I didn't want to lose time with this right now but now I'll have to do it because I really don't want to see another guy to become an Epson's next victim.
- C80 and C82 are the same, just the look is different, C82 has a more modern look.
- Take a look at the reviews in Amazon about both, you'll notice that for the C80 there are lots of bad reviews and for the C82 not so much. The main reason for this is that in my "humble" opinion, Amazon blocks reviews that it doesn't want to show up. I have had two reviews of mine, in Amazon, that never showed up. Once there is a new option to the C82, Amazon will start allowing people to talk not so good about it, like they did with the C80.
- The price of a C82 can be around 60 bucks. The ink that it needs, one black cartridge and three color ones, costs around 60 bucks also, so, if you buy the printer, actually, you are getting the printer for free because only the ink cartridges themselves costs this amount.
- I never use non-Epson branded ink cartridge; always original, and for the original cartridges, there is no way to find them for less than 60+ bucks
- Epson does print in a good quality, as I already mentioned WHEN ALL THE NOZZLES ARE CLEAN and there is around 150 nozzles for the 4 heads (I am supposing there is one head for each color: black, cyan, yellow and magenta
- Epson does print economically, I mean, you can print around 1000 regular pages with the black ink (they say it's around 1,200 but for me it's not) and half of this with the color inks) NOT CONSIDERING THE INK YOU WASTE TO KEEP THE NOZZLES CLEAN
Now about the cleaning and wasting ...
- Epson loooooves to sell the idea that the ink cartridges (IK) are independent, so you'll be able to save ink because you will change only the cartridge that has run out of ink. This is B.S.!! Every time you have to change one IK, the printer has to enter through a "prime" process (whatever this means) where it will WASTE a lot of ink from ALL the other IKs, including the one that's being replaced. Based on my experience, I need one Black IK for every two of the color IKs. Also, no matter how I try to use the printer, my three color IKs are almost always being used in a compatible way, I mean, they always seem to be in the same level, so almost always, when it's time to change one of the color IKs, the other two are near to become empty as well; due to the "prime" process, when you replace the one IK you have to, you'll waste ink from the other two (also from the black cartridge!), and so, very very soon you'll have to change another color IK and the prime happens again and very very soon you'll have to change the third color IK, and new prime process again and you have then wated a LOT LOT LOT of ink. So, if you buy this shitty print, do yourself a favor and ALWAYS change all the three color IK when the first one runs out of ink.
- If you want to do only black printing, theoretically you don't need the color IKs. WRONG for the C80/82!! If you run out of any one of the color IKs, you won't be allowed to print anything until you replace it. This is a real trap because even if you print a lot of only black text, you must have the color IKs there, and maintaining an IK inside the printer is expensive, as I will comment later.
- To keep the nozzles clean (or to try to keep them clean) you MUST turn on your printer at least once a week, based on my experience (Epson's manual recommends at least once a month but I disagree). Why you have to do this? Simple, because those f*cking nozzles need to have always fresh ink around them to not get stuck, dry, hard ink. If you allow ink to become too dry in the heads, by not turning it on regurlarly, you may lose the heads and your printer forever.
So, you MUST keep turning the printer on, even if you don't need it - if you are a business office then this may not be a problem because you would have to turn it on almost everyday, anyway, but if you are not, like me, you have a problem.
And so what? I turn it on every now and then and I'm fine! WRONG !! Everytime you turn your printer on, you are wasting some ink from ALL IKs, and this happens because some ink is flowing to the heads to keep them fresh, when you turn the printer on. So, have you notices the trap? Even if you print only black, by turning the printer on and off through time, you are wasting color ink as well !! Even if you has nothing to print for the next three months, you have to keep turning the printer on and off and you are wasting ink.
- I'm not 100% sure about this but according to my observation, even when you reboot your computer, since the printer was sort of turned off and on also (the printer senses the computer was turned off and it will start to make some noise, as when it's turned on for the first time), some ink is being wasted.
- What happens when you have some nozzles dirty? Even if it's just one, no matter from which color, you will not get a good printing quality, a thin but very visible line will be noticed in your printing, one line for every nozzle that's blocked, dirty. This line will show no ink at all, because the nozzle is blocked. When you have, let's say, 3 or 4 nozzles dirty, you have an even worts printing quality, and so on. So, you MUST have ALL the nozzles clean to get the print to print right. I believe there are around 150 nozzles to keep clean.
To clean the nozzles, or to try to clean them, you just have to use a tool that comes with the software. It's simple, easy, straight forward, quick and most of the times USELESS. Also, everytime you try to clean the nozzles, a LOT of ink is wasted, I'd say that around 1/15 of each IK is lost in just one cleaning. If one black IK can print 1200 pages, one nozzle cleaning means you are wasting 80 pages of ink.
Sometimes you need to clean the nozzles twice or even more times to get them all clean. Here comes an horrible situation. Sometimes you have some nozzles dirty and you use nozzle cleaning. Most of the nozzles will clean but it may happen that other nozzles that were clean become dirty!!
When you nozzle clean, a lot of ink is used. And where does this ink go? There is no magic here. There is a place, at the right of the printer, inside, where the printer drop all the ink it needs for the prime process and for the starting process, for the nozzle cleaning process, etc. This place is like a pool of wasted ink. Below it there is a special material that will retain this wasted ink and avoid it to make a mess inside your printer.
BUT, IF you make just two nozzle cleanings in a row, there will be not a good flowing of all the wasted ink in this pool and some ink will start to show up in the corners of your pages, when you print. You will get your hands dirty by the way, when you pick up the pages from the printer.
So, my advice: NEVER EVER use the nozzle cleaning process more than once in a day. I learned, by experience, that cleaning the nozzles is a waste of ink and time. I almost never clean them. And now comes the funny side of this printer. When I turn it on, at the beggining of the day, when I have to print something, I do a nozzle check (another utility). This waste no ink. If I see that there is even one nozzle that's dirty, I don't print anything, I wait for the next day, or for the next time the printer is turned on again. Many times, because turning it on waste some ink, a nozzle that was dirty yesterday become clean today. So, what I do is I wait for the day when I had the luck to have all the nozzles clean and then I print the work I want.
When all the nozzles are clean, if you keep turning the printer on at least twice a week, there is a _good_ chance that they will continue clean, if you keep the paper entering the printer always clean (I keep my printer always covered - I mean, not the cover of the printer, I cover ALL the printer with a cleaning cloth).
That's all for now. I'm tired. So, make up your mind and if you buy a C82, you have been warned.
posted 10-06-2003 21:52
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