Have been doing some research on printers and came to the conclusion that a rear feed Canon was going to be the best choice for taking card. Went to pc world/currys and there were no rear feed canon printers. Plenty of epson and Hp but my current epson doesnt like card and it has to be pushed in. So confused now.
Are there any epson printers out there that are happy to take 255gsm card without a push? I was hoping to find a printer that would take a continuous ink system to reduce my printing costs
any words of advise card makers?
I’m now thinking of going for an epson workforce, anyone had experience of this make?
Diane
Hi Diane, I’m not a card maker but I do quite a lot of printing on card for various reasons. You probably need a decent sized printer, with a grunty feed mechanism, to easily feed 255gsm card through. I use an Epson R2880 (with a continuous ink system) and can top feed 240gsm card through it with as much ease as regular 80gsm paper. It’s an old printer now. I think the newer version is the R3880 or something like that. But they’re not cheap unfortunately … I think those ones run at £500+ with the CIS another £250 or so on top of that (inks included). Still, if you can stretch to something a bit bigger than the workforce you’ll probably find it takes the card better than a smaller printer will.
We bought our Epson and the CIS at the same time … about 6 or 7 years ago now and both are still running perfectly. So, while it was a big financial outlay at the time, I think we’ve got our money’s worth out of them! 
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I have an epson workforce which is great for my purposes but it hasn’t been too happy with thicker card. With the 170gsm card I do use occasionally I don’t have to push but I do have to load it one sheet at a time to stop the printer picking up sheets unevenly.
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thank you Melanie I remember you gave me advice about the cis systems in a previous post and am really keen to try this if I can get a printer that happily takes 255g card. I’m thinking of an epson workforce 3520 or the newer model 3620 and I can buy a cis for those models and my local shop said they would fit it for me if I was having difficulty.
What model do you have Helen? I dont mind loading one sheet at a time but want to avoid pushing it in as my words arent always centred because of that
I think you need to look at the Professional range of Epson printers. I use an Epson 3880 A2 printer and you can feed from the top or from the back. Not cheap but so versatile.
I often use 300 g/sm paper and card and no problems. Having said that I have an older 6 colour HP printer the HP 8180 and have run card through that of more than your 255 gsm without any problems, but that rotates the card and paper in the process, whereas the Epson does not. So the Epson does a flatter job.
Epson do some A3 printers which are one down from the 3880 , which is the 2880, as others have mentioned. It can print maximum 1.3mm thickness, whereas the 3880 I think prints thicker and much more versatile, but around £950 and the inks cost around £350-£400 a set, but they last for ages and not as frustrating as the small inks in the 2880.
There is a system for using external bottles of ink on the 2880 but is not as practical as having the inks in your printer in big containers.
Ron
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thank you Ron I am going to go and have a look at the pro range now .the one you have sounds good but out my price range but can understand that in the long term iy would be worth it
I must finish my ironing first though before I look at them!!
Mine is the smallest in the range, WF-2540 I think (without going upstairs to look at it!)
The card I use is more like thick paper though, I’m not sure how it would handle anything thicker. If you wanted to send me a sheet of the card you use I could run a test for you?
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thats good of you Helen . I 'm thinking of going for the one up from yours but thank you any way