Printer Recommendation

LonerMatt · 31 Jul 2018

Hello all,

I am hoping that some friendly and knowledgeable people might be able to point me in the right directions - there's a lot of printers, ink and paper out there.

I would like to buy an inkjet printer so that I can make my own artist books at home. These books are usually 16 printed pages (at most) and I hand finish and hand bind them.

Some ideal requirements:

1. Can print up to A3 size (a must)
2. Can print duplex (a must)
3. Efficient use of ink (I print almost exclusively black and white)
4. Can accept a range of papers (ideally anywhere from newspaper weight 45gsm up to card at around 250gsm)
5. Is available in Australia for less than $1000 (ideally much less, but hey, let's see what happens), around 500gbp

I'm not necessarily interested in the best printer of all time - just a good, solid, economical performer that allows me to make things and enjoy the process.

If anything jumps out to you let me know, and if there's anything I can't have without paying more or learning mroe I'd appreciate the reality check.

At the moment the Pixma iP8760 is looking almost perfect (manual double sided is a realllll drag though)

Please let me know your thoughts!

ecoleman · 31 Jul 2018

The closest thing I can find to your requirements is a Xerox VersaLink C7000dn A3 Colour Laser printer

https://www.printerland.co.uk/Xerox-VersaLink-C7000dn-P139467.aspx

The price may be a bit more than you want to spend and the minimum paper weight it can handle is 60gsm

It can print colour but also continue with B&W even if the colour toners are empty.
It does auto duplex
Handles up to 265gsm paper
Prints up to A3

LonerMatt · 31 Jul 2018

Unfortunately that is substantially more money than I want to spend, as in 3-4x as much.

Epson seem to make a number of printers that can print A3 and 2x sided XP1500 and P405. I hear Epsons are a bit finicky and aren't super robust.

If I didn't need A3, and was fine with just A4, would that open me up to any better options?

I feel like duplex is more important than size, but really I think I need both.

realspeed · 31 Jul 2018

Updated version of the Epson XP950 which I think is the 960 now. that does A3 size and you can get continuous ink flow system of it on the internet
I have the 950 and produce excellent prints. I use ilford Galerie smooth gloss paper with it

ecoleman · 31 Jul 2018

I think you are asking a lot for the money you want to spend.

The Epson XP1500 will do duplex for A4 only and whilst it can handle thick media, that will probably be manually fed and will probably not do duplex at all with thick media.
The SC-P405 is more of a dedicated photo printer where again thick media is manually fed and the only duplex option will be to turn the paper over yourself.

ecoleman · 31 Jul 2018

realspeed said:
Updated version of the Epson XP950 which I think is the 960 now. that does A3 size and you can get continuous ink flow system of it on the internet
I have the 950 and produce excellent prints. I use ilford Galerie smooth gloss paper with it

Does duplex on A4 plain paper only and I can't find any information in Max/min paper thickness.
I'd be surprised if it handled 265gsm paper though. (edit: 300gsm if using Epsons own Heavyweight paper, otherwise they do not support anything above 90gsm as you may have feed problems)

jakeblu · 31 Jul 2018

realspeed said:
epdated version of the Epson XP950 which I think is the 960 now. that does A3 size and you can get continuous ink flow system of it on the internet

Thats the printer I went for, print quality is exceptional imo. Printing A3 is a little bit finicky though but thats ok for me as I don't print too much a3, the size is not much larger than an A4 printer too. Not sure if it fits everything your after but it does do duplex as well. Its also has a built in scanner. The other option I was looking at was the Canon iP8750 and had I been regularly printed A3 its probably the one I would have chosen. It does A3+ too which the epson XP960 doesn't.

jakeblu · 31 Jul 2018

ecoleman said:
Does duplex on A4 plain paper only and I can't find any information in Max/min paper thickness.
I'd be surprised if it handled 265gsm paper though.

Max paper size is 300gsm

ecoleman · 31 Jul 2018

jakeblu said:
Max paper size is 300gsm

Yes I found this on their support site

Over 90 g/m2, genuine Epson media - supported paper types.

The maximum weight is 300 g/m2 using genuine Epson media only.
Some products support a maximum of up to 255 g/m2 using genuine Epson media only (e.g. R800).
The use of third party (non-Epson) paper/media is neither recommended or supported by Epson.

jakeblu · 31 Jul 2018

ecoleman said:
Yes I found this on their support site

Over 90 g/m2, genuine Epson media - supported paper types.

The maximum weight is 300 g/m2 using genuine Epson media only.

Some products support a maximum of up to 255 g/m2 using genuine Epson media only (e.g. R800).

The use of third party (non-Epson) paper/media is neither recommended or supported by Epson.

Yeah, I saw that too, but I've had no problems using papers that are not epson branded.

realspeed · 31 Jul 2018

It handles my ILFORD 310 gram paper easily My epson XP 950 printer

LonerMatt · 31 Jul 2018

realspeed said:
Updated version of the Epson XP950 which I think is the 960 now. that does A3 size and you can get continuous ink flow system of it on the internet
I have the 950 and produce excellent prints. I use ilford Galerie smooth gloss paper with it

Thank you, I'm having a look now,

ecoleman said:
I think you are asking a lot for the money you want to spend.

The Epson XP1500 will do duplex for A4 only and whilst it can handle thick media, that will probably be manually fed and will probably not do duplex at all with thick media.
The SC-P405 is more of a dedicated photo printer where again thick media is manually fed and the only duplex option will be to turn the paper over yourself.

Yes, it seems that you can't use duplex with the rear load, which is where A3 paper has to go.

It's fair to say I'm asking a lot, that's ok - that's what I came here to learn.

jakeblu said:
Thats the printer I went for, print quality is exceptional imo. Printing A3 is a little bit finicky though but thats ok for me as I don't print too much a3, the size is not much larger than an A4 printer too. Not sure if it fits everything your after but it does do duplex as well. Its also has a built in scanner. The other option I was looking at was the Canon iP8750 and had I been regularly printed A3 its probably the one I would have chosen. It does A3+ too which the epson XP960 doesn't.

Good to know! The iP is a good printer, but (like almost all Canons) won't duplex.

At the moment I'm thinking that:
1. I get a cheaper printer where the quality of the print isn't out standing, but it has the features I want. Epson Workforce print A3 and duplex, as do Brothers MFC. The Brothers are said to have bad image quality, but that was mainly around the colour (and I doubt much tinkering was happening), the Epson I've read one good review of the photo quality and one negative

2. Get a better printer that only does A4 duplex and make smaller books

To clarify: the thicker GSM papers were just for the covers of books. I can hand make covers fairly easily, so that's the least important feature.

LonerMatt · 5 Aug 2018

I bought a Canon TR5860 which is pretty fun so far.

Just a quick question, when I print single sided and when I print duplex I get different tones (duplex is colour instead of grayscale). Any idea why?

Also - if I just am printing black and white and want to print only in grayscale, is it possible to replace all the inks ONLY with black and greys? What would happen?