Printers have come up in the past, regarding price, speed, 'best for cardstock' and so on. Awhile back there was part of a thread regarding printer accuracy, I don't know why I didn't think of this in the past as this thread should go hand in hand with the "Which printer should I get " or "Current Opinion on Printers" Thread.

To the point! As some of us have noticed our printers do or do not print accurately as in the width of a 7x7 tile is exactly 7" but the length is usually around 6 15/16".

So maybe we should start a list of accurate and non-accurate printers to help the printer purchasers. It would probably be good to list both the good and bad as well as a brief description of the accuracy issue. (not going into color and so on at this point)

Accurate:

Brother:
HL-3040cn
HL-4040cn

Cannon:
Pixma iP4200
Pixma iP4820
Pixma iP6600D
Pixma iP90v
Imagerunner C3220
Pixma iP3000
Pixma MP530
Canon MP560
Pro9000 Mk II

Epson:
STYLUS D78 *** check below for heavy usage
Stylus Photo R1800
Stylus SX100 (copy/scan/print)

HP:
Deskjet 712C
Deskjet 3050 All-in-One
Photosmart C4100
HP4700dn
Colorlaser cp2025dn


Lexmark:
x4450 Wireless Combo (copy/scan/print)



Not Accurate: (Based on a standard 7x7 tile.)

Cannon:

Epson:

HP:
Officejet 6210 All-in-One (7x 6 15/16")
Deskjet 990cse
PSC 1210
2600n

Lexmark:
Z25
X85 Scanner/Copier/Printer

Please add the HP Deskjet 990cse to the NOT Accurate list.

Measured ground tiles from 5 different sets printed on a Canon Pixma iP4200.
4 were 7 x 7 and one was 7 x 6 31/32.

Does that make it accurate or inaccurate?

I would count that as accurate

I have the Canon Pixma iP4200 and it's been golden. Easy to refill too! Though I find I have to use the high quality setting when printing 7x7 tiles or anything that has a large volume of ink. It prints props and such just great on standard quality.

Lexmark Z25- Innacurrate

Lexmark X85 Scanner/Copier/Printer Inaccurate, I keep it only for the usefulness of the Scanner/Copier features. It is accurate about 8 out of every 10 pages.

I've never cared for the 7x7 tiles but I do print the 6"x6"

EPSON STYLUS D78 is Accurate, 4 ink cartridges so you don't waste ink, can take up to 280 gsm but must be hand fed

HP Deskjet 712C (probably don't make them anymore) Accurate, but only has 2 ink cartridges (black and Y,C,M combination) so you waste alot of color. I'd like to add that this model is a big workhorse and durable!

The Epson Stylus Photo R1800 is also accurate.

It has 8 ink cartridges and can comfortably handle 210 gsm card. Also prints A3 which is great for printing paper battle maps.

Add the HP PSC 1210 to the not-accurate list...our old one always squashed things vertically by 1/16th of an inch.

Add the Canon Pixma iP6600D and the Canon Pixma iP90v to the accurate list-both are regularly-used tools in my office and neither one has failed me yet.

-Mel

bump.

any others to add to this?

HP 2600n -- Inaccurate

I have a HP 2600n and I dont have any problems with its accuracy, it prints very close to 7x7, using a ruler it looks to be perfect but using digital calipers you notice its a hair or two, shorter then 7" for the one length.

My problem with the HP 2600n is that after a couple pages it will print off about 80% of a page perfectly on 110lb Office Max brand cardstock and the last 20% seems to look like the toner isnt adhering to the cardstock, and each page after gets a little worse, yet on copier paper it prints page after page perfectly. havent tested out other cardstocks yet, the Office max ones i have look to have a slight glossy sheen to them.

I have a 2600n and I've found that you need to set the paper type as cardstock for it to consistently print the way you want.

Once you do that it seems to understand how to pull the paper and adhere the toner.

When I forget to do this, that's when I have the same problems as you describe.

Rastl- I discovered that about 5 minutes after I posted about the toner not adhering.

Do NOT use DELL.

I got the maiden and was in the process of printing, but wasted all sorts of cardstock trying to get it to have a output. I was using a A920, which has previously only printed ~400 pages. Lines formed & disappeared from sheet to sheet, and the color was less than consistant.

So I gave up on the color quality & matching (some sheets were really frikkin' orange, for crying out loud) and started printing. The machine broke. The cartridge rack plastic container snapped away from the rail and another piece separated entirely.

Add the Brother HL-4040cn to the accurate list

May have to change my submission of EPSON Stylus D78. After a year and a half of heavy, almost industrial usage, it is printing the top to bottom 1/16" off.

This of course could be just my printer and not the entire brand.

This may not be terribly useful but the Cannon Imagerunner C3220 is accurate. It's one of those large office type printers.

Add the Canon Pixma iP3000 & MP530 to the accurate list.

Lexmark x4450 Wireless Combo (copy/scan/print)

4 prints All settings factory default; Perfect 7x7.

(I do Modal trains so I used my Electronic calipers)

Last one was off By 1 100th (lol)

Master Sage;

My old HP Photosmart C4100 seems to be pretty accurate, based on the 7x7's i've printed...

Did you measure them? I have an HP Photosmart 4280 and it is off a little (maybe a 1/16th either way), but it will work for now.

Epson Stylus SX100 (copy/scan/print)

Accurate

Ink is cheaper than my old D78 as well

Please add the HP4700dn to the accurate list. It is absolutely wonderful, especially when paired with high quality card stock such as Hammermill or Mohawk color copy cover (100#). When I switched from staples card stock it made a world of difference. Also, it uses 4 toner cartridges, which, while seemingly expensive, actually work out to a significantly cheaper price per page vs. Anything with ink. I picked up a "scratch and dent" one on ebay with extra memory, networking, and a duplex er for 1/3 of the list price and it only and a few test pages printed from it.

HP Photosmart C4440. Prints beautifully, but NOT accurate--off by 2 mm.

Same for the C4180.

OK, didn't get out the micrometer, but did measure 7x7 and 6x6 on 110# paper and on labels: accurate to w/in 1/32" and square for 6 different tiles from 2 different sets.

OTOH, color ink cartridges (three - C/M/Y) for this printer do not refill very well. Tried two different tools (InkTek and syringe), and the refill works, but has multiple issues: 1) cannot reset the cartridge electronics/ink level indicator, so you will not know when it runs out until ink stops flowing on a page (bad if you want to queue a lot of work; annoying because the driver warns you about low/exhausted ink constantly); 2) refilling ~3ml provides a completely unreliable/unpredictable number of pages, anywhere from a few hundred to less than 50 (original cartridges only print ~200 pages; 920XL cartridges print around 500, but refills are even less reliable than for the small cartridges); 3) each refill seems to yield fewer pages. I also found that it took a head-cleaning and head realignment run w/ each cartridge change, and typically 4-6 pages to get things working again after a refill of any one colored cartridge and other nuisance factors; black seems to refill just fine, by contrast.

All told, even trying goosing all the colors at the same time on any outage (risk of overflow, and after that the cartridge seems more prone to leaking), I found myself spending ~20 minutes and a fair amount of wasted ink, and then risking losing many pages out of any larger print run.

After-market/recharged cartridges cost ~70% of OEM (shopping carefully online and accounting for shipping), and have some of the same issues with unpredictable page counts, leaky seals and sometimes not registering as full.

No fun, but until I buy another printer, the most "economical" use of the printer seems to be finding 920XL cartridges for ~$12 opportunistically (about 500 pages of fairly dense color).

The color gamut is no better than fair, most prints are a little bit muddy, which is OK for background and generic stuff, and a whole lot cheaper per page than the Epson stylus.

Setup and wireless access is very easy and generally trouble-free (7 months, 1600 pages, one home wireless upgrade).

Overall, it's relatively inexpensive per page (refilling ought to make it very cheap, if you can get it to work), decent but not exceptional low-end non-photo inkjet printer.

I have the Canon Pixma IP4300. No problems with printing. Can be added to the Accurate list. I use the 160gr. paper for it. The prints are very good.

The Epson Workforce 610 has been very accurate for me and prints with excellent quality on 110lb. cardstock.