Decades of Epson woes

Pistach said:
Decades of Epson woes

I have had over time 3 Epson A3/A3+ printers. I spent about 1000 for each of them.

The last is the R3000. Before that (if memory helps) the 1280 and long time ago an A3 dye ink printer (750 may be?)

All three quickly failed miserably and I am right now on the verge of throwing the R3000 in the garbage can

All three in a row after a few months started staining the paper with black ink and became unusable.

Not a single review mention this problem!

Am I unlucky?

Read this: https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/3773605

And look at this: https://www.specialistinks.com/clean-printheads.php
(BTW I bought the kit and made the cleaning only to discover that the problem worsened)

I am asking for help and advice
I have two questions:

First question:

I noticed that the new P800 has a drawer where the excess ink that is removed from the printing head at each pass is collected.

Do you think that this (which is also a sort of tacit admission of the problem by Epson) will protect the user from the above kind of failure?

Second Question:

I mostly print setting the printer so that PS to manages colors. I noticed that this mode of printing produces malfunctions of all sorts. For example when one prints panoramic printing is never completed unless one changes settings, letting the printer manage colors.

Is it possible that this modality of printing, among the other malfunctions, also prevents the mechanism that cleans the print head at each pass to function properly?

On the other side what is certain is that Epson support does not answer question unless one let the printer manage colors.

Thank you all very much in advance for any help
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I agree. Epson printers are a pain, buy boy are they good when all goes well!
I have a P600 that went bad and with Specialist Ink CIS went worse. It is now at a 'specialised' Epson repairer. They ID'd a faulty motherboard, I had to pay $100 and then they told me that the one supplied by Epson Australia does not work in the printer I bought in EU while living in Cyprus. They are still trying. I hope it comes good as I have 200ml in each color and the CIS.

I bought a P800. The cartridges are 80ml and that is a huge improve. I will stay with Epson ink and have bought an extended warranty so should have 4 years of paid support. The P800 has a 'maintenance cartridge' that soaks up waste ink. This P800 works beautifully. It really does. I let the printer manage color but use a ColorMunki to calibrate my monitor. No malfunctions to date (I use LR6 and Mac)
The P600 has a huge diaper in the base where all the waste ink goes. Seems like it could hold 1lit min so a lifetime of head cleaning.
Hope this helps.
 
I learned that the P600 and P800 run on high pressures, and this prevents clogging.

I run a humidifier and try to maintain 50% average humidity. This really helps the print head from drying out in the winter, Also good museum standard for print storage.

Cal
 
I don't have an Epson but I have a friend that is also on his third. $1000 per printer in his case doesn't count the wasted ink trying to clean and solve those problems.
 
charjohncarter said:
I don't have an Epson but I have a friend that is also on his third. $1000 per printer in his case doesn't count the wasted ink trying to clean and solve those problems.
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John,

$100.00 for a nine year old 7800, gently used, and $750.00 for a new 3880 utilizing a $250.00 rebate from Epson.

Only been printing for four years, but I print big and a lot. One year spent $10K on paper and ink, but realize that this was to bulk up during sales and currently I still have some of that paper in stock.

I run a humidifier in the winter here in NYC. This helps prevent the print head from drying out. I try to maintain 50% humidity which is also good for archival print storage.

I clean my capping station at least once a month, and more frequently if I'm printing heavily.

I remove and shake each cart at least every other week to keep the pigment in suspension, and sometimes every week because I see a difference in better print quality.

I store a printer every year for an extended period of time to allow Piezoflush to restore and refresh the internal lines, the dampers, and the print head as maintenance.

I periodically do a power clean when the printer is loaded and stored with Piezoflush to remove any free accumulations that got resolulized by the Piezoflush.

Some people might say I abuse my printers because I use them extensively, but they are well maintained. My experience is that most people just use the printers and don't ever do any maintenance. Over the past 4 years I have had no issues, and if any claning was required it was due to either heavy usage or prolonged disuse.

A little maintenance goes a long-long way. My 7800 is about 13-14 years old and is still fresh.

Cal
 
charjohncarter said:
I don't have an Epson but I have a friend that is also on his third. $1000 per printer in his case doesn't count the wasted ink trying to clean and solve those problems.
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The fact is Epson has no financial incentive to avoid users wasting ink, quite the opposite, nor do they have any incentive to fix the matte black vs photo black ink swap flush design failure.
 
Calzone said:
The 7800 is kinda user serviceable. I downloaded the huge service manual for free. Used my work printer and paper from work to print it out.

The story of how I got my 7800 for only $100.00 was just good timing. At a NYC Meet-Up Chris had a friend Mike trying to sell his printer, the 7800 I now own. Mike was moving back to Japan and was not going to take his printer. Joe sitting next to me offered a ride to help me get the printer home. So everything fell into place.

When I did a nozzle check it just need a few power cleanings: no cloged nozzles. I went into the maintnance menue and discover it is a fresh printer that was hardly used, but used just enough not to be neglected. In the first 9 years of this printer's life it only made 1802 prints.

I loaded it with Piezoflush to freshen it up. This allows for storage as well as resolulizing any buildups in the dampers and ink feeds. It can even unclog a clogged printhead.

Also to be helpful on some of the newer printers that have 11 or 14 cart slots. If you can get one of these printers for free the printer can be "Mapped" and be used and recycled as a Piezography Printer for B&W printing. Matte printing K-7 only requires seven working channels. K-7 Glossy only eight. If you have 9 working channels then you can do both matte and glossy without an ink change.

Also this is good for digital negatives for contact printing. Likely the ultimate in IQ for B&W. I just subscribed to Piezography Pro. Pretty much a turnkey system that allows me to profile and calibrate my system. Also can do digital negatives for contact printing. Pretty much I can do a Salgado without the best lab in Paris.

Cal
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The 7800 is a really good printer. I bought it new and never had any problems of any sort. I don't even remember getting a head clog.

I got into piezography back in the early days and converted a 1280 and a 7000 to Piezography pigments. Unfortunately those early inks clogged really badly and I wound up using more ink and time unclogging it that I used printing.

I wound up converting a 2200 to Sundance pigments after getting rid of the Piezography machines. I understand Sundance made the inks for Piezography but they seemed to get it down perfectly. I had a bulk feed system and I don't remember it ever clogging. Prints were stunning too and the cost was reasonable compared to piezography. I wound up selling the 2200 to a friend when I got my 7600 because the B&W out of the 7600 was so good. I'd consider Sundance agin but I think they're out of business.
 
x-ray said:
The 7800 is a really good printer. I bought it new and never had any problems of any sort. I don't even remember getting a head clog.

I got into piezography back in the early days and converted a 1280 and a 7000 to Piezography pigments. Unfortunately those early inks clogged really badly and I wound up using more ink and time unclogging it that I used printing.

I wound up converting a 2200 to Sundance pigments after getting rid of the Piezography machines. I understand Sundance made the inks for Piezography but they seemed to get it down perfectly. I had a bulk feed system and I don't remember it ever clogging. Prints were stunning too and the cost was reasonable compared to piezography. I wound up selling the 2200 to a friend when I got my 7600 because the B&W out of the 7600 was so good. I'd consider Sundance agin but I think they're out of business.
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X-R,

The earlier Piezography inks had a reputation for clogging for sure, but today things are more advanced.

I went into maintenance check mode on my 7800 which is now 12 years old. I reported that it made only 1802 prints in its first 9 years befor I owned it. My status report: cutter 5 stars; Carrage Return motor 4 stars; Paper Feed motor 5 stars; Print head 5 stars; cleaning unit 3 stars; and Pressure motor 5 stars.

5 stars means fresh or almost like new. Over the past three years I made over 4K additional prints, mostly large ones. I can see that the infrequent use of the first 9 years of light usage translated into excessive cleanings that added wear onto the capping station and wiper. Otherwise my printer remains fresh.

I think I can expect another decade of service and many thousands of prints left in this floor standing printer. Makes my 3880 look like a toy. Surely is built like a truck.

Cal
 
rodt16s said:
The R3000 doesn't have a drawer for the ink, but you can add an external tank(printer potty), I have done this and it saves a lot of problem with a pad saturated in ink.
Suggest to not switch the printer off, but leave in stand-by and run a regular nozzle check to exercise the ink through the head

However I've had nothing but disappointment with my R3000.
My problem has been akin to a drifting profile, often adding a colour cast (green or magenta) depending on it's mood, I recently discussed with some else who had the same issue, they finally ditched, which is where I going.
Epson are not interested, their support seems quite poor
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Yes. Printer Potty (terrible name) for the p600. In the next week or two I will set up my P600 and first thing, attach the printer potty so I don't have to worry about the ink pad problems.

Will be my first new printer in years and years. Well, the p600 has been sitting here for over 2 years unused. Bought it and then hit by family health problems and then my own health problems. So it sat here. Warranty long expired. I'm tempted to just make it a black and white printer. Jon Cone. But not sure. Maybe first try color and b&w with the already purchased epson inks and then flush the thing and make it only b&w.

Anyway. To the original poster. Good luck to you. I've read printing at home can be a real adventure.
 
Who doesn't wrestle with these printer things... even in an old thread? I've been trying to run down what sort of printer to dedicate to B&W-only. Jon says it needs to be in top shape, and all pretty much confirm this that I've cross referenced this with. The P600 has 8 inks and seems to have many of the same specs as the P400, but also some of the potentially "better" paper handling of the P800 (which I have but has been firmware upgraded by Epson to a firmware that will not work with any of Jon's work arounds - so that's not an option). The P400 seems to spec out very close to the P600 otherwise, smaller, lighter. Most of the good 3800's and 3880's I've been cautioned against... as Jon says in the Community Edition of the Manual that resurrecting an old, unused printer is a long shot. I priced out the potential cost of failure... and it's less expensive to bite the bullet and work with the "knowns" of a new printer.

Cal's rigorous cleaning routine sounds like a good idea. I've been learning this for sure in everything I read. So awareness is costly. I like to say that photography isn't expensive, it's high expectations for the quality of your output that raises the likelihood of turning an avocation into an expensive passion.

Anyone have experience with the P400, P600 or P800 and Piezography, don't be shy. Love to hear your experience.
 
I never could get a color print to come out of a wet darkroom. Not even close, for some reason couldn't rap my head around it. I was pretty good with B&W but haven't in years.

If I was printing anything myself I think I would get two printers, somewhat used and follow Cal's approach but use each for say 6 months and let it rest while the other pulls the weight.

Perhaps a few years down the road......

B2 (;->
 
Soooooooo.... didn't take long. WIth the yahoogroup lists QuadtoneRIP and DigitalBlackandWhite, and a lot of back and forth with Jon Cone, Walker Blackwell, Richard Boutwell and of course Cal here as well as others on the lists, I've pulled the trigger on an Epson P600 and ordered a set of Piezo Pro inks. Setting up for the deep dive. P600 seemed to have enough heft, larger tanks and the likelihood of a more robust printer process, and Piezo Pro inks are supposed to be (I think) smaller, more finely ground particles suspended in the ink so that the clog factor should be lower even still. Followed Cal's experience and ordered a Piezo flush set of cartridges, too. T'ain't cheap friends, but we're gonna give it our best.

What sucked me in? Lots of things, but among others, I like the way Jon Cone describes his printing process, how he came to it, and how it finally ties the camera to the print output in digital the same way the Zone system did for wet prints. Stop working with "guestimates" and move toward an actual process for consistent production. That's the intellectual bit. The rest is probably some hyped up hope of learning from the folks who lead some of the teaching on working with this. Everyone from Jon Cone to Sandy King to a number of other perhaps lesser known (to me) photographers producing great work using an all digital or hybrid (like me) process. Love it!
 
I once owned an Epson 2200 printer that drank ink like I drink water in the desert. And I much prefer darkroom printing. No Photoshop, no expensive inkjet paper of questionable longevity, no cranky printers that get ink clogs that waste lots of paper and ink, and best of all, no scanning. Yay!

And yet.....I have some 12x18 prints on my wall from that old 2200 and a later 1280 replacement that were made using black only printing with MIS Ebony black pigmented ink, and those prints are beautiful. They look as good now as they did 15 years ago when I made them. They don't really look like photographic prints, they look more like etchings, and have a real "pop" with deep blacks. So Epson did some things right if you were willing to put up with their problems, and could eventually find a work around to make printing fun and affordable. If anything, they owe me for their exaggerated archival claims on their papers, but the printers delivered the goods once you figured things out.

These are cell phone pics of the prints on the wall.

https://i.imgur.com/1DvX1lD.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/45qFotU.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/QfhEMi5.jpg
 
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