Epson Stylus SX610FW

On the ‘looks the business’ scales, this machine will take quite a counterweight. Big and glossy black, it has a wavy top concealing its 30-sheet ADF. Open the input tray and the output tray drops away – very neat. The front control panel, which can be swung out to several different angles, holds a bright, 63mm LCD and large, …

[John Lilburne]

Can you clean the Epson?

My last Epson had an ink incident. Ink got onto the rollers and all subsequent prints smudged black ink across the pages. Epson's response was to buy a new Epson. I have an interesting support chat exchange with me describing the problem and every other response from the support bod being "We are doing some great deals on new printers at the moment."

Fuckers.

[Gulfie]

Did you try a local Epson service centre?

I had a similar issue with an older 300-series printer and my local Epson service centre managed to sort this out. Yes it cost, but still quite a bit cheaper than a replacement.

[John Lilburne]

Yep

The estimate for cleaning it was about the same price as new one "We have excellent deals on Epson printers at the moment." The printer was 18mo old and I'd had a previous Epson go titsup within two years, so I wasn't too keen on throwing more money at them. Reconnected the older HP which sprang to life and started printing just as well as it had done before, and used the Epson for scanning, CD printing, and scrap printing. After about 6 weeks the smudges went away and its back as the printer for photos.

But it shouldn't be like that. I shouldn't need to take the thing offline for several week, or take it to a service engineer in order to wipe the rollers with damp cloth, and perhaps I'm old fashioned but I've yet to accept the mindset of "slight problem throw away and get a new one".

[Gulfie]

Alternative Epson

The 710 is also a great printer. Has a paper tray that is fully internal and also prints CDs. Does not have the sheet feeder on top. But fantastic value at £110 on Amazon, and currently you can also order OEM ink at £30 a set instead of the RRP of £56.

[Anonymous Coward]

CIS?

About the only thing that makes my Epson printer at home economical is the Continuous Ink System I got off someone on Ebay. It's great on my R200.

The problem with these enclosed all-in-ones is how I could squeeze something like that in there.

Anyone know of any efforts in this area?

[Gulfie]

CIS selling on Amazon

I've seen a CIS as an 'upsell' link on Amazon - just go to the 710 (or 610) product page and have a look at the related items.

I'm not a fan of CIS but that is mainly because my kids are liable to knock it over.