Ever Used CD Thermal Printer?

[ido1957]

I'm looking at one online and wondered if anyone had ever used this. I don't think it's available here so I'll need to order from the manufacturer or eBay.

http://www.primera.com/signaturez1.html

Since this is more than a printer costs, I'm wondering if it's any good.

Also - do I need to buy special CD's with that white surface or will the standard silver surface Sony CD-R's work?

Any advice would be welcome......

 

[JoeBannon]

They look like crap, but it also depends what you're printing. You can get away with just print text and it not looking too bad.

 

[Reggie]

I think they are cool. You can print directly on the shiny silver CDs (get the blank unbranded ones for extra coolness factor; not the consumer Sony/Maxell/Imation/etc). Not for doing fancy pictures, but pretty great for minimalist labeling with text. To me, the inkjet CDs don't really look any better than slapping a stick-on label on a disc. I like the looks of shiny silver-top discs personally. The bigger inkjet printers are handy for doing runs of 50+ though.

 

[TimOBrien]

You will >>>still<<< need to get special CDs that take thermal print, and ribbons that are only available from one manufacturer (in other words, you're hooked to them...)

Personally, I'm using an $90 Epson R200 with zero problems; inks and inkjet-printable CDs/DVDs from places like www.supermediastore.com are cheap. And the R200 will print on plain and photo paper, so it's a multi-tasker instead of a single-purpose device....

 

[Reggie]

You will >>>still<<< need to get special CDs that take thermal print, and ribbons that are only available from one manufacturer (in other words, you're hooked to them...)

If the shiny silver ones are "special," then what do you consider "regular" CDs?

But yes, a lot of people enjoy the R200 printer and it is a good option.

 

[Metalbard]

Something like this depends on how many copies your lookin to press. Under 50 go with the inkjet stickers. With the price of geting a glass cut cd pressed vrs a cd u run off on you cdr or dvdr u gota count in the price of buyin the gear and ink. In any case where ur lookin to press more than 500 disks your better off havin them done by a pressing plant. Lots of them on line. When pressing cd's some times you can get a 2 fold 1st page 4color second page black and white tossed in at less than a dime each. A lot of times its cheeper to have your printing done by a local print shop and ship that along with the master to make the glass cut off to the Pressing plant.

it basicly all depends on what your looking to do with the hardware. I personaly think computer burt cd's look a lot cheeper than a pressed one. But for a 75disk demo run to shop that demo ink jet lables are just fine.

If you let us know what ur looking to do we can probably help you better.

Rich

 

[JoeBannon]

Under 50 go with the inkjet stickers.

Or if you want your CDs to look like crap

Seriously, the ink comes off, not to mention the stickers. If you also put them in a PC, at 6x+ the normal speed of a CD player, the disk is so unbalanced it wont play.