Pratfalls of Wide Carriage Printers

[Cartman]

I am about to pull the trigger on one of the Canon iPF printers which will be my first wide carriage printer.  I was debating the 5100 vs. the 6100 but the money to get the 8100 is not really that much more.

If I get the 44" 8100 I'm fairly sure it will be six months before I want to print anything wider than 24-30".  In fact, I suspect most of the time I'll be printing 17".

Are there any  critical downsides anyone can foresee getting wider now than I need immediately.  I was worried about ink going bad but, to be honest, I really don't have the experience to know if that is going to be an issue.

Also, I've been assuming that I can still use smaller format rolls and sheets but I could very well be wrong.

I don't want to wind up kicking myself for getting one that is too big, but my wife will kill me if I try telling her I would like to go larger six months from now.  Seriously, that would not work out with my otherwise very supportive wife.

Someone recently noted here that they wanted 24" wide canvass prints, but forgot they needed another 4" to stretch on frames.  That sounds like a legitimate concern as well, so even if my limit was only 24" of printed material, I may need the extra 20" of the 8100 just to give me that extra 4".

Hopefully some folks can chime in and save me from regrets.  Thank you in advance.

[colinm]

Are there any  critical downsides anyone can foresee getting wider now than I need immediately.  I was worried about ink going bad but, to be honest, I really don't have the experience to know if that is going to be an issue.

Ink getting old, ink pricing. The 8100 and 9100 take larger, more expensive cartridges. If you're not using them up in a reasonable period of time, you're throwing money down the drain. It may not be an issue depending on how much discretionary income you have, but it's worth considering.

The 8100 is also enormous and will consume roughly twice the electricity. Canon's specs list the dimensions as roughly 75x39x45"—envision where this can fit in your home. Probably more importantly, envision where your wife thinks this can fit in your home.

On the other hand, if you need the width, you need the width.

Also, I've been assuming that I can still use smaller format rolls and sheets but I could very well be wrong.

As long as you don't want to print anything ridiculously small (4x6, 5x7), you're good. Spec is 8 inches minimum sheet, 10 inches minimum roll.

[rdonson]

If you've got the desire, space and money I don't think you'll regret it.

There are a couple of things that typically go with owning a wide format printer.

- a rotary trimmer
- some place to store large prints (a flat file cabinet is often a great choice)
- some place to store rolls of paper

Enjoy!!!

[rdonson]

If you've got the desire, space and money I don't think you'll regret it.

There are a couple of things that typically go with owning a wide format printer.

- a rotary trimmer
- some place to store large prints (a flat file cabinet is often a great choice)
- some place to store rolls of paper
- Qimage if you're on Windows

Enjoy!!!
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[Scott Martin]

The 8100 won't take sheets smaller than 8x10 and will have a much larger cut sheet margin than the smaller printers will have. While the bottom margin for cut sheets is about an inch, the margins are insignificant for rolls. Even if some of the ink does go bad your getting a boatload of ink ($2000  dollars worth) so that weighs in.

[Geoff Wittig]

I am about to pull the trigger on one of the Canon iPF printers which will be my first wide carriage printer.
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1) Don't worry about ink "going bad". The HP Z3100 series uses pressurized ink carts and stirs up the ink periodically; I presume the big Canons do something similar. I still own an Epson 7600 which does not use pressurized ink carts, yet it still prints fine from carts over a year old. You'll save a bundle using the larger cartridges.

2) Get the 44" over the 24" if you can afford it and can fit it in your studio/home. You can always print something smaller on the big printer, but you can't go the other way around. I have a 24" wide printer because it was the biggest I could imagine printing at the time...now I have a higher resolution D-SLR and frequently stitch images in Photoshop, so I regret not stretching the extra $. The first time you print something really big, and see how striking it looks, you'll be hooked. Then your dilemma will be finding space to hang all those huge prints.

[Cartman]

Thanks gang.

Yep, I've got plenty of space in my office and the full blessing of the wife.

I think my big worries were the inks would go bad after six months (that's when Canon says to change them) and the heads at twelve (because I'm lucky like that!) and whammy, I'm looking at $3,000.00 worth of consumables.  

I didn't think about printing anything too large b/c the wife tells me I must be high on something illegal whenever I ask for H3DII-31, but I totally forgot about stitching landscapes!  So now I can totally see using all that real estate.

[Brian Gilkes]

I think Muphy had something to say about it.
As soon as you get a bigger printer you will have the need or desire to print big. In this part of the world big prints sell.
I seriously doubt this stuff about inks going off. I've used Epson inks on an old 4000 3 years old with no problems.
Price/ml ink of big carts is much cheaper.
Just make sure you shake older carts if they have not been used for a while.
Buy the big printer.
Cheers
Brian
www.pharoseditions.com.au

[ternst]

Ditto about the ink going bad - it is a non-issue and marketing hype by the companies who, guess what, sell ink! If you expect the ink on the paper to last for a hundred years or more after being exposed to oxygen, don't you think it would last longer than six months in the cart? Shaking once in a while is a good idea but other than that you can print with it for a long time.

The biggest drawback to getting a large printer is that fact that you will need a LOT of wall space! I have found that when you make big prints you are able to see some incredible details that you can't see anywhere else, especially if you are using a high-res sensor. So you will want to make big prints just to be able to enjoy them to their fullest. On the other side of the coin you really do need good files to go really large, and I've seen a lot of big prints made from bad files that were ugly and painful to look at, even at "normal viewing distance." So if you have the files that can handle the size, you will be a very happy camper...

Tim Ernst in Arkansas

[hsmeets]

....
The biggest drawback to getting a large printer is that fact that you will need a LOT of wall space!
....

That's very, very true!

When I was in the market for a printer I had a few sleepless nights about 17 or 24".

In my darkroom the biggest I ever could print was 20x24", I loved that size! so I was biased to the 24" model. But when I did put a ruler along prints I saw they where 18"x22"-ish as of the white border I left around the prints. Borders I need cause this were fiber prints that I taped down on a sheet of glass to dry.

I decided to save the money and bought a 17"model (actually the ipf5100). For those very occasional big prints (not yet happened) I'll let them print somewhere else. Matted 17x22" (or panoramics) are huge and eat wallspace!

However, like a previous poster said: if money,room,wife,filequality is not an objection: go as big as you can. And those who can afford a 8100 maybe also can buy a smaller model for the smaller prints....and can afford the ink cartridges that go into the 8100 :-)

Be aware that 6100 and upwards do not have a paper cassette/drawer, you need to feed single sheets manually.

Huib
www.huibsmeets.com