My resin printer was powered off with resin in the vat for about 7 months. Last night I turned it on, gave it a job, and I woke up to a successful print.
My inkjet printer was powered off for 2 weeks. Last night I turned it on, gave it a job, and was instantly disappointed with a streaky, blotchy output. Running a clean cycle just made the output worse.
Why are 2D printers so terrible despite decades of development? What are some 2D printers this community has had good interactions with/would recommend?
Inkjet 2D printers are terrible because they are purposefully designed to milk their owners for money in the form of overpriced ink cartridges. Often the printer itself is sold at a loss and the manufacturer’s single goal is to profit off of the sale of consumables. Inkjet itself is a technology that’s inherently fraught, due to the possibility of ink drying out. It’s the same reason most people don’t use fountain pens anymore, because the principle and pitfalls are basically exactly the same. (Says the guy who owns like 427 fountain pens. So I like to be contrarian; do as I say, not as I do.)
The answer to your question on what to recommend is a laser printer. No contest.
A lot of people like Brother laser printers. I would avoid anything by HP (for pretty much everything, not just printers). I personally have a Canon color laser printer which has been pretty good to me so far.
Sounds like the consensus. I also have a dye sublimation printer for photos (Canon Selphy) and it never fails. We’ve used it as a “near instant photobooth” at weddings, put probably a thousand photos through it, and photos today looks as great as the day we bought it.
The dye sub printers are doggedly reliable because basically the entire print mechanism is actually in that CYMK film cartridge, and every time you replace it you get a whole new everything. The printer itself only encompasses the linear heating element and paper handler and doesn’t have to contain any ink/toner/pigment handling hardware at all.
But that’s also why the things are so damn expensive per print. They’re excellent for the singular purpose of printing photos, which admittedly is what they’re marketed for, but lousy at everything else.
I have a tank printer which I got like 5 years ago? It still works and the ink is pretty cheap even if you buy first party. We are still using the ink the printer came with 5 years after. The print quality can suffer if I don’t use it for over a month but the maintenance job has always fixed the issue so far.
I don’t doubt laser printers are great. I’m just offering a potential 2ndary option.
The Epson EcoTank. Yeah, I went through three of those under warranty before I gave up. I bought my color laser immediately thereafter.
Epson’s design decisions with those, at least of the generation I had, were worse than questionable. The ink tanks are not sealed, so your ink slowly dries out and thickens. Then the print head clogs. Dust can also work its way in under the caps. There is no way to drain the tanks for transport, cleaning, or removing expired ink (except to use a long syringe) and there is no consumer accessible way to purge or clean the lines inside, either. The print head is also not removable for cleaning or replacement. If it gets gummed up and the printer’s inbuilt cleaning song-and-dance with the wipe pad can’t fix it, you are capital F fucked.
Epson then instructs you to drain the ink tanks before sending your unit in for warranty work, knowing full well that they did not include any provision whatsoever to allow you to do so. Genius! After the warranty expires, the machine is landfill. It is not feasibly serviceable by the average end user.
Needless to say, I do not recommend the Epson EcoTank line. It’s great that you’re having good results with yours, though. I certainly didn’t with any of the three I had.
Three?! Wow that’s insane. The QA on these must be terrible. I guess if you luck out it’s great lmao.
There’s more than just Epson. There are Canon ink tanks too, and probably Brother.
All are super easy to dismantle and clean if need be.
I recently got a color laser printer and in my research is seems like the consensus is that Brother is very solid for printers overall, but Canon seems to be a bit better at the price point for color laser. Very happy with it so far.