Hey all, I was just wondering what brands and models of printers you have had success with.  My last printer couldnt hack the cardstock and died   so Im in the market.

I have a Canon C82 at home that rocks. It's got four seperate ink cartridges and the ink is water resistant, so if someone accidentally spills their drink on your model you're not watching the ink pool in strange places. Of course if you seal your final model with a mat sealer, then you probably don't need to worry about that. Ink color is nice and vibrant as well. The C82's pretty quick as well, but I was moving up from an old low-end budget HP inkjet, so my impressions may not be valid. Oh, and I've run 110lb through it regularly with absolutley no problems.

At work I've used one of the HP Color Laser printers, but don't go that route as the toner has a tendency to crack off of the folded edges.

Does the Cannon accept refills?

Good question. I've never tried refilling it. I don't burn through cartridges all that quickly (about every 3 months or so), so I really haven't felt the need to look for refill kits. In theory they should work, although I do know that Canon's embedded a chip in the cartridge that tells the printer how much ink is left and you'd have to find a way to disable that or reset the chip otherwise you'd have to live with the low ink warning message every time you print.

There's a company that does sell compatible cartridges that are pretty cheap, but I've only been able to find them online and I haven't gotten around to ordering any to see if they are any good.

I recommend the Lexmark Z23, and its brother, the Z65(?), available at Wal-Mart, for $30-$50.  There are two models at Wal-Mart, and one is $20 more, for a very slight speed increase.  Both models use the #16 and #26 cartridges:  refillable, reducing the cartridge cost to $5 and $8, net cost; OEM cartridges will run $30-$35 each.

Visit your local Wal-Mart for pricing.  Then order Refill KITS (need the cool tools included in the "Refill Kit", first, then order ink separately, thereafter...).  Check for bulk ink packages at Sam's Clubs (if available...), or go to , for refill kits, and ink.  I used them, and I am a very satisfied customer!  Cheers!  

Sgt. Slag,

Out of curiosity, how many pages of models can you get before you have to refill?

Excellent question!  Wish I had an excellent answer...  Truth is, I really don't know.  If you consult a printer manufacturer's site, they will tell you how many pages, with an average of 5% coverage, a "toner cartridge" will last.  This is a very misleading representation, but it is all they give you.  I have not seen anything like this for inkjet cartridges, though.  

How does this relate to your question?  It is only a tangential answer, really.  If I quote you a page count, it may prove wildly inaccurate for you, based on what you print, compared to what I print, and at what density we print!  I tend to print at the "Rough" setting, as opposed to the "Best," and the "Normal" settings.  I do this for a couple of reasons:  1) I think it looks better, on the Castle Works stone walls, towers, etc.; 2) it puts far less ink on the card stock, thereby extending the life of the cartridge, while decreasing the cost of printing, and modeling!  "Your mileage may vary..."

To give you a very rough guesstimate  :-/, I'd say in the neighborhood of 18+ pages of castle towers and wall sections, in B&W (I added color doors, and floors, from color pages, to give me a gray castle, for variety).  I would guesstimate that the color cartridge gives similar mileage, or maybe less  :-/ -- I've never bothered to track it, as I use the same printer for all of my PC printing needs:  e-mail, my childrens' homework, correspondence, RPG record sheets, and other sundry purposes.  The amount of 'coverage' on a page of towers, wall sections, or other buildings, though, is much, much higher than the aforementioned 5%!

If you want to save money, the best thing to do is to wait for Denny to offer the pre-printed, off-set print version of his works.  These will be on 110# card stock, professionally printed in bulk, and should be less expensive than printing them at home with a much lower quality level than what the off-set printed stuff will be...  Cheers!  ;)

Thanks!  That is good information.  I actually have a printer at work now that I use (Tektronix 850), which I am very happy with.  It uses ink stiks instead of toner, and I have found that the sticks produce an excellent model.  

I was thinking of buying a new printer for home and was just curious as to what I might expect with a traditional ink printer.

Lexmark are some of the thirstiest printers on the market - I went through way too many cartridges on my Z 52. While it had very good print quality, and the best page positioning I have ever seen, I cannot really recommend Lexmark, just too much money went to cartridges.

The Auld Grump

Auld Grump, what type of printer would you recommend?  I agree, Lexmark do seem to be quite thirsty!  I love their paper handling, though:  no problems with 110# card stock, good looking results (at "Draft" mode, I found my CW stuff looked better than the "Normal" mode, thereby saving a lot of ink...).  Cheers!

Our Epson CX5400 works great. Individual ink cartridges minimize waste. Takes 110lb card stock fine. Has a built in scanner and was US$150 minus a US$20 rebate.

I use a Tektronix 850 at work.  It uses the solid Ink Stix instead of liquid ink.  I've been tremendously happy with the print quality.  The solid Stix are basically big crayons that get melted down as ink.  The output comes out very crisp and a little shiny.  The nice part is that because it is wax, the models are fairly waterproof and never bleed!

The downside to this printer would be the high fixed cost.  I've seen used ones on eBay at about $500.  I don't know what new ones sell for but it's considerably more.  Also, the ink stix themselves can be spendy.  Again, I've seen them on eBay for $200/set, which includes black, cyan, magenta & yellow.  I would estimate that a set of Stix would yield in the neighborhood of 2000-3000 printed sheets of WWG models, perhaps more.  

Fortunately, my work pays the cost of printer supplies, so I am lucky in that regard.  I have never used any other printer for WWG products, so have no comparisons if this is cheap or expensive relative to other types of ink.  

I have an HP PSC 2410 Inkjet.  I have been very happy with this printer but I am no expert on Inkjets.  I'm also new to the paper dungeon stuff.

I have been working on the Chunky Dungeon lately and put in a fresh color cartridge ($35 bucks from Office Depot).  Based on my current project, I think one color cartridge is about what I'll use to print out the entire Chunky Dungeon 1.5. (was getting the low ink warning last night on my color cartridge)

This is printing the minimum recommend and then some extras.  For instance, it called for 6-8 long walls, I printed probably 10 of those sheets.  I am also printing at 600x600 quality so that will consume more ink.

At any rate, this is a true all in one printer and I am more then happy with it (was around $230 range when I picked it up awhile back - sale & rebates).

EDIT:  After getting home last night I discovered I was wrong, it wasn't that my color cartridge was low, it was my black ink cartridge, which I haven't replaced since I bought the machine.  So I can print and then some and really have no idea when the color will run out.  ;D

We have an HP all-in-one as well..I think it's a 2200 or 2220 or somesuch.  So far, we've been quite happy with the results.

Actually, this is more of a driver issue then the actual printer. I had to experiment with my printer to get a good printing set. Your driver is probably identical to mine.

I tested on general purpose 110pd cardstock using different settings (and building the object).

I have noticed that if I do Borderless printing, ensuring the auto-center option and scaling is unchecked, it comes out a tad larger then it is supposed to be(I think). For instance, the CD walls are just over 3" long, I forget the amount they go over but it's definately longer. One other thing I noticed is printing this way they have a noticeable faded look to them.

Now, if I go back and uncheck borderless printing and check auto-center but leave the scaling option unselected, it will print a bit smaller (forget if it was actually 3" for the wall but I believe it is). Surprisingly, the actual image is MUCH brighter and doesn't have that faded look.

Now, I did this test after I had already built many using the Borderless option so I have a mix now, which works because you can kind of work them in has needed. I'm finding that the latter method to be working better for me since it lessens the "tightness" issue I was running into on my board with the first method.

Dan

I highly recommend Inksell.com for refill kits, but look elsewhere for ink -- their tool kits are fantastic, but their ink is pricey,IMO.

I use a Lexmark Z23 (uses same cartridges as the Z605), and it handles card stock superbly, without problems. The price for the Z605, at Wal-Mart, is around US$50-US$60. The downside, is that this printer is THIRSTY, when it comes to putting down ink... The cartridges drain rather fast.

I print out most of my stuff at "Draft Quality", and it looks pretty decent, on my gaming table. This saves on ink, and it dries much faster than "Normal Qualtiy", or, if I could afford the ink, "Best Quality".

As has been said before, try printing on colored card stock, in "gray-scale". It will save on pricey color ink, and it will give you variety. I did some "CastleWorks Classic" stuff, on white card stock, in gray-scale, for my version of Helm's Deep. Looks rather nice, I must say.

If you can find spotted-pattern card stock, this will add addtionial texture to the products. My wife was into stamping, and I filched her stock when she lost interest in it. I found tan-colored card stock, with different colored bits, scattered randomly, over the surface. This will add a lot, to the gray-scale printouts. Look for this card stock in stamping supply stores [try: Wal-Mart, Michael's, Hobby Lobby, e-Bay (under "stamping"),and others]. Cheers!

I use a Canon i850 printer. I love this printer because it is economial, quiet, and fast! I haven't done any printing of worldworks products, but I can print about 30 high-quality 8x10 photos on glossy photo paper before the ink starts to run dry.

I used to use Epson Stylus PhotoPrinters, but they sucked ink tanks like crazy and was loud. Plus mechanically unreliable, both had hardware failures within the first year and a half of owning them.

The i850 isn't available any longer, but the i860 is the latest replacement.

(First time posting here, BTW. Love the products, have the Inn and Pubs set for some Musketeer skirmish gaming. Will start working on it soon...)

The front. I don't see any rear entries on mine. Are we talking about the same printer? This one?



It's a 180 degree turn, yeah, but the 110lb Georgia Pacific cardstock I have laying around doesn't seem affected by it. Why not do a test print with one sheet and keep an eye on it?

-Mel