I am considering purchasing an Epson R2880 or 4880. I would like to print my own photographs but there would be insufficient demand to keep the ink fresh. Is it viable to print in lots, run out the remaining ink and do it all again when there are enough to consume another set of cartridges? Would the printer develop difficulties with this system?
The main problem with that scheme is that cartridges run out at different rates. For instance Light Magenta runs down at a much faster rate than Cyan, you will burn through maybe three LM's per one Cyan, somethin' like that. The only time your cartridges will all have the same level is just before the printer's very first print. Also in real life it is seldom possible to print in distinct, disciplined batches. You will find yourself needing to give somebody a print right away, and you yourself will often be anxious to print a particularly great image soon after creating it.
If your printing is truly an infrequent event, consider a printer with small cartridges that travel on the carriage. For heavy use that's a pretty expensive option, but it does simplify the lives of infrequent printers.
Also many of the clogging and similar horror stories you hear about on forums represent the extreme cases. In general even when I was printing only every couple weeks with my 7800 I didn't have any really nasty problems that couldn't be solved by a few normal head cleanings. Hint...you will get far fewer clogs with RC and smooth glossy papers than with canvas or matte art papers. The last two introduce a lot of dust onto the heads and isolated unusually thick or high areas on art papers and canvas lead to head strikes which do cause particularly annoying clogs. So infrequent printers should stick to RC. Although often maligned, Epson Premium Luster is a gorgeous paper and dirt cheap, but hard to handle & mount, so there's 2 out of 3 and you can add to that very low dust.
