I think the cost effectiveness is straight forward. Assuming $12 per ink cartridge and you need 6 for a photo printer, that's already $72. For $60 already can buy a set of CISS with lots of ink to print with.

Sorry Taky I've confused the issue - your maths are right if you use branded ink - and providing the ink heads on the $60 of kit don't dry up before you do your second job.

It's true. If you really don't print much, it's really not necessary to get CISS. The 3 sets of CISS I'm using, I'm very happy about it. I printed full color photo as DVD covers for wedding clients. I saved a lot and not have to worry about the cost of ink printing full page color =)

I was planning to order this but reading the specs, it noted that a modification must be made to the printer. A small piece of plastic must be cut out of the lid so the ink lines will not error the printing. I suppose I will need to put up with an ink hog, at least for a couple months because if the printer has issues(which many of the Epson’s do and this one is no exception) and I return it to Epson with the lid modification, the warranty will surely be void.

Ron

I bought the Artisan 50 brand new for $60 off email free shipping. I don't worry about modding the cage holding the ink cartrdige. Then for warranty, I really don't think I want to spend $20 to $30 shipping back to Epson to repair a $60 printer.

Taky has a good point but can't you remove the lid completely, at least for the warranty period?

Ive never used Lightscribe - the discs are a bit expensive here..

When my old HP printer died several years ago from overwork, I replaced it with a cheap (under $200) Canon Pixmar bought primarily because it could do disc printing. This has worked beautifully for the me, and I use a combination of Photoshop and the free software for doing artwork. Only takes a couple of moments, even to do just a plain disc title (Title, client, time etc) and comments from clients downstream have been super positive.

Using a template I made, I even do the sleeve art in a few minutes (while burning) The hard part is trimming the paper and inserting it into the case later on..

I was looking at waterproof discs, but gave up until I read Phillip's post, which begs the question; what sort of sealant are you using?

Ben

I read somewhere a while back that ordinary car cellulose spray is essentially the same as the branded CD/DVD-specific sealant costing about 5 times as much. I've been using it for five years at least and have had no complaints yet. The trick (as with using it on your car) is getting the spray even but I bet you've got almost as many dud disks lying around as I have and practice makes perfect.

I've got the spraying to a bit of a fine art now so I burn first, print/spray afterwards but I've heard good arguments for doing it the other way round.

As with all spray cans it pays to clear the head after every use even though you waste some propellant each time. Best to do it in a large space as it probably does more harm to your lungs than a couple of Marlboro.

Finally, as I mentioned previously I have my demo blanks produced professionally, ie printed/sprayed. Then I can burn the demo of the moment to requirements using a small 7-station duplicator I constructed around a Wytron controller. My supplier recently started delivering the disks face-to-face in pairs since they'd discovered that over the burning face of sprayed disks stacked conventionally on a spindle tended to be discoloured.

It didn't seem to affect the burning or burned data but just looked a bit scrappy. His German spray booth manufacturer gave the face-to-face stacking advice. My supplier has also switched to the new thinner RiData disks which work well and look good.

For any similar job I'd recommend doing a deal with your local supplier for 500/1000 off printed and sprayed - mine charges me considerably less than I'd have to pay for waterproof blanks unprinted and I find face printing more boring than watching paint dry (or ink!).

I have just ordered an inkjet fixative spray and at £4.99 delivered....you can't go wrong
7dayshop.com - Online Store

C'mon... nobody in the world using thermal retransfer technology ?? (rimage & teac)... very interested on one of these... the samples look AWESOME even vs. watershield discs...

good luck

Where'd you get it? I can't find them for under $100.

I bought a Canon ip4600 for $49.99 at The Source here in Canada. I was going to buy used, but for $50 bucks its a no brainer.

It prints to Cds/DVDs and the results look great to me.

Canons in the US and Canada used to not include the CD tray. I tried to mod my i960 to print to Cds but I was unable to find the CD tray on eBay.

Do Canons in the US now supply the CD tray?

Bruce, it's on ebay.. so you have to check it once in a while to see if there's good deal. If you don't see one today, check in a week.

Also, I am using those continous ink system (CISS). So I will look for the ebay listing that doesn't include original ink cartirdiges. that's why they are cheaper.

I am going to offer a different opinion on Super Smart Electronics. This is a one man band, not some big electronics store as his website might suggest. He sold me a CISS system that did not work. He's extremely rude and refuses to accept returns even though his ebay page explicitly states that his CISS systems are guaranteed. Google Super Smart Electronics and you will find numerous other complaints about this guy.

He'll take your money fast enough and then disappear.

Taky's experience has been favorable, I'll suggest it's the exception not rule.

Philip can you please let me know what spray you use - I am using seiko specifically for DVDs but it's pretty expensive - I'm on my last can and could do with changing to something cheaper

Cheers

Pete