Which Epson Printer?

[gsewell]

I have had my Epson Stylus photo 900 now for a couple of years and it has served me well, it has now got a few problems and would like to know which printer to go for next, I would like to stick with the epson brand and have been looking on EBay at the R200 which are going for as little as £60 so that sounds too good to be true.

Could anyone offer any other models as I am so out of touch with the ranges at the moment.

Gav

[JohnJ80]

I have and love the R1800 which is a wide carriage R800.

The cost of the printer is totally irrelevant - you will spend many, many times the cost of the printer in the ink. Focus on the ink cost and see where that takes you.

J

[EOS_JD]

If you have a limited budget £60 sounds ok for that printer. Otherwise the R8009, R1800 and R2400 are all superb printers.

[Gix]

Goto Epson's website and order a refurb. Comes with 1 year warranty. Got my R800 this way for $200 to the door and love it makes awsome prints.

[gjl711]

Originally Posted by JohnJ80

The cost of the printer is totally irrelevant - you will spend many, many times the cost of the printer in the ink. Focus on the ink cost and see where that takes you.

J

This hits it on the head. In fact, TigerDirect sometimes has in store sales where they practically give away printers. I picked up my Canon Pixma6000D for $39.99 after the mark down from $179 to $99 then with a $60 rebate too boot. In fact right now they have the HP DeskJet D4160 Color Printer for $15 after rebate. Lucky for me the ink for the Canon is relatively inexpensive averaging about $8 bucks a color cartridge and $5 for black. But I print a lot and have probably spent close to $100 in ink alone.

[joegolf68]

Originally Posted by JohnJ80

I have and love the R1800 which is a wide carriage R800.

The cost of the printer is totally irrelevant - you will spend many, many times the cost of the printer in the ink. Focus on the ink cost and see where that takes you.

J

Absolutely, that is the trick now, get you to buy any printer, and then you are hooked on their ink. I think I might look for a REALLY good deal on a great printer, say the heck with it and buy those refill cartridges to see if there is a difference. I've heard there is no difference in quality of pics, but the ink might jam up the printer quicker, but the $$ are in the ink.

[dmp-potn]

Hello,

Another vote for the R1800. You'll almost certainly want to purchase Qimage as well. Epson's profiles are quite good, but I also recommend having a custom profile made. I use Cathy's Profiles and have been very happy with the results on both our R1800 and our 7800 Pro.

[tdaugharty]

Another fan of the R1800. dmp-potn convienced me to buy one over the Canon equiv and I can only praise the quality of prints.

The 13x19 prints rock and with QImage I can control print ouput much better than PS i.e. layout, profiles, resizing, supported color space, etc

[basroil]

if you need a multi function printer though, look at the RX line from epson. i have the RX620, which is basically an R380 with an scanner on top. price direct from epson was $130, which is pretty much the same as your used ebay thing that's 2 years older...

either that, or keep the photo 900 and become a buddy to your semi local online photo printing service. in the US, mpix and adorama are there, in UK, you'll need to find out which there are

[JohnJ80]

Because the ink is the issue, I won't (now) buy any printer that I can't put a CIS in. I did that with my R1800 after discovering that I was burning through about $200 per month in ink with modest printing. I bought a Niagara IV from Mediastreet with their ink and have been happy.

8 sets of cartridges, not all that much ink, bought at Atlex (the best discount source I can find) is about $800. The same amount of ink from Mediastreet is $159. That means I save roughly $640 in just eight cartridge sets. That means I pay for the printer in the first run of cartridges and could buy a new printer every 8 sets and still be money ahead.

Believe me, once you get a print out of these printers and see how good they look printing large, man - do you burn through the ink.

Someone did the calculation on the cost per gallon of the ink, and it comes out to something like $2500/gallon. That has to be just about the most expensive, readily available liquid on the planet.

So.....

It is all about the ink.

J.

[coreypolis]

Originally Posted by JohnJ80

Because the ink is the issue, I won't (now) buy any printer that I can't put a CIS in. I did that with my R1800 after discovering that I was burning through about $200 per month in ink with modest printing. I bought a Niagara IV from Mediastreet with their ink and have been happy.

8 sets of cartridges, not all that much ink, bought at Atlex (the best discount source I can find) is about $800. The same amount of ink from Mediastreet is $159. That means I save roughly $640 in just eight cartridge sets. That means I pay for the printer in the first run of cartridges and could buy a new printer every 8 sets and still be money ahead.

Believe me, once you get a print out of these printers and see how good they look printing large, man - do you burn through the ink.

Someone did the calculation on the cost per gallon of the ink, and it comes out to something like $2500/gallon. That has to be just about the most expensive, readily available liquid on the planet.

So.....

It is all about the ink.

J.

I wouldn't ever put a CIS anywhere near a printer. You'll lose your color gamut, archivalness and ruin the warranty, not to mention the possibilty of leakage, air bubbles etc


Look into a larger printer that uses a more cost efficent ink system. The epson pro series. The 4800 and older 4000 can use 110 or 220ml inks, which cost much less per ml than the little 12-13ml inks of the 1800/2400.


There is a cost breakdown spreadsheet of it in my resources page.

[JohnJ80]

Originally Posted by coreypolis

I wouldn't ever put a CIS anywhere near a printer. You'll lose your color gamut, archivalness and ruin the warranty, not to mention the possibilty of leakage, air bubbles etc


Look into a larger printer that uses a more cost efficent ink system. The epson pro series. The 4800 and older 4000 can use 110 or 220ml inks, which cost much less per ml than the little 12-13ml inks of the 1800/2400.


There is a cost breakdown spreadsheet of it in my resources page.

Sorry - you are wrong on the first point.

I'm using Mediastreet Generations inks.

I have my own profiling equipment and have compared many many profiles for various papers against that of the OEM inks. The gamuts are pretty much equivalent. In some places the Mediastreet inks are slightly better, in some places the OEM inks are better. In most cases (vast majority) the differences are on the order of a percent or two.

Mediastreet has had their inks tested by Wilhelm and these have shown to have longevity longer than 50 years (no fading at that point, testing was not continued). My own longevity tests with prints in my west facing office window show absolutely no difference from the OEM inks (in terms of fading) for now approaching 6 months. These prints are receiving a horrendous amount of UV for about 8-12 hours per day. I'll continue the test until I see a difference or until I don't care anymore.

In 6 months of using the CIS I have not had any more or less issues with bubbles than I have had with the OEM inks and cartridges. I have had no clogs. I have had no leaks - the printer cartridges are built with poppet valves in them just as the epson cartridges are. I do leave the printer sitting for weeks at a time, and then have considerable printing to be done.

Warranty? I've been using 3rd party inks (alongside OEM inks) in my printers for the last 5 years. All of those printers are still running. There will not be a warranty issue. In point of fact, who cares if there were? At the cost savings I could be buying a new printer every 6 months anyhow (8 cartridges) and still be money ahead. This is nothing more than FUD marketing (fear, uncertainty and doubt) on the part of the printer manufacturers and is also on very shaky legal ground on their side anyhow. THis is just flat out not an issue.

But, I'm happy to have the great majority of users stick with the OEM inks. That means that all of them (you) are keeping my printer hardware costs low by paying for this liquid gold from the printer mfgs. The printer mfgs then subsidize the cost of the printer which works great for me. I buy ink at a small fraction of the cost, get the same and sometimes better results, and get to buy a printer at a subsidized price and maybe even below mfg's cost.

Do you have some information on the operating costs of the larger printers? That would be very interesting to me although I don't have the room for one of them.

J.

[gjl711]

Educate me, what is a CIS? Is that the continuous inking systems?

[JohnJ80]

yes.

[coreypolis]

Originally Posted by JohnJ80

Sorry - you are wrong on the first point.

I'm using Mediastreet Generations inks.

I have my own profiling equipment and have compared many many profiles for various papers against that of the OEM inks. The gamuts are pretty much equivalent. In some places the Mediastreet inks are slightly better, in some places the OEM inks are better. In most cases (vast majority) the differences are on the order of a percent or two.

Mediastreet has had their inks tested by Wilhelm and these have shown to have longevity longer than 50 years (no fading at that point, testing was not continued). My own longevity tests with prints in my west facing office window show absolutely no difference from the OEM inks (in terms of fading) for now approaching 6 months. These prints are receiving a horrendous amount of UV for about 8-12 hours per day. I'll continue the test until I see a difference or until I don't care anymore.

In 6 months of using the CIS I have not had any more or less issues with bubbles than I have had with the OEM inks and cartridges. I have had no clogs. I have had no leaks - the printer cartridges are built with poppet valves in them just as the epson cartridges are. I do leave the printer sitting for weeks at a time, and then have considerable printing to be done.

Warranty? I've been using 3rd party inks (alongside OEM inks) in my printers for the last 5 years. All of those printers are still running. There will not be a warranty issue. In point of fact, who cares if there were? At the cost savings I could be buying a new printer every 6 months anyhow (8 cartridges) and still be money ahead. This is nothing more than FUD marketing (fear, uncertainty and doubt) on the part of the printer manufacturers and is also on very shaky legal ground on their side anyhow. THis is just flat out not an issue.

But, I'm happy to have the great majority of users stick with the OEM inks. That means that all of them (you) are keeping my printer hardware costs low by paying for this liquid gold from the printer mfgs. The printer mfgs then subsidize the cost of the printer which works great for me. I buy ink at a small fraction of the cost, get the same and sometimes better results, and get to buy a printer at a subsidized price and maybe even below mfg's cost.
J.

Thats good that you've had success, but for the record most people don't have the luck you've had with them.

Do you have some information on the operating costs of the larger printers? That would be very interesting to me although I don't have the room for one of them.

yes, here is my epson 4800 using the smaller 110ml inks and ilford galleries smooth peral 16'x100'