Epson printers very poor quality

  • Thread starter Thread starter Brian
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Brian

My C82 clogged up and I received my replacement today. Using the brand new
cartridges included, the printer still does not print. I have done over 10
head cleanings and all it accomplished was wasting more than half of my new
ink cartridges!!!!! Nothing still prints!

These epson printers suck, I don't think I will be purchasing epson as my
next printer, heck I just got this today and out of the box it doesnt
print!!!
 
My C82 clogged up and I received my replacement today. Using the brand new
cartridges included, the printer still does not print. I have done over 10
head cleanings and all it accomplished was wasting more than half of my new
ink cartridges!!!!! Nothing still prints!

These epson printers suck, I don't think I will be purchasing epson as my
next printer, heck I just got this today and out of the box it doesnt
print!!!
Click to expand...

Hey, at least they honored your warranty! They didn't even extend me
that courtesy. Their own technician ruined mine, then they claimed he
wasn't REALLY one of THEIR technicians - just a repair agent - and so
they weren't responsible. Damn Thieves!
 
Brian said:
My C82 clogged up and I received my replacement today. Using the
brand new cartridges included, the printer still does not print. I
have done over 10 head cleanings and all it accomplished was wasting
more than half of my new ink cartridges!!!!! Nothing still prints!

These epson printers suck, I don't think I will be purchasing epson
as my next printer, heck I just got this today and out of the box it
doesnt print!!!
Click to expand...

And you did remove all the orange tape - right?!
 
I called epson and after doing some basic things with a few more head
cleanings they are sending me yet another replacement. hopefully through all
these shipping charges they are paying they'll wise up and send me a working
printer.
 
I called epson and after doing some basic things with a few more head
cleanings they are sending me yet another replacement. hopefully through all
these shipping charges they are paying they'll wise up and send me a working
printer.
Click to expand...

Don't count on it. : ( I bought my new Canon today - yippee!
 
I have an Epson CX5200, which has the same print engine as the C82.

Nice printer overall, but the heads do have a habit of clogging up.

Had one unit swapped by epson because of this problem. I try and be
careful these days not to leave the printer too long without printing
something, just so that the ink in the heads has less time to dry up.
Even then, a couple of days ago, the heads did start to clog, but a
couple of head cleaning operations were enough to clear it.

Don't know if this is a problem with all Epson printers, or a
peculiarity of the durabrite inks they use in the
C82/CX5200/CX5400/CX6400 printers. Certainly, if you look at many of
the customer comments on Amazon.com for the CX5200/CX5400, they all
comment about this same problem.

George.
 
My last 'good' epson was the FX-80!


That's a real pity.

I own half a dozen Epson printers, (none use Epson chipped cartridges)
and overall they have been reliable and produce great results. I would
say, had it not been for Epson's dogged enthusiasm for the piezo
technology and the ability to push it further and further in terms of
dot size and densities, we'd still be stuck with 300 dpi inkjet printers.

Are Epson printers without problems, no, absolutely not. Has Epson made
many questionable marketing decisions, yeap. Can the company be
arrogant, being privately owned and operated, yeap, for sure.

However, it is only the result of Epson always improving their printer
output that we have true photo-quality inkjet printers today.

To whomever stated that "professionals" all use Canon printers, all I
can say is, "what absolute hogwash". Until Canon redeveloped their
printers with the "i" series, their printers were some of the least
reliable products on the market. The stats bear that out, and it's why
Canon invested millions to redesign their product from scratch.

They are making headway, and their printers are impressive, but, they
are still having problems with providing archival inks that work with
their heads.

Walk into nearly any professional wide carriage inkjet image provider
and you will either see Epson printers (7000, 9000 or 10,000 series
printing up to 44" wide) using dye or pigmented inks, or you will will
see printers using Epson piezo heads.

If the other technologies were so effective, why are so many
professional and commercial inkjet output companies using Epson
printers? The head designs are not very different between those
machines and those in their consumer products.

Epson also was instrumental in developing working pigmented inks with
100 year lifespans, a technology required for artists producing costly
fine art for sale.

I am no apologist for Epson. There are a number of things that should
have been incorporated into their design to lessen clogging problems
years ago. Their chipped cartridge technology offers nothing
advantageous to the buyers, sometimes even causing problems for the
owner, and is a blatant attempt to force people to buy Epson very
overpriced inks. And they, like HP and Lexmark, have a poor record in
dealing with design flaws or premature failures. Too many Epson heads
develop a type of failure which never occurred until the 1440 dpi and
higher heads were made. Based upon the published head life of these
printers, their heads fail sometimes very prematurely, suddenly printing
thin lines all over the image, and although Epson to my knowledge has
never acknowledged the problem, it has been reported to me at least 50
times, and the only fix appears to be a head replacement. Of course,
Epson charges so much for the heads and installation that the cost is
often similar to replacing the whole printer.

Lastly, all Epson printers have a time bomb built into them which is not
acknowledged by Epson anywhere that I am aware of. When Epson printers
start up each time, or when you replace the cartridge or go through
cleaning cycles, the waste ink that is vacuumed out of the heads is
drained into a waste ink pad below. At a predetermined number of these
events, the printer goes into a "replace waste inkpad" mode which simply
shuts the printer down from use. No warning... Epson's fix to this is
to send you to an authorized technician and have the non-user
serviceable pads replaced, which besides setting you back about $100 (or
more, depending on how buried the pads are and the cost of the
replacements) you may be without your printer for a week or more while
parts are found.

As it turns out, in most cases, there is a front panel key press
sequence that will reset the waste ink counters, which will bring your
printer back to use, but it could lead to ink leaking out of the printer
if the waste pads get overfilled.

So, do I like Epson, the company? No, because they aren't forthright
with their clients, and the business model they (and other inkjet
companies) use is exploitative.

Although I don't own any Canon printers, I certainly have waited them
with interest and I think they are indeed quiet and fast and produce
very good output. How long the heads will last is an unknown to me, as
is how well they will deal with pigmented inks.

For dye ink printers, Canon and Epson output is similar. The Canon may
have an edge in terms of current designs.

But stating Epson printers don't produce good output, or are continually
dysfunctional is unfair and untrue.

Art
 
Arthur Entlich said:
If the other technologies were so effective, why are so many
professional and commercial inkjet output companies using Epson
printers? The head designs are not very different between those
machines and those in their consumer products.
Click to expand...

Why did IBM at one point dominate the PC market?

Epson made good choices and started the usable photo printer
market way back when with the first Epson Color Stylus (which
I bought and still have in the garage, still working last time
tried). They have good engineering and great marketting to press
their technology advantages into something people want.

They have expanded use of their technology into the commerical
printer market. They undoubtedly have a large patent portfolio
in the way they make their machines, particularly in their head
technology.

They have had a large lead. Only they're now, as you pointed out,
getting serious competition from Canon (I just got a Canon i9900,
replacing a dye-sub I've been using for a long time). It will
take time, but they've now got competition for home printers. I
don't know if Canon is attacking them with commercial printing
products (yet). Canon is a large enough company to be able to
finance a serious attack and has some advantages that epson
doesn't (big in the cameras that "feed" the printers with
images).

So why is epson's heads so successful? They "perfected" them sooner
than did the competition and aggressively made products to
leverage it -- and doing so with little serious competition in photo
inkjet markets (although plenty in business letter sort of markets from HP).

Mike

P.S. - As to the reliability of Canon iXXXX print heads, I don't know
either, but one thing I do know is that the head in my Canon
i9900 is trivial to be user replaced. In fact, the printer
comes with the print-head in a bag and the user has to install
it the first time (which is fairly trivial). Only non-trivial
part is paying for a new head (if needed). :-)
 
Anoni Moose wrote:

P.S. - As to the reliability of Canon iXXXX print heads, I don't know
either, but one thing I do know is that the head in my Canon
i9900 is trivial to be user replaced. In fact, the printer
comes with the print-head in a bag and the user has to install
it the first time (which is fairly trivial). Only non-trivial
part is paying for a new head (if needed). :-)
Click to expand...

I agree. Canon wisely made the head a user serviceable replacement
part. Epson would be wise to note that. Cost is high, as I understand
it, but then again Epson does the same thing.

Art
 
I agree. Canon wisely made the head a user serviceable replacement
part. Epson would be wise to note that. Cost is high, as I understand
it, but then again Epson does the same thing.
Click to expand...

Epson has been there, done that. The Stylus Color 200 and Stylus 1500
ink jet printers had user serviceable print head. Both black and
colour print heads were user serviceable on the Stylus Color 200.
Colour print head only on the Stylus 1500. Both printers had been
discontinued a long time ago.
 
Epson has been there, done that. The Stylus Color 200 and Stylus 1500
ink jet printers had user serviceable print head. Both black and
colour print heads were user serviceable on the Stylus Color 200.
Colour print head only on the Stylus 1500. Both printers had been
discontinued a long time ago.
Click to expand...

Sitting smugly on clogged "glorious achievements", are we?

How does "been there, done that" help us today?

Canon is doing it, Epson isn't. Shame. It's their loss of market.

Maybe you havn't noticed but the latest figures I saw showed Epson
had slipped to number 4 in America.

SandyD
 
Epson has been there, done that. The Stylus Color 200 and Stylus 1500
ink jet printers had user serviceable print head. Both black and
colour print heads were user serviceable on the Stylus Color 200.
Colour print head only on the Stylus 1500. Both printers had been
discontinued a long time ago.
Click to expand...



Epson Print Heads do not Rot like Canon ones ..
 
install it the first time (which is fairly trivial). Only non-
trivial part is paying for a new head (if needed). :-)
understand it, but then again Epson does the same thing.
Click to expand...
Sitting smugly on clogged "glorious achievements", are we?
Click to expand...
How does "been there, done that" help us today?
Click to expand...

I don't know. I'm just pointing out that Epson had printers which has
a user serviceable print head.
Canon is doing it, Epson isn't. Shame. It's their loss of market.
Click to expand...

Ask me if I care.
Maybe you havn't noticed but the latest figures I saw showed Epson
had slipped to number 4 in America.
Click to expand...

Ask me if I care.
 
Epson Print Heads do not Rot like Canon ones ..
Click to expand...



How long do these print heads take to "Rot"? I have an 850 that is
over one year old now and it prints like new. Maybe I should throw it
out now because its rotting. I was wondering what that smell was.

By the time this thing "ROTS" I would be well into new printer
technology by then.
 
Ototin said:
Ask me if I care.




Ask me if I care.
Click to expand...


I don't recall asking you if you care about anything, so why should I
care if you care or not?

And, if you don't care, why are you even engaging in the thread?

I recall these kinds of replies coming from 6 year olds. Are you six?

Art
 
Ototin wrote:
I don't recall asking you if you care about anything, so why should I
care if you care or not?
Click to expand...

I don't know why.
And, if you don't care, why are you even engaging in the thread?
Click to expand...

I thought I was being helpful in providing the information, but I am
clearly mistaken. It appears that you don't want to know.
 
Interesting,

I just bought a 5 in 1 from Epson (MFC5200C) in Dec. 2003. The head already
needs to be changed. It costs 132.00 cdn. I don't know if it comes with the
cartridges for that price. Only 6 months of printing. I know that with Canon,
it does (around $80.00 CDN). I only had to change the head 3 times in 4 years
on the Multipass C3500ex.

Epson doesn't cover the head under the one year warranty. Weird don't you
think?

The printing quality is sufficient for my use thought since I don't print
pictures.

Gerard
Québec, Canada
 
The MFC5200C is made by Brother.

Do you have a CX5200? The CX5200 is made by Epson.

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I'm assuming the MCF5200C is actaully the CX5200 all in one, if not what
I say may be inaccurate.

I think you may be confusing the head with the cartridge.

Epson inkjet printers have a permanent head in them. When the ink runs
out, you replace the cartridge which is just a box with ink in it. The
head remains in the machine.

If you need a new cartridge, you are correct that it is not covered
under warranty since it is an expendible, (basically, it is the ink used
up). In the 5200 there are four cartridges, each costing about $15 CAN
to replace.

The head is warranted for one year, just like the rest of the printer.

Can you tell me who told you the head was not warranted?


Art
 
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