Epson 4000 ink usage to date

[DougMorgan]

Hello all:

Now that I have my new printer I sat down with some notes and a scale and tallied up the ink usage for three years with the Epson 4000.   I thought this might be of interest.    

I've been through miles of paper with this thing and never had a problem, never seen a service person, and still use the printer.  I can't think of one paper jam though I usually use roll paper except for utility type printing.    Though I've often used the regular cleaning cycles I've never used the power cleaning (knock on wood).

I live in a climate that is very dry and hot over the summer, very low humidity with no air conditioning.   Very dry indoors in the winter due to forced air heat and no humidifier.  Damp for a couple months in the fall.   The printer was always turned off when not in use and no special precautions were ever made for it except to close the curtains part way to keep direct sun off of it.  I print sporadically to fill orders and often the printer would be unused for a week or two at a time, the longest being several vacations of a month's duration.

So in 2 years and 11 months I've gone through 16303ml's which is 16.3 liters or 4.3 US gallons for the metrically challenged.  I don't want to know what this costs in dollars.

Weighing the waste tanks gives me 2820mls down the tubes.   That's about 17.3% and sounds like a tremendous waste (and it is) but on a per day basis that's 2.64ml's per day.  Clogs seem to have increased with the age of the printer but I have also been printing more heavily the last 6 months of so.  I only recall a couple clogs here and there the first year.

Actual ink on paper has been 13483 mls.   The paper count from the printer is way out (must have rolled over the odometer) so for paper at an average of 1.3ml's per foot that I calculated some time ago it would be over 18,000 8x10's.    If we take the waste factor of 17.3% this would mean a mere .22 ml in waste per 8x10 or about 12 cents.  I rarely print 8x10's but it puts things in perspective.

Some other notes:
The print head is original and still functioning fine (epson aren't user-replaceable anway)

The above waste was contained in 6 waste tanks.  

I'm still on the original paper cutter though it's probably about due to be replaced.   I don't use the auto-cutter to cut canvas or the 300gm papers but have used it extensively for the vast majority of prints.    

For paper waste I can only think of one print wrecked from a clog but I normally print a simple nozzle check every time I fire the printer up.   I've had several dozen prints wrecked from head strikes though nearly all from printing at the very end of the roll.  Normally I take the last 10 feet or so and prep it by rolling backwards to get some of the excessive curl out.  Sometimes I forget or don't notice I'm down to the end.  Unlike some other printers the Epsons take a cartridge change in stride so no aborted prints there.  I would have to say I'm very happy with the low paper wastage and have very few wrecked prints.

If my 9880 handles this volume as well with less ink wastage I'll be a happy little printer.

Doug

[Tim Gray]

I've been tracking my 4000 for a couple of years.  53% of the ink goes on the paper and the rest down the drain, but I don't print a lot, and only once every couple of weeks.  Basically every day there's about .3ml allocated to cleaning, and on average there's a cleaning cycle of three cycles about every  6 to 8 weeks that runs through 8 to 12 ml.  Only one power clean in it's history.  Over the past couple of months I've added a couple of drops of distilled water to the pads under where the print head parks and that seems to help considerably - but not long enough to tell.  I print about 50% matte and 50% premium luster, so at least there's no black change overhead.  If the next printer after the 4880 has no switching, I'll buy it.