CD Direct Printers questions

  • Thread starter Thread starter No One You Know - Yet
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No One You Know - Yet

We are exploring on line the various printers that print directly to CD and
wanted to ask which printer(s) or technology (thermal, or?) would result in
the CDs looking like most of the retail music CDs we see in terms of surface
finish etc? Not sure which print method and or laminate or what is used. But
we want to be able to print on demand that quality of full color stuff onto
CD, and not a budget home brew type thing. Any suggestions? Thanks!
 
Look at the Epson Photo 900 or 960. I use the Photo 900 and am very pleased
with it.
 
Thank you Safety, but I think we are looking for something that will be more
robust, and work in a production environment with pre-press users, and
intense graphic designers. But I will put it on the list.
 
I would keep some considerations in mind.

The Epson inkjet printers only can print on CD surfaces designed to
accept their ink. Most, (if not all?) I believe, are white surfaced.

For someone after something looking like commercial CDs and having their
surface durability, they may need to find a solvent based inkjet
printer, which use inks which can be applied directly to many plastic
surfaces (and may require lacquering afterward?) They are more costly,
but they can use regular CD blanks. I don't know how inkjet prepared
surfaced CDs compare in cost, and they aren't available for people
making (molded) "real CDs" versus CD-Rs.

Art
 
I think you are looking for something like the rimage dye-sub
thermal cd printer. Retails in the 1500-2500 range. Never seen the
results, but even that is not going to be exactly like retail
which I believe are silkscreened.
The Epson 900, 960. As well as the japanese only Canon
Prius 950i and 850i do printing on inkjet printable cds but
the result is basically a little better then stick on labels
depending upon the quality of the paper on the cd/dvd blanks.
I think if the started to release blanks with glossy printable
surfaces the result would be acceptable when considering
the printer cost of only 150-300.
 
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