I'm in the market for a new printer anyway, so, what recomendations can you (and your customers) make re makes and models? I'm guessing the big issues are ink quality and paper feed capabilities. Are there models that will flat-feed cardstock?

Jim

I second this request. Gentlemen please advise us on what printer to use.Thank you and Merry Christmas...

I have the Kodak ESP 7 all-in-one printer, it is a really good printer however some things really get to me. First the printer sounds like you hit the lottery when you start to print ( it checks all paper drawers to see if there is paper present ). Second it runs 110lb paper really well but with an enclosed paper tray you are limited to 8 1/2 by 11 paper and you can not tape two pieces together making the 14".
The printer ink is cheap but kodak does not fill the cartridges very full so you run out of ink quicker than you should compared to my old HP.
Basically it is a good printer but I wouldn't buy it again.

I haven't ever used anything fancy to print out excellent versions of the Clever Kits over the past 5 years or so. I have a plain old Dell Photo 944 (all-in-one). All I do is tell the printer that the image is photo-quality and that it is being fed cardstock (to loosen the rollers a little) and it works fine. I have a color laser printer at the university where I work and it does no better job (sometimes its worse). As for cartridges and ink, I stick with the Dell manufactured cartrigdes. I have tried several different generics and don't like them.

Jim

Thom, when I last picked up ink the black ink was 9.95 and the color was 14.00

I will say that the quality of printing is equal to my HP but replacing inks at 20. & 40. for black & color the HP got replaced.

I have been using an HP color laserjet with success. The ink does not bleed. However, it was not cheap and the cartridges for toner are not cheap either. I think the toner is fused onto the paper, so it makes the printing pretty durable. My printer/copier/scanner/fax was $500, but I think I will have it for long time. At least I hope....

-ben

This is kind of an old thread, but I have a CANON PIXMA MP830 Multi-function. I recently completed plant #2 with normal cardstock and the completed kit turned out "OK". I recently downloaded the Jefferson Ice Co. kit and as a test, printed a wall out on photo paper, as well as on the cardstock I was using. The difference is striking. I don't think I will ever go back to normal cardstock, except for maybe internal bracing. So in my opinion is that the paper matters greatly as well as the ink and the printer.

The best printer out there for quality, realiability and cheap ink cartridges is the HP photosmart premiums. They are designed to print photographs and use inks that won't fade. They also are wireless both bluetooth and wifi so you dont have to plug them into anything but the wall. So far the color is dead on and I have yet to have a jam in my machine and I have fed only 100 pd cardstock thru it. Also it has 4 color cartridges and they cost about 7 dollars a piece to replace...11 dollars for the black, which makes it easy to pick up ink if it runs out. Also since it is a photo quality printer they have exceptional black quality, I found that the black from some of my old bubble jet printers, when printing color used the color cartridges to make it and it just wasn't dark enough.
I hope this helps you guys out, HP photosmart premiums...I think they run around 200 dollars at staples.