Cost Per Print

[bwphoto]

I am putting together a business plan for funding and have a question regarding cost of materials.  I am planning on purchasing an Epson 9900 and printing to BC Lyve canvas.  Anyone here ever figured out the cost per square inch using Epson inks and 44" rolls?  Forget about overhead and labour, just ink and canvas.  I know it's vague but just looking for a close estimate.  Appreciate your help.

Brian

[dgberg]

"Forget about overhead and labor"
Those are the 2 things that will make or break you.

Divide what you pay per square foot  for your canvas by 144 for canvas cost.
Ink = 1.6 ml per square foot X .32 (700ml carts)= .50 sq. ft. for ink cost
Do a quick search and you will find multiple threads here about this very topic.
My ink and canvas  costs are about $1.50 a square foot which I round up to $2.00 to cover waste and the times I use a more expensive canvas.
My canvas and ink costs average 5% of my total sale price.
If I attach canvas to gatorboad and but it in a frame the frame and backer are 3 times the cost of the ink and canvas so figure everything.

[bwphoto]

Thanks Dan.

I excluded overhead and labour because I have a figure for those costs already.  Everybody's overhead will be different so I was only looking for a direct material cost.

Thanks,
Brian

[feppe]

"Forget about overhead and labor"
Those are the 2 things that will make or break you.

Divide what you pay per square foot  for your canvas by 144 for canvas cost.
Ink = 1.6 ml per square foot X .32 (700ml carts)= .50 sq. in for ink cost.
Do a quick search and you will find multiple threads here about this very topic

Epson carts leave significant amount of ink in the cart unused, so using the full volume gives you a deflated price per square unit.

[David Saffir]

I would add that the Epson's oftenuse significant ink quant for head cleaning. My experience w/ the 7900 is at least 10% over per sq/in cost.

David.

[Wayne Fox]

Epson carts leave significant amount of ink in the cart unused, so using the full volume gives you a deflated price per square unit.

According to the service tech and a couple of other sources,  Ink consumption on Epson printers is measured by the actual amount if ink that flows through the nozzles which is updated on the cartridge chip.  In fact the cartridge will deliver the stated amount of ink. To prevent damage to the head the cartridges actually contain extra ink in them ...so there is always ink left in the cartridge. That doesn't mean you were shorted ink.

[LucDelorme]

Depending on the image, I have seen ink usage as high as 3.4ml/sq.ft. on my 3880.  I'm sure other Epson models would do the same.


Cheers,

Luc

[feppe]

According to the service tech and a couple of other sources,  Ink consumption on Epson printers is measured by the actual amount if ink that flows through the nozzles which is updated on the cartridge chip.  In fact the cartridge will deliver the stated amount of ink. To prevent damage to the head the cartridges actually contain extra ink in them ...so there is always ink left in the cartridge. That doesn't mean you were shorted ink.

That's good, but the question was on how to calculate print costs before buying the printer. The method proposed earlier assumed full ink cart usage, which does not yield accurate results due to wasted ink on cleaning and left in the cart although it's empty according to the driver.

[colinm]

The method proposed earlier assumed full ink cart usage, which does not yield accurate results due to wasted ink on cleaning and left in the cart although it's empty according to the driver.

As Wayne noted, you do not pay for the ink left in the cart. That ink has no impact on the operating costs of the printer.

A 220mL cart has 220mL of usable ink. You paid for 220mL of usable ink. Whether Epson fills it to 230mL or 2300mL has no bearing.

[Wayne Fox]

That's good, but the question was on how to calculate print costs before buying the printer. The method proposed earlier assumed full ink cart usage, which does not yield accurate results due to wasted ink on cleaning and left in the cart although it's empty according to the driver.

As was mentioned in the previous post, the printer will deliver the stated amount of ink through the nozzles.

Wasted ink is a fact of life with any inkjet printer ... just part of the process.  Epson's waste is sort of an in your face and certainly some of the recent printers have had some serious issues, while Canon and HP printers want you to leave the printer on all the time and constantly spit ink out to keep nozzles clear and clean at times when nobody notices.

The biggest factor in ink waste for any of these printers is machine utilization.  Wasted ink for a very well utilized machine will be pretty minimal for any of them, for a low utilized machine could be a pretty big amount.  Of course wasted paper from having to do reprints will probably be a far bigger cost.

How to nail it?  I suppose if margins are really that tight you have to track it as best you can.  The 10% number is actually a pretty good starting point for all of them, perhaps moving down to 5% if you are printing large volumes every day, up to 15% if you don't print a lot and perhaps as high as 20% if you just print a few prints a week.

[David Saffir]

"To prevent damage to the head the cartridges actually contain extra ink in them ...so there is always ink left in the cartridge."

interesting! great info.

David

PS - my experience with the HP and Canon wide-format machines is that ink usage for cleaning is less than Epson, even though cleaning cycles are "invisible". Straightforward to track with HP, as the built-in web server tracks ml used per job, so one can calculate figures.  Also interesting to note that the HP Z-series have no "waste ink" tank; the Z3200 and 3100 in my studio are problem free after extensive use.

David

[JeffKohn]

Wasted ink is a fact of life with any inkjet printer ... just part of the process.  Epson's waste is sort of an in your face and certainly some of the recent printers have had some serious issues, while Canon and HP printers want you to leave the printer on all the time and constantly spit ink out to keep nozzles clear and clean at times when nobody notices.

It's true the Canons do periodic cleanings when left on, but the newer models use very little ink for these cleaning cycles (and even the older ones with upgraded firmware, except for the 5000). And if you want, you still have the option of turning the printer off when it won't be used for a while, of course with the tradeoff that a "full" cleaning cycle will probably be run on next use.

But I don't think it's accurate to say that the Epsons are just the same as other brands when it comes to ink wasted on cleaning cycles. It may be  that the Epsons are comparable when used for high-volume printing, such as in a commercial lab; but for low-volume printing it's a different story, and the Piezo heads are just more likely to clog in my experience. I'm a low-volume printer, I might print a bunch one week, and then not print again for a month or two. For that usage pattern, my experience is that Canon is much better than Epson. (I don't have any experience with HP)

[artobest]

From HP's Z3200 literature: "Each nozzle test uses very little ink: about 20 drops are ejected to ensure fresh ink is in each nozzle before 8 drops are used to measure performance. This implies more than 550 tests per ml of ink."

That's pretty efficient.