Hey all,
We are in the market for a new direct to disc CD/DVD printer only - no burners. We have been trying to do some research, but many of the descriptions leave out a lot of important info, such as what the cost per disc will be, how many will be able to be printed before changing ink, etc. We want something automated (not the cheap manual Epson printers), such as a Rimage, Microboards, or something similar, without being the price of a new car. What cost effective printer(s) would you suggest in the price range of $1000 - $4000?

Has anybody used the Alea Systems Products? They look pretty cool...

http://www.alea.com/pdf/galaxy_1006.pdf

I recently purchased a Rimage Prism Plus Auto Printer from B&H and it is great. It is built very well and it is amazing to be able to load 300 CDs, push start, and watch it do it's thing. It is almost human in it's movements. It is around $ 8000, so it may be pusing your budget. There are less expensive robotic printers out there, but I don't think they are as dependable as the Rimage. This is my second Rimage, my first Prism is still going strong after about 6 years. Take a look at the Rimage, i think you will be impressed with their product and customer support.

Thanks Glenn,
I have still been checking around - My problem with the prisim plus / everest is that the cost per disc is up there. We do pretty heavy duplication for our projects, and having to buy expensive ink cartridges and/or transfer ribbons is not what we really want to be doing.

This Alea company claims that their printers have printing costs around 2 cents a disc. They use refillable ink tanks rather than cartridges or ribbons. Their $500 worth of ink yields 40,000 full color discs, which seems pretty amazing to me, where as most of the Rimage printers yield 500 discs with a supplies cost of $80 - $120 for those 500.

We don't mind spending $4,000 - $8,000 if it is something that will save us a ton of money in the long run. The $1000 - $3000 price I listed above was so that we could purchase a few of them for increased production times.

Thanks