilities or customized advanced printing options, which is a huge bummer...).

There is a CIS for this particular model, it's about $130, but I'm worried that if I break down and buy the tanks, the printer will finally give out and I'll have trouble finding a used printer in good shape.

After scrounging around for a little while, I've come across the Epson Artisan 50, which seems to have good reviews as a color printer (also has a printable CD/DVD cover feature, which is interesting), runs about $100. There are a handful of CIS systems made for it, but the one that caught my eye is this: www.amazon.com/Supply-System-Epson-Artisan-Non-oem/dp/B002NNIH0C/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1293987776&sr=8-2

$45, which seems like a steal. The reviews at Amazon are all favorable, and the seller claims a "30 day satisfaction guarantee," for whatever that's worth.

So anyway, anyone had any luck with these?

[josedominguez]

I did a lot of research into them about three months ago, every time I found one that looked great I'd find a negative review..... this was the case for everything. In the end I decided against the investment and I'm hoping a company will see sense and make an integrated CIS printer.
So, unfortunately, for every report from someone who loved a system and told me to buy it, I had another tearing it apart. Nothing came out on top. Maybe there's something new though?

[Sirrob01]

I used a ciss for about 2 years, it worked great but theses are the problems I found:

~ If your printers not specifically designed for it the tubes can and do get in the way (read jam)
~ You will get an air block at some point and there annoying to clear
~ The tubes wear out due to all the back and forth of the print head.
~ You'll have to print with the print cover up, which means a significant noise increase.

Other than the above my ciss worked great, However I've now switched to dedicated refillable cartridges, similar to a ciss but no tubes means I have to manually fill my carts when they empty but I find that less annoying than the above issues (been running these 6 months no problems), like these:

cgi.ebay.com.au/Refillable-Inkjet-Cartridges-Epson-TX100-TX110-/110606041363?pt=AU_Computers_Printer_Accessories&hash=item19c0a24113
(Just a random example)

If you have a printer specifically designed for a ciss system go for it, If not for me at least the refillable carts are less irritating and noisy even if I do have to fill them every few weeks.

Gluck

[Tommygun]

I have not seen those purpose built refillable ones before.
I need to look into those for a future printer.
I have an all in one 2610 HP right now. I don't think they would have those for this kind of printer.

[labrat]

Nik bought a CIS for his cannon printer. I bought the same printer with the intent of doing the same thing, but he has had a lot of problems with it since he hooked it up. That freaks me out a little since my plan was to get a cis as well.

Perhaps the refillable cartridges are the way to go. I will have to look into that some more.

[Parduz]

Jan 2, 2011 15:31:00 GMT -9 labrat said:

...cannon printer...

This make me think at a printer that need to light a fuse to start printing.... and then all the sheet are shoot all around ;D

[nikloveland]

Lol, I would have never thought of that...

I currently have a CIS connected to my Canon iP4700. I haven't used it enough to wear out the tubing or anything but I do have problems with my cyan print head clogging. I've cleaned it once (with some Ink cleaner fluid?) and it worked for a while but I have recently noticed it's clogged again. It's better than it was before but still annoying. I'll probably have to clean it each time I want to do a major print run or something.

[Dominic]

I bought one for my HP OfficeJet 8500 a while back, no problems thus far, after I managed to get the air bubbled out of the tubes. Also, I don't see how there would be any wear on any part since the system I use uses "fake" cartridges hooked up to an exterior supply, so the ink flows through the same channels that ink from HP-cartridges would - or am I missing something here?

The only problem I have encountered is that after a while the printer stopped beliefing the chips I put on the cartridged, and it now takes ages to start up, with cleaning and checking and all. I need to check whether there are chips avaliable by now, but I don't see myself buying new cartridges only for the chips. Besides, the printing is fine, so all it costs me is patience .

[nikloveland]

Yeah, my 'fake cartridges' also reset the ink levels so the printer has to go through a whole printing cycle. I think it's the price we pay when we try to be different.

[dcbradshaw]

Well, I think I've decided against a CIS for now, but I am going to try my hand at refilling the cartridges--not the fancy ones like Sirrob posted with the cap and lid, but the old fashioned way: a syringe injecting ink directly into the sponge through a pinhole on top of the housing.

Seems to be working okay so far. Takes two or three pages of blasting solid color to get the heads primed good enough for quality printing, but I've refilled a couple of times now and haven't even made a dent in these bottles I bought.

Hopefully this works out, I really do love this printer, and it's never given me any problems (except for the $40 per color cart... That's something like $2000 per liter for ink... ridiculous).

[cowboyleland]

I recycle my cartriges with a syringe. Sometimes I get bad results if I haven't printed in a while, but a good cleaning seems to solve it.

[dcbradshaw]

Update-

I'm well into my second refill now and starting to get the hang of it, and I'm noticing no degradation of the prints using the refill ink--in fact, it actually might look slightly better (?) than the commercial ink... Especially the red, seems to pop more maybe.

Anyway, if you can try this, refilling a cartridge, I would definitely recommend it. Do some research and see if your printer has the kind of cartridge that can be refilled; mine is an HP that has the print-head built into the cart, and thus needs venting holes on the top to allow ink to flow through, conveniently located in the perfect spot to stick a syringe. I did see some in my research that seemed to be vacuum-sealed, so that you wouldn't be able to get into them without ruining the cart, but I'm not sure how widespread that is.

By the way, this is the method I'm using: www.refillinstructions.com/HP/H15.htm

The ink I found on Amazon, it was only like $15 with shipping. It has definitely been worth it.

I would also add, this refill kit I got only came with one syringe, so I've been washing it carefully between each ink, and that's kind of a hassle, so if you can find some extra syringes and needles, definitely invest. It'll save you trips back and forth to the sink.