I have one of these that I bought off of Ebay and I love it.
Saves a ton of money on ink! Think about it....with the CIS (Continuous Ink System), you get the equivalent of 8-10 cartridges with of ink FOR EACH COLOR for less than the cost of one full set from Epson!
The cost to get more ink is $20, where you get enough to fill the container 1.5 times.
It is super easy to install & I refilling isn't bad either.
I take a couple of big garbage bags and cut them so they're flat & use that. The only mess I had my first time was on the third cartridge where I forgot to remove BOTH lids and there wasn't any airflow into the container, so when I removed the syringe thing (not really a syringe because there isn't a needle), the pressure caused the ink to fly everywhere (luckily it was all caught by the printer itself & the garbage bags).
Then I just used rubbing alcohol & cleaned the entire printer (there was TONS of dust in/on it, so it needed it anyways). Roll up the bags carefully & dump them in the trash & you're good to go!
The ONLY downside to this system is the printer itself. Epsons are very wasteful printers. They use ink faster than any other printer I've ever had. Add to that the fact that the printer DOES NOT actually sense how much ink is in the cartridge and just "guesses." When I used official cartridges, I cut one open after the printer said there was no more ink & there was a LOT (~1/4 full) of ink left. That's what made me start looking for refillable carts and eventually a CIS in the first place.
The other downside to this is that the print heads get clogged quite easily (print heads are built into the PRINTER in Epson printers, NOT the cartridges, so this is also a problem with the printer, not the CIS. What this means is in order to keep the print heads unclogged, you need to print (and quite often) or run a cleaning cycle on your printer (usually takes 2-3 times) and if you've just reset the cartridges to read full, Epson will show roughly 2/3 or more of the ink gone after 3 cleaning cycles. WOW! Seriously, google it, it's a problem with pretty much ALL epson printers. You can also manually clean the print heads as well . I used those instructions and they worked perfectly, but it's kind of a PITA to HAVE to print or else you are going to have to either waste ink or spend 5-10 minutes manually cleaning the print heads.
I understand the fact that printer companies generally sell their printers at close to cost and make their money back on the ink cartridges and understand how some people could "feel bad" about "ripping them off", but Epson started it! When they say the cart. is empty and in reality it has 1/4 of the ink left, I feel absolutely zero remorse for buying this system!
Hope you enjoyed my review. As I said, I LOVE THIS SYSTEM.
Also, don't get me wrong, I truly do LOVE my Epson printer....the quality is great and more importantly, it produces the best looking CDs.
HP printers print to CD as well, but don't do a good job and foreign Canon printers can do it as well, but they're more costly than an Epson. There is a hack to get US printers as well and Canon are supposed to look pretty good as well.
The fact that Epson makes excellent prints, has CD printing AND can use a CIS makes it an excellent buy.
Sorry about my spiel about Epson, but I wanted to make sure people realize that I wasn't bad mouthing the printer, merely stating some downsides to it.
ENJOY! :-)
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Yes 3,000 pages of printing and counting at under $50 for the Ciss system and a Ink refill. Ive had the system for over a year now and as a Home Schooler, I print abnormally high amounts of Documents. My Epson has not held up quite so well as the Ciss system did. So I upgraded to a similar model, that used the same cartridges and transferred the Ciss system. Works awesome.
The little Plastic clip do not work very well, but considering it has saved me $600 + In the last year, Ill deal with it.
Best Deals for Ciss Cis System for Epson R260/ R380/ R280/ Rx580/ Rx680/ Rx595
I've had this CISS for my R280 almost 2 years and its just about dead. I've printed on at least 400 DVD's and around 2000 pages. Can't beat that for $35 bucks. Its a must for you to print a page or two every few days if you want to keep your nozzles from clogging. Took me a while to figure that one out. Also the ink isn't the greatest but works fine for everyday use, if you need bright colors for special work I would recommend getting the epson ink.
Anyway after using this as long as I have it will be easier just to shell out another $35 bucks for a new one that is full of ink then to mess around trying to clean this one up and refilling it. lol. Will buy another one soon.
Honest reviews on Ciss Cis System for Epson R260/ R380/ R280/ Rx580/ Rx680/ Rx595
Hi-I'll cut to the chase: My R280 CAN GIVE ME FITS. The price of OEM INK is UNGodly high !
If you haven't done your homework Epson OWNS the North American patents on DVD/CD printing machines. My mission was to beat the system, period ! I bought the EXACT SYSTEM you see above.-
Yes, it was a PITA after many times trying to find the "right" length of the tube to allow inside the printer==ALSO make a note of the intermitent EPSON POPUP--"the cover is open". I use a PLASTIC pen cover/top that i gently place in the INSIDE on that grove where the Printer cover "fits" down into the base. You'll see what i mean, it's on the left hand side.
****I USE THE EPSON CONTROL CENTER--U KNOW WHERE YOU TELL IT WHAT KIND OF PAPER YOU'RE USING ETC ??---aFTER I HIT manual print---i GO TO "advanced" AND ADJUST THE amount of ink---
I learned thru EXPERIMENTATION, that i can adjust the "SATURATION" of not only the total amount of ink, but also each color. I was able to do this ,people, because I had THIS CIS UNIT !!! I could never have afforded to use the Epson ink carts to do this.
THIS $35 system WORKS, No more drilling w/ my "Dremel Drill" holes in carts etc. Oh yes, one more thing,
If getting a 'bit' of ink on your fingers upsets you--either you're a very rich person, or a very LAZY one(not my original choice of a word Lol) in this current economic climate--we the people DO HAVE a WORKABLE alternative to allowing Big Business to shaft us--it is this product !! i HAVE PRINTED LITERALLY hundreds OF PHOTOS & .PDF user manuals for EVERYTHING I own. You know why folks ?? BECAUSE I CAN and it does NOT break the bank ! I don't work for them, I just feel a need to tell my fellow man WE CAN WIN & save money. Many folks thought I was a nut when I switched OFF my ph. company & bought an Ooma system. Ha ha ha. I haven't a ph. bill since Dec '08. Now, take therse folks up on their offer to MAKE U HAPPY. Enjoy your extra savings folks, I'm DonTaylor, It's May 19, '10 & I've owned this CIS since last Sept.
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Everyone who have written a review on this product will already have all of the answers you will need to know but when I bought this item, I had a few difficulties in installing it.
Now don't get me wrong, this item is perfect for those that want to save money and also print ten times the amount than you could with "authentic" Epson cartridges. That's the whole definition of the CIS.
HotZone360 is a great company and they put customer service first than profits. That is, without a doubt, true.
Anyways let's get to the real problem. If you have read all of the other reviews and you are still stuck with trying to get the Epson printers to work, then you may want to try the solution below.
1. Uninstall all programs related to your Epson printer and reinstall them.
2. Make sure you try not to update them if they offer the updates. If you do update, you may have some trouble with getting the Epson printer to recognize your CIS ink cartridges because those updates also block the CIS chips.
I have had difficulties in getting the cartridges of the CIS recognized by the Epson R280 printer when I first tried to install it. I literally read all of the Amazon reviews here and looked at HotZone360 instructional videos. I made sure to do everything correctly step by step but the printer still didn't recognize the CIS.
Initially, I was planning to ask them to send me a new chip (used by Epson R280 printer to recognize whether the ink cartridges are "genuine" or not) because I thought the chip that came with the CIS was broken.
On that same day, I decided to uninstall and reinstall the Epson R280 drivers and.. IT WORKED.
So for those that may be having trouble with the CIS chip recognition, you may want to try this solution out.
