Epson Stylus R380: Claria ink easily smearing on printable DVD-Rs

[Lhuez]

I just bought an Epson Stylus R380, and I'm disappointed with it. I got
it almost exclusively for use with printable DVDs. The quality is
excellent, better than with my old R340. I also have to admit that,
when printing on paper, the Claria ink is highly resistant. However,
when used on DVDs, it smears a lot more easily than with the regular
R340's ink. Well, it's not bad for resisting a dry touch, but if
there's the slightest bit of moisture on my fingers (not sweaty, just a
tad sticky, as fingers tend to be at times), it comes right off. I can
even simply touch the surface with my finger without rubbing at all,
and it leaves a whitish fingerprint. This is after two full days of
drying. While I did have to avoid getting moisture on the DVDs my R340
printed, simply touching the surface didn't leave any visible marks. I
tried modifying some settings, like saturation and such, but nothing
seems to work. The Claria ink comes off just as easily, even when it
should be completely dry. Is this normal? It doesn't seem like it to
me. Is there anything I can do to make the propblem less severe? These
DVDs are for sale to customers, and as it is, I can't in good
conscience sell them DVDs that will show marks if they just touch the
printed surface. I might have to go back to my R340, making my new
purchase more or less a waste. The quality isn't as good with the R340,
but at least the ink is more resistant to light touching. By the way, I
use Verbatim printable DVD-Rs (regular white, not glossy).

Thank you for your help.

Francois

 

[Arthur Entlich]

I don't know if your experience is normal or not, but even if it is not,
you should definitely address this to Epson, since that printer is
designed to print the "printable" DVD labels. Perhaps they can
recommend a type or brand of printable DVD that works best with it, and
still, they need to know, and if they can't fix it, they need to either
reformulate the inks, or not sell those inks with a DVD label printer
option. They might offer you some type of exchange. Ultimately, it
sounds like the printer is not fulfilling its purpose.


Art

 

[Lhuez]

Thank you for the suggestion. I wrote Epson shortly after reading your
message. They sent me information about compability tests they did
with a few brands and types of media (including white Verbatim DVDs)
using some of their printers. Unfortunately, none of these printers
use Claria ink, like the R380 I was asking them about. They all use
the more standard ink that the R340 does, which I already know works
fine as far as trace moisture and light rubbing are concerned.
Besides, even if they told me that the R380 is supposed to give good
results with white Verbatim DVDs, that wouldn't tell me why I'm having
trouble. No advice on how to adjust settings or whatever. So their
reply was pretty much useless to me.

You know, I still have a few of the DVDs I printed with the R380, and
after more than a week the ink is still a tad sticky. As before, it's
not a big problem if the surface is touched with fingers that are
perfectly dry, but otherwise the ink comes off more easily than the
ink on an R340-printed DVD that's been drying for a couple hours.

Maybe I'm doing something wrong with the R380. Maybe it's not the
product's fault, I don't know.

Francois