EZ/CD Printer Plus Review
Written: Feb 02 '04
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Pros: Can print awesome disks if setup right.
Cons: The biggest con is the very short warranty period (90 days).
The Bottom Line: I don't know much about the other CD/DVD printers that are coming to market. But this printer will print a awesome disk if setup right.
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| philstcyr's Full Review: EZCDPrint EZ/CD Printer Plus, Advanced 6-Color Ink... |
When I first started using this printer I hated it. Now that I've learned HOW to use it I'm finding that it isn't so bad after all.
Here are some of the things I've learned about it.
1. I couldn't get it to work correctly using the parallel cable connection. This could have been my problem since I was using an old parallel cable and it might not be bi-directional. Once I switched over to using the USB cable things got better.
2. You can expect it to take about 3 1/2 minutes to print the average label. Since you can only feed in one disk at a time it takes constant monitoring. Here is what I found works best.
a. When I'm ready to print lets say 25 disks I put a paper label on the plastic disk that comes on the top of my spindle. I then run a test print to set the alignment. I then run the same disk back through with the actual graphic that I want. I hate wasting CDs and especially DVDs.
b. I then tell my labeling software to go ahead and print 25. I DO NOT put a disk in to print until the printer's red light comes on (out of paper). As soon as it comes on I insert the tray that holds the disk and then press the red light. In about 3 minutes it will finish printing.
c. As soon as it's done printing it will try to print the next one (remember I told it to print 25 copies). I take the disk that just printed off the tray and then wipe down the right edge of the tray with a paper towel. For some reason it always gets ink on it and if you get this on the writeable side of the disk .... guess what.
d. As soon as the red light comes back on I'm now ready to insert the disk in the print tray. Once I do that I press the red light and it starts printing again. It's important to note that if you don't get the next one ready to print very shortly after the red light lights then when you do press the red light the disk WILL pass through without printing and you have to do it again. It just waste time. All this takes about 30 secs.
3. WHAT PRINTER SETTINGS DO I USE?
I have tried a lot and wasted a lot of disks. The settings that seem to be working for me are to print to PLAIN PAPER, with BEST PHOTO selected. I don't use the utility that comes with it to set the printer preferences anymore.
4. The printer comes with some utilities. I would recommend that you pull the latest divers for the printer off the EPSON website ..... the printer is a EPSON 820.
Make sure you use the print Nozzle check utility. For some reason the nozzle will get clogged and all of a sudden it will stop printing some color. This happens even though the INK MONITOR utility says there is ink still remaining.
5. When inserting plain paper to print on. I only do this when running the print alignment or nozzle check routines. Don't over insert the paper. It only goes in the slot a very little ways. If you do try to stick it in to far ..... like I was doing ..... the printer just passes it all through. It was annoying until I realized how stupid I was being.
6. Be sure to use ink cartridges from the same manufacturer. If you use EPSON cartridges use EPSON for both the color and B/W cartridges.
All-in-all now that I seem to have the printer working I like the printer. But don't expect to print large quantities without speeding a lot of time at the printer loading disks. If you print 25 at a time .... no problem. If you print 200 at a time .... pack a lunch. It's hard to get other things done when you have to load a new disk every 3 minutes. And yes, if you print just text on the disks and aren't real worried about having really crisp edges on the text then you can print much faster.
The last minor point ..... it may be just me .... but for some reason it seems the printer goes out of alignment with respect to printing on the disk when you change the paper type. Since I now leave it on plain paper it doesn't seem to be a problem. If you are wondering what kind of disks I'm printing on I use Ritek for CDs and BeAll for DVDs. I think both of them are fantastic.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 339.00
Operating System: Windows
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Epinions.com ID:
philstcyr
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Reviews written: 1
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