Epson Stylus® C88 InkJet Photo Printer

I bought this to replace my old HP 940c (estimated 50,000 pages total) as it was slow compared to newer printer and it has stopped printing because the ink waste tray was full. Plus newer printer had higher resolution for better looking printout.

After a quick and lazy search, I settled on Epson C88 because it was cheap! Plus there are CIS for almost every Epson printer, and those influenced my decision to buy Epson brand printer. While other brand had CIS kit, there aren't many models that can use CIS and trying to find a brand new or refurbished printer and matching to a compatible CIS, Epson was easiest of all.

So far I've had no persistent trouble at all with Epson C88. Rather than using genuine Epson ink (about $50 for a set) I went and ordered a CIS (continuous ink system) for less than that and some cheap no name ink and got it running. Total cost for the CIS and the 4x 100mL ink bottles ran about $60 and there's enough ink to last about 10 sets of Epson brand ink (about $500 if I went with Epson carts!)

To date, no runny ink, no clogged head, or paper jams. I've already printed about 500 pages since I got the printer and the print out looks great. The only problem I had at first was trying to load USA standard 8.5" by 11" paper, it was a bit of a tight fit. Loading them smaller bundle at a time was easier than trying to load a full 100 sheet at once.

From what I've seen, common problems with most Epson printers are: rejected ink cart (red light) even when it's new and blank printout after changing the ink cart(s). The first one could be caused by incorrect ink carts as many looks the same size and could fit but not all has the same type of chip. For example, ink cart for Epson c80 will fit but it will not work with C88. Also defective chip can cause red light and rejected ink cart. Try replacing them with the correct model ink cart.

The latter is a common problem with many Epson printers, the tube connecting to the vacuum system becomes disconnected and the printer can't pull ink through the head at all, resulting in blank pages. Fixing that is a lot of work, a major pain in the rear.

If you need a cheap printer, print quite a lot, and want cheap print outs, go with Epson C88 (or similar model like C88+) and do a search on eBay for CIS as well as some ink if the CIS are shipped empty. Provided you read the instruction correctly, you can have trouble free printer for less than a penny a page. A filled CIS key can last around 2,000 prints, so you could fill it and forget for a long while.