Advice on Japanese market products

[dotzen]

I'm currently working in Japan and have just returned from a rainy day sightseeing tour (Yodabashi and Big Camera in Shinjuku) with a notepad full of items that I'm trying to find information on.

I have an Epson Pro 3850 (3800 USA) sitting at home in Hong Kong. This is called the PX5800 in Japan.
Does anyone know if the ink cartridges from the Japanese version will work in the 3800/3850?
I have heard of cases where the consumables are coded differently for each market, a really dirty trick but not actually illegal.

I have also seen more brands of Inkjet paper than I knew existed.
I have noted down what little English description is on the packaging.
Among those that I am trying to find information on are:
Epson Crispia
Pictorico Pro
Gekko
FujiFilm Luminax
Sanwa
Kyokushi Pictran
Kokuyo

Web searches have turned up very little so far.
Does anyone have any experience with any of these?
My main concern is their compatibility with the Epson K3 inks.

tia,

dotzen.

[mmurph]

Does anyone know if the ink cartridges from the Japanese version will work in the 3800/3850?

On the older, large format printers, we had ways of telling the printer to ignore the country coding on the carts.  There were some side effects though (losing ink count on the carts, etc.)    

I doubt that you have that option on the 3800/3500. Not sure though.

The "work around" would be to take the chips off your carts at home, put them on these carts in place of the ones that come on them, and reset them.

Or, suck the ink out with a syringe and squirt it back into one of your carts, and reset.

Not a lot of trouble, but only worth it if you are saving quite a bit, like 50% or so.

Can't answer on the papers. Good luck!

Best,
Michael