Canon Printer in Aldi

[robjon44Participant @robjon44]

Hi all, dropped in local Aldi yesterday (Friday), stumbled on a stack of Canon Pixma MG2550S 3 way printers, I am not a fan of inkjets myself having had bad experiences in the past but I think you will agree that an A4 printer, copier, scanner of good pedigree for £23 has to be a bargain. Scurried off home, all set up in 15 minutes, knocked out a couple of black & single colour notices as a test, also a 6 x 4 photo on plain paper, will try gloss photo paper when I find it in this madhouse, so goes like a train. To illustrate how tight I am I do my black & white printing on a Brother mono laser that was an end of line at PC World for the princely sum of £25, these do not seize up if unused for long periods like inkjets, later

Robjon 44

[robjon44Participant @robjon44]

[Anthony KnightsParticipant @anthonyknights16741]

I also bought one to replace a dodgey printer of a different make which I have. It's a good price, but the problem is, a set of ink cartridges cost more than the printer.

[Clive HartlandParticipant @clivehartland94829]

I too bought a canon printer and within a month dumped it, it was not able to print A4 colour prints the size it would print was 100 mm x 150 mm. Also very noisy too. This also had a copy function but awkward to set up. My advice even at that price leave it alone. Epson are far better.

Clive

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

I have a prehistoric but rock solid HP1022 laser for B&W and an Epson Ecotank for colour, cheap as chips to run.

Neil

[Clive HartlandParticipant @clivehartland94829]

Agree on the Epson Eco tank printer- Epson ET-2500 Copier included.

Clive

[larry PhelanParticipant @larryphelan54019]

I bought a Canon printer two years ago which worked for a while then began to have problems taking in the paper.It became a pain-in-the-butt,was not worth the cost of repair and the ink costs more than the printer itself.

Looked it up on GOOGLE to see if anyone else had similar problems. Do they Hell ! It seems that Cannon printers are well known for this [look it up,check it out ]

Not much point in bringing these things back to a chain store,they know nothing about them and will just fob you off onto someone else. Next time I think about buying a printer,I will go to a proper outlet,with some kind of backup and service.

[Former MemberParticipant @formermember98489]

[This posting has been removed]

[Paul LousickParticipant @paullousick59116]

It is important with inkjet printers to use them regularly to stop the ink drying in the nozzles.

There are also re-fillable ink cartridges available which cut down on running costs.

[not done it yetParticipant @notdoneityet]

Laser monochrome printers are so much cheaper to run and the print does not ‘run’ if the copy gets wet. More expensive to buy, yes, and the drum can be ruined by numpties – but that was my choice when we were doing ~10k copies per year.

These days ink jet printers are virtually loss-leaders, to get the revenue from the running costs of over-expensive ink cartridges.

My wife has had at least six and likely more than ten ink jet printers in rather less than twenty years, for one reason or another. Admittedly they now colour print, but are not cheap to run, especially if mixing colours to provide black print. I would buy another laser printer, but she wants something more easily portable…

[Douglas JohnstonParticipant @douglasjohnston98463]

I went to buy a replacement toner cartridge for my Samsung mono laser printer and found the shop were selling off older model non wifi laser printers for £30,while the replacement cartridge was nearly double that price . I now have two laser printers!

I know that new printers come with a reduced capacity cartridge but I don't do much printing and expect to get at least a couple of years out of the new machine before I will have to buy a replacement cartridge or yet another bargain machine.The whole thing is silly

Doug

[VicParticipant @vic]

We’ve had a Canon PIXMA 6600 (released 2006) for many years. We’ve never had any paper feed problems with it. On at least one occasion the printer was left unused for well over a year but worked perfectly when it was used.

[Rik ShawParticipant @rikshaw]

"I have a prehistoric but rock solid HP1022 laser for B&W and an Epson Ecotank for colour, cheap as chips to run."

Same here, only difference is ours is an HP P2055d. The Epson Ecotank ET 2500 can sit for a month or so without being used but always prints on demand without any problems. Ink cartridges are now just a bad memory.

Rik

[roy entwistleParticipant @royentwistle24699]

I have a canon Pixma MG5750 I can get a set of other manufacturers cartridges ( 5 ) for the price of one Canon. It gets left unused for several weeks at a time and has never given any trouble, either blocked nozzles or paper feed.

Roy

[larry phelan 1Participant @larryphelan1]

Still say Cannon printers have a problem feeding paper. Check it out on Google.

When they start selling these things for £23,you can read between the lines [no pun intended ]

Trying to get them repaired? you must be joking !

Look at them leave them !

[MuzzerParticipant @muzzer]

At one point they were literally giving ink jet printers away with reams of paper. Presumably you would get it set up, start using it – and then the "demo" cartridges would run out. I acquired one like this and finally "recycled" it without even opening the box once I saw the costs and the penny dropped. Would have been better to have simply left it in the store.

Recently threw out an inkjet printer / scanner device at work. Usual problem – heads blocked because it hadn't been used for about 6 months. Apparently some people manage to fix them by washing out the heads in warm soapy water but you can imagine how this might go wrong! Some of the "professional" inkjets had replaceable heads as well as in cartridges but in my experience there was still a lot of buggerage uncertainty and expense unless they were used regularly.

I now just go for B/W or colour laser printers. Quick, clean, consistent and fairly quiet.

Murray

Edited By Muzzer on 12/09/2018 10:34:59

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

How strange. This thread seems to be attracting a gentle flow of spammers trying to seed links to printer support sites.

Easy to stop, but I'm curious as to why they are doing this!

Neil

[Chris Jones 3Participant @chrisjones3]

I have used Canon printers for probably 10 years or more and have never had a problem with paper feeds, in fact they seem to be remarkably reliable.

I would not buy the cheapest on offer of any manufacturer because has someone has already remarked you end up paying more for a set of the cartridges than the cost of the original printer.

When I wore out my IP7250 I upgraded to a 3 in 1 (MX925) machine that used the same sets of 5 cartridges because I had a couple on the shelf. It is an excellent machine. The cartridges cost less than £5 a set if you stock up with 4 sets from Prink. The cartiridges are high capacity and last a good while.

I print 6×4 photos with this machine and people think they have been professionally done.

Some people are silly enough to pay around £25 for a single HP cartridge that does'nt have anything like the capacity of the Prink ones.

You pays your money ………

Chris.

[Simon CookParticipant @simoncook82779]

The thing is, £23 is good value in mind.

Not only do you get to use the printer until the demo ink runs out, but then you've got a whole host of brand new parts which can be harvested from it.

Straight off the bat, there will be two motors. Then there will be some half decent steel shafts, not to mention some (plastic) cogs and pulleys and maybe one or two toothed belts. Additionally if you want to keep them, other little bits like springs etc which can all be useful.

My printer cycle tends to be:-

Buy wife new cheep printer -> wait for ink to run out -> harvest printer for parts -> buy wife new cheep printer

I go though that cycle every 18/24 months.

[David ColwillParticipant @davidcolwill19261]

I bought an Epsom XP412 because I had seen that the computer shop near me did the knock off cartridges for £2.00 for a black or £8.00 for a set of 3 colours and a black. It gets used pretty much every day (mainly printing delivery notes / invoices etc) and has given no trouble in the 3 years I have owned it. I still have the original Epsom cartridges as It didn't seem worthwhile fitting them.

David.

[pgk pgkParticipant @pgkpgk17461]

For an extreme example of being tight on buying cartridges.. one used to buy 500ml bottles of ink, drill a hole into the epson cartidge to inject a new alliquot of ink and then seal with a self-tapper prior to next refill. I was printing flyers and cards by the many hundreds and all went well until the day I knocked the red ink stock bottle over….

pgk

[VicParticipant @vic]

I used to provide tech support in one of my jobs (300+ Employees) and many HP inkjets and small mono lasers ended up in the skip due to paper feed problems. Epson and Canon inkjets and the larger HP mono lasers (workgroup) were never a problem. One consistent problem was operator error, it’s really surprising the number of people that can’t follow simple instructions when loading paper.

[Ady1Participant @ady1]

Got a fabby canon scanner which can do thousands of copies

Got it cheap because the paper has to be hand fed, the paper feed system is pants

[HOWARDTParticipant @howardt]

Ady1, try using thicker paper. I've found using 90gm paper reduces the problems of incorrect feed, 70gm seems like tissue paper these days.

[Nick Clarke 3Participant @nickclarke3]

Posted by HOWARDT on 12/09/2018 16:07:21:

Ady1, try using thicker paper. I've found using 90gm paper reduces the problems of incorrect feed, 70gm seems like tissue paper these days.

Totally agree. I buy paper and printers for our school and some brands of 80g paper just will not feed in any printer others will feed in some printers and not others. Some mono and colour laser printers are worse than inkjets.

The big issue is that inkjets need to be used. I have scrapped Canon, HP and Epson printers that have had gunged up heads. Apart from printers where the head is in the cartridge (which are prohibitively expensive to run), all have replaceable heads, but at about £90 for an head for a £50 printer I don't bother.

Canons are not especially bad for slipping rollers – they can always be cleaned if necessary and they are not the only ones – HP were supplying roller cleaning kits for deskjet printers already in the 1990s.

If the waste ink bottle is full on an inkjet it is probably not worth stripping the printer down to replace it. Those in Lasers are easier to get at, but take care as the toner dust itself is carcinogenic.

If you want to print photos, particularly on photo paper, then the inkjet, providing you use decent paper and keep using it, is a good choice – otherwise put up with the lower image quality from a colour laser. If you only use mono then a mono laser is a no brainer.

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