3880/3800 ink usage ?

[FrankG]

I'm trying to calculate the cost of ink usage. On another forum it was suggested that the 3880 printer uses 1 ml per square foot.

For example:
A set of 9 carts @ 80 ml each sells for Cdn $531 (Vistek).
9x80=720 ml
531/720 = $0.74 per sq ft

Do you concur that it's 1ml per sq ft ?

I've only had the printer for a week and just completed printing a fairly large project which worked out to (with some printer setup tests & wastage) to about 38 sq ft of printed image area.The ink usage monitor graphics seems to indicate more than half used (38ml is about half of the 80ml carts) although it isn't really an accurate judge.

Thanks,
Frank

[Randy Carone]

The general consensus - from several reliable sources other than Epson - is that ~1.5ml/square foot is a more realistic number for ink consumption.

[howardm]

dont forget that the majority of the consumption of the first cart set is due to charging the ink lines.  I'd still say the
3800 uses around 1-1.2mL but I'm not accounting for waste.  This is an inexact science for sure and the paper cost
eclipses the ink cost.

[Wayne Fox]

To add some info to Randy's information, Epson printers use basically the same ink so to achieve identical prints it would require the same amount of ink, regardless of the model.  Several of us have tracked consumption on larger printers which is easy to do with job information which supplies ink consumption down to .01ml per color for each print,  and 1.5ml/sq. ft seems to be pretty much where everyone ends up as an average over a large sample size of prints.  The one variable might be an individual whose work is predominantly high key or dark low key images, this would sway the average up or down.

Note that these numbers are obtained by actual amount of ink laid down on the paper in making a print, and thus are not influenced at all by cleaning cycles, etc.

[FrankG]

Thanks all very helpful to know.

I just need to have a realistic estimate of my actual costs for the project. I'll figure on 1.5 ml per sq ft just to be conservative (not politically :-) & safely covered.

For calculating it at 1.5 ml, is my arithmetic correct -
9 (carts) x  80ml = 720 ml
720 / 1.5 =480
$531/480 = $1.11 ink cost per sq ft of printed image.

Paper has to be figured on the printed area + any white border area.

My ink monitor may show more ink was used because most of the images were black & white and some had large areas of pure black.

[dgberg]

All those numbers are not really necessary.
You just need to know what you paid per ml. times 1.5 gives you your answer.
Cost per ml .62 x 1.5 = .93 per sq. ft.


 (1 cart $49.60)  divided by 80 = .62 per ml.

[Light Seeker]

Although a cartridge comes with 80ml of ink I don't think you're actually going to get that much from it. If your margins are tight you might want to consider it as having 70ml or 75ml of ink. (Someone please correct me if I'm wrong).

Terry.

[howardm]

also, for the purposes of this calculation, you really will only be using 8 carts, not 9 so you need to recompute based on that since you're not going to be switching between PK and MK

[Farmer]

The number of carts used doesn't matter, because it's the total amount of ink used that matters, and all the carts cost the same.

As for how much ink you get from a cart - I think most people would have noticed by now that you tend to see 1% sitting there for quite a while.  80ml is a safe assumption.

[Wayne Fox]

Although a cartridge comes with 80ml of ink I don't think you're actually going to get that much from it. If your margins are tight you might want to consider it as having 70ml or 75ml of ink. (Someone please correct me if I'm wrong).

Terry.

As Phil mentioned, you'll get 80ml of total ink as long as you wait till the printer stops and asks for a new cartridge , rather than changing it when the printer "thinks" it's empty(maybe even 1 or 2 extra ml's).  In fact when the printer reports 1% there may be as much as 6 to 8 ml left. Changing it mid print does not affect print quality, so the only issue is being there when it happens.

To your point you may not get 80ml of coverage on actual paper due to some nozzle clears.

Also Phil is right ... number of cartridges isn't a good way to calculate that.  You'll use 3 or 4 LK cartridges to each VLM cartridge, so you can't just go down and buy x sets of inks.  Thus total ink consumed is the only real way to estimate the final cost of producing the prints - as in Dan's post.

[Randy Carone]

Wayne,
I once had a customer wait for an ink until it arrived Monday to continue a print on his 11880 that stopped mid-print on Friday. He was amazed (and quite happy).

[Alan Goldhammer]

It really is surprising how long an ink cartridge can last once you get the low warning on an Epson 3880.  I've been playing around with ArgyllCMS and printing out  large number of patch charts.  My VLM cartridge was showing 5% and after I had printed about 15 pages of 196 patches/page (letter size), it had only gone down to 4%.  Since the patch sets use the whole spectrum of inks, this is pretty reliable on how long it takes for one of these to run down.

[Light Seeker]

I'm really pleased to hear that there's little waste with 3800 / 3880 cartridges. In the old day's (i.e. 2200) it seemed common knowledge that a few ml of ink was always left in those small cartridges when they had to be replaced. I have always assumed that my 3800 was similar.

Thanks guys!

Terry.

[RHPS]

I'm trying to calculate the cost of ink usage. On another forum it was suggested that the 3880 printer uses 1 ml per square foot.

If you have the Epson LFP Remote Panel installed you can actually read out the ink usage for the last 10 jobs. It works fine with the 3800 so should be the same with the 3880.