Casio CW-50 CD Title Printer

UPDATE 9/14/15I figured out the every other printing issue. If you save a project and reuse at another time,it will print every other print.BUT if you do a NEW project and not use the saved one, it will print every single time. But if you can't redo , then the update below is what to do. Also this WILL print on non-printable disc's as it burns onto and will not come off like ink. So you can save on disc's as well.UPDATE 5/30/15This was printing nicely about 95% of all labels since I purchased, last cartridge and this one it seems every other one it makes a label. Starting to get mad. Are there bad cartridges ? or is the machine starting to go bad ? Just as thing pick up...dang it.UPDATE I FIGURED OUT HOW TO GET ALL THE PRINTING OUT OF A SINGLE CARTRIDGE. IT'S 2 X LONGER, BUT IT WORKS.STEP ONE: TAKE AN OLD CARTRIDGE AND TAKE OUT ALL THE TAP (WAS HOW I WAS COUNTING) AND MAKE SURE EVEN SILVER LEADS COME OUT AS WELL. PUT IN EMPTY CARTRIDGE, PASS 1 TIME, THEN TAKE EMPTY OUT AND PUT IN GOOD CARTRIDGE. PRINT AGAIN, IT COMES OUT PRINTED. DO THIS EVERY TIME YOU NEED A DISC PRINTED. IT KEEPS COUNT AND WILL TELL YOU REPLACE, JUST KEEP DOING THIS AND YOU CAN USE ALL PRINTING AREAS. (ONLY IF IT IS PRINTING EVERY SECOND ONE)(ORIGINAL WRITE - UP AND 4 STARS)This works nicely although they don't make anymore. If you unplug the power and use it when you need, it works pretty well with the cartridges at the highest boldness. Much cheaper than the full pro label for 5 grand, and better than the labels that I even cut to use in small form, but a small pieces of fellows label is far better than any full face label, but you have to make sure the full label is on the disc wicked good and that is time consuming.

It broke the first time I used it and the manufacturer would not replace it because I had used the wrong kind of disc to print on

This is a nice product. Only slightly larger than an external CD-drive, this thermal transfer printer can directly label CD-type discs (-R, -RW, DVD -RAM, -R, and -RW). The print design is fairly limited and it will only do so in one color, although ribbons of various colors are available so you can choose which one color you wish. Unlike thermal transfer printers that cost 10X to 20X more, this printer will not put graphics and complicated designs on your disc. You are limited to several lines of print in whatever fonts are loaded on your computer. Although you can't produce truly professional looking discs, the results are drastically superior to those sticker labels that never seem to stay attached or writing on the disc with a marker. The print is crisp, easy to read, and doesn't scratch or flake off. To work well, you need to print on a blank area of the disc. It doesn't print well over either writing or slightly raised areas of design on the disc. This printer is well worth the money if want to label your discs neatly, but do not want to spend an exorbitant amount of money.

Not easy to set-up. White printable surface CD just doesn't work. Besides broken text printing, the ribbon leaves black smudges on the white surface. I can't find many gauzy surface CD type ready available in store to print on this machine. Most CD with some printing already on and slightly textured surface does not work at all.

I have had and used one of these for two years, and I find it workable and useful, despite its obvious graphic shortcomings. Most fonts appear somewhat pixilated when printed on CD surfaces. I have developed a 'palette' of fonts that work particularly well. Sans serif fonts such as Futura, Franklin Condensed and such seem to work the best.Graphics tend to look particularly rotten, no matter how high the dpi of the image is. I am non-amazed at how an outline of a rectangle, made in bold, thick lines and saved at 1200 dpi, comes out looking like mud. This printer is best at simpler jobs.The printer does its work quickly, which is good. I've had to bat out 50 or 60 CDs in an afternoon, and the printer is faster than I am with the discs!THE SINGLE BIGGEST DRAWBACK to this and to other Casio CD printers are those @$(^@_^_@!~ ribbons. The ribbons hold exactly 40 prints. If you use 2 per CD, that means a fresh ribbon after every 20 discs. The ribbons are not sold in office supply stores. CompUSA carried them for a brief time, then moronically deleted them. And don't even think about OfficeMax, -Depot or Staples. The cheapest I've found the ribbons is here, at $7.00 apiece, or sometimes on eBay for less. I am always "counting bullets" with these infernal ribbons. IF YOU ARE CONSIDERING GETTING ONE OF THESE, TAKE THIS TO HEED: the ribbons are a supreme pain in the ass. They are hard to locate, expensive, and wastefully manufactured. The greedy souls at Casio could easily get another 20-50 prints' worth of ribbon on the cartridges.As well, the ribbons often have flaws in their manufacture, making for fuzzy half-coverage of some prints.I am probably making this printer sound worse than it really is. As said, if your ambitions are simply to have a title printed in regular type, without much ado, this will do the trick. If you seek anything more complex, you'll need a bigger and better machine.

I printed 190 titles in 2 weeks with no problem. After a 2 week layoff this CW-50 goes through all the printing functions until it comes to the final printing. There is no error message just no printing. I can not find technical help other than registering for online service at a minimum of $50. I just need to talk to a service person for questions on what to do next.

Poor quality images