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Author Topic: Canon Pro 2000 or Epson p7000 for the light user  (Read 4708 times)

ymc226

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Canon Pro 2000 or Epson p7000 for the light user
« on: December 29, 2017, 01:13:56 pm »

I know that in the past, large format printers needed to be used regularly to avoid trouble.   On smaller format printers, I have not done so, going months on the Epson 3880 without adverse effect.  I want to print larger format and still love the idea of control that I've had with Imageprint, Lightroom/PS/NIK and the 3880. 

I did read Keith's review of the Canon Pro 2000 with its scheduled maintenance and user replaceable head.  The Canon is now supported by Imageprint as well.  These points are steering me toward the Canon but I've only used Epson.  Are there hobbyists on the forum that uses an Epson p7000 occasionally and find the printer to be reliable?
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Garnick

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Re: Canon Pro 2000 or Epson p7000 for the light user
« Reply #1 on: January 01, 2018, 01:42:22 pm »

I know that in the past, large format printers needed to be used regularly to avoid trouble.   On smaller format printers, I have not done so, going months on the Epson 3880 without adverse effect.  I want to print larger format and still love the idea of control that I've had with Imageprint, Lightroom/PS/NIK and the 3880. 

I did read Keith's review of the Canon Pro 2000 with its scheduled maintenance and user replaceable head.  The Canon is now supported by Imageprint as well.  These points are steering me toward the Canon but I've only used Epson.  Are there hobbyists on the forum that uses an Epson p7000 occasionally and find the printer to be reliable?

I'm not a hobbyist, but I do own and operate a P7000.  Printing, in a number of iterations, has been my business since the late 60s, and digital/inkjet since 2003.  As far as the large format printers are concerned, I can only talk about the Epson series, dating back to the SP7600 etc.  For the variety of work I do I have always found the straight through feed of the Epson printers to be a considerable advantage, although a number of members on this forum use both the Canon and HP printers quite successfully.  However, all of that aside, I have to say that the P7000 has so far been the best Epson wide format I have owned, in reference to maintenance issues, including the SP9900.  After moving my business to my home location I purchased the P7000 in July of last year.  Since I'm not doing as much business as usual, the P7000 has sit idle for a week with no apparent nozzle issues, although I would generally start it up and run a nozzle check, and usually one print including all colours, every third day.  Therefore, as far as maintenance issues are concerned, I believe you will find that the P7000 would be an excellent choice.  Do a search for previous posts by Wayne Fox here.  I'm sure you will find the same sort of information from Wayne concerning the "P" series printers and their lack of nozzle issues, as well as their excellent output.

Gary     

« Last Edit: January 01, 2018, 02:49:57 pm by Garnick »
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Gary N.
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I.T. Supplies

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Re: Canon Pro 2000 or Epson p7000 for the light user
« Reply #2 on: January 02, 2018, 12:46:24 pm »

It really depends on how much printing you do and the type of printing.  With Epson's head system, it's good to stick with them if you use it at least a few times a week and set up the auto maintenance check/cleaning to help if you don't print as often as you expect.  If the nozzles go the direction of getting clogged, it may be an easy clean or you may go through some heavy cleans which will use quite a bit of ink.

The reason why a handful of customers that talk to us have concerns over Epson's nozzle issue and the fact that if you go between matte and luster/gloss media often, it's best to stick with Canon as their head in the Pro series has more nozzles available, printer has the auto cleaning feature and many sensors to watch for any clogs during printing or when not in use and the head itself is replaceable if needed.

Some customers like Epson because they are used to it.  The quality between both brands are very similar now, but it basically comes down to what you do and if you're looking at features.  If you have a print from both models and have them apart, you may not see the difference.  If close by, each person may see a slight difference in different areas (also depends on what you print).
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DeanChriss

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Re: Canon Pro 2000 or Epson p7000 for the light user
« Reply #3 on: January 02, 2018, 08:57:04 pm »

I'm not a hobbyist, but I do own and operate a P7000.  Printing, in a number of iterations, has been my business since the late 60s, and digital/inkjet since 2003.  As far as the large format printers are concerned, I can only talk about the Epson series, dating back to the SP7600 etc.  For the variety of work I do I have always found the straight through feed of the Epson printers to be a considerable advantage, although a number of members on this forum use both the Canon and HP printers quite successfully.  However, all of that aside, I have to say that the P7000 has so far been the best Epson wide format I have owned, in reference to maintenance issues, including the SP9900.  After moving my business to my home location I purchased the P7000 in July of last year.  Since I'm not doing as much business as usual, the P7000 has sit idle for a week with no apparent nozzle issues, although I would generally start it up and run a nozzle check, and usually one print including all colours, every third day.  Therefore, as far as maintenance issues are concerned, I believe you will find that the P7000 would be an excellent choice.  Do a search for previous posts by Wayne Fox here.  I'm sure you will find the same sort of information from Wayne concerning the "P" series printers and their lack of nozzle issues, as well as their excellent output.

Gary   

I can confirm what you said. I got a P7000 in July of 2016. Since then I have been away 4 times and the printer sat turned off and unused. The shortest period was 2 weeks and the longest was 5 weeks, all with no problems. I stopped printing nozzle checks in July 2017 after a year without finding clogged nozzles.
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shadowblade

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Re: Canon Pro 2000 or Epson p7000 for the light user
« Reply #4 on: January 02, 2018, 09:03:40 pm »

HP Z3200.

You can leave it lying there for a year and it'll print just fine, without noticeable clogs. And, even if it does eventually clog, the heads are designed to be cheap and disposable.
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GrahamBy

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Re: Canon Pro 2000 or Epson p7000 for the light user
« Reply #5 on: January 03, 2018, 07:13:42 am »

HP Z3200.

You can leave it lying there for a year and it'll print just fine, without noticeable clogs. And, even if it does eventually clog, the heads are designed to be cheap and disposable.

Just as a clarification: some people have mentioned that you need to leave it plugged n and turned on, and that it runs a fan continuously.

So when you say "you can leave it lying there for a year", is that a year plugged in and turned on? Or i it true even if you shut it down?
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MabeHall

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Re: Canon Pro 2000 or Epson p7000 for the light user
« Reply #6 on: January 03, 2018, 11:09:52 am »

It really depends on how much printing you do and the type of printing.  With Epson's head system, it's good to stick with them if you use it at least a few times a week and set up the auto maintenance check/cleaning to help if you don't print as often as you expect.  If the nozzles go the direction of getting clogged, it may be an easy clean or you may go through some heavy cleans which will use quite a bit of ink.

The reason why a handful of customers that talk to us have concerns over Epson's nozzle issue and the fact that if you go between matte and luster/gloss media often, it's best to stick with Canon as their head in the Pro series has more nozzles available, printer has the auto cleaning feature and many sensors to watch for any clogs during printing or when not in use and the head itself is replaceable if needed.

Some customers like Epson because they are used to it.  The quality between both brands are very similar now, but it basically comes down to what you do and if you're looking at features.  If you have a print from both models and have them apart, you may not see the difference.  If close by, each person may see a slight difference in different areas (also depends on what you print).
[As the owner of a Canon Pro-1000 I would have to disagree on any recommendation to purchase a Canon if someone is a light user.  The ink wasted in cleaning cycles is unbelievable.  And yes, I leave the printer on and I know the initial setup uses about 50% of the ink cartridges. And yes, at Canons recommendation I took my unit to a service center. I do almost everything to minimize this waste. This printer in a non production setting will waste 7-10 times the ink it actually puts on paper. I can give the details to anyone who wants them. I have discussed this at length with Canon to no avail. Unless I find out that the Epson P-800 does the same, my printer will soon be a boat anchor. The savings in ink will pay for the printer quickly.  I doubt the Pro-2000 and up are any different but then they are marketed as production units. The /quote]
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shadowblade

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Re: Canon Pro 2000 or Epson p7000 for the light user
« Reply #7 on: January 04, 2018, 12:45:45 am »

Just as a clarification: some people have mentioned that you need to leave it plugged n and turned on, and that it runs a fan continuously.

So when you say "you can leave it lying there for a year", is that a year plugged in and turned on? Or i it true even if you shut it down?

Not sure - when I was away for long periods, I always left it plugged in. Not sure exactly how long you can leave it completely unpowered for. But it should perform far better than the Epson - there are many more nozzles which can be re-mapped if some do clog (I don't believe Epson printers remap nozzles at all - if even a single one is clogged, it will show up in the print), and, if you do need to replace a head, they are cheap.
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MabeHall

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Re: Canon Pro 2000 or Epson p7000 for the light user
« Reply #8 on: January 04, 2018, 08:42:07 pm »

Evidently I keep posting things incorrectly but here goes again.

As the owner of a Canon Pro-1000 I would have to disagree with any recommendation to purchase a Canon if someone is a light user.  The ink wasted in cleaning cycles is unbelievable.  And yes, I leave the printer on and I know the initial setup uses about 50% of the ink cartridges. And yes, at Canon's recommendation I took my unit to a service center. I do almost everything to minimize this waste. This printer, in a non production setting, will waste 7-10 times the ink it actually puts on paper. I can give the details to anyone who wants them. I have discussed this at length with Canon to no avail. Unless I find out that the Epson P-800 does the same, my printer will soon be a boat anchor. The savings in ink will pay for the new printer in short order.  I doubt the Pro-2000 and up are any different but then they are marketed as production units.

An added comment: There is an online video showing a 6 minute cleaning cycle that reportedly uses 59 ml of ink.  This happened to me and it occurred even though I had printed the day before and it drove every ink cartridge to low. And no, there was no requested maintenance cycle.  I just hit print.

Mabe Hall
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Ryan Mack

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Re: Canon Pro 2000 or Epson p7000 for the light user
« Reply #9 on: January 04, 2018, 10:05:30 pm »

I’ve been happy with the Pro-4000 for light use. I appreciate the fact it can do nozzle checks and substitutions without wasting any paper and the ink agitation seems to work. My Epson 3880 required manual ink agitation, frequent nozzle checks, and power cleans after long idle periods. But the Epson has been working for 7 years now without requiring any replacement parts. The canon only 6 months and it’s substituted 3 nozzles in that time.
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Panagiotis

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Re: Canon Pro 2000 or Epson p7000 for the light user
« Reply #10 on: January 05, 2018, 02:15:09 am »

As the owner of a Canon Pro-1000 I would have to disagree with any recommendation to purchase a Canon if someone is a light user. 
I also use the PRO-1000 and I tend to agree.

The ink wasted in cleaning cycles is unbelievable.  And yes, I leave the printer on and I know the initial setup uses about 50% of the ink cartridges. And yes, at Canon's recommendation I took my unit to a service center. I do almost everything to minimize this waste. This printer, in a non production setting, will waste 7-10 times the ink it actually puts on paper. I can give the details to anyone who wants them. I have discussed this at length with Canon to no avail.
I agree. I measure the ink consumption also. For my use is 50:50. Details here:

http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=117644.msg1002452#msg1002452

It would be interesting if you could post your ink consumption details in the thread above for the record.


Unless I find out that the Epson P-800 does the same, my printer will soon be a boat anchor.
I am interested also in P-800 if it's not wasting that much ink or even better a P-6000 which is the same inkset and not very expensive (double the P-800 price).

An added comment: There is an online video showing a 6 minute cleaning cycle that reportedly uses 59 ml of ink.  This happened to me and it occurred even though I had printed the day before and it drove every ink cartridge to low. And no, there was no requested maintenance cycle.  I just hit print.
It happened to me twice. I am now waiting the third one :).
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MabeHall

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Re: Canon Pro 2000 or Epson p7000 for the light user
« Reply #11 on: January 05, 2018, 10:26:17 am »

Reply to Panagiotis. 50/50 sounded really wrong until I followed your link. You are a production printer!!! In 6 months of ownership I have used a tiny fraction of the paper and ink you have consumed, partially due to the realization of how much ink I was wasting. But even with no waste I would have done no more than double my print output at best.  I am a former engineer, learning hobbyist, that admittedly, frequently, gets too involved in the technical side of photography and printing. In the 6 months I have made a little over 105 A4 equivalent prints, used 969 ml of ink of which about 480 was used for initial fill. Typical is what happened the other day.  After just 43 hours of not printing I made an 8 1/2 X 11 print, putting 0.7 ml on paper but consuming 5 ml of ink--4.3 ml wasted in the cleaning cycle. This goes back to my comment: This printer was designed for production. At 50/50, no one would have heard of me--I probably would not have noticed the problem for a long time if ever.

I was interested in the Pro-1000 or P-800 in order to take advantage of the lower cost of ink per ml. I selected the Pro-1000 over the P-800 primarily due to the Epson wasting ink in the swap between PK and PM black inks. That waste turned out to be nothing, I repeat, nothing compared to what the Pro-1000 waste on a regular basis.

Mabe
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Wayne Fox

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Re: Canon Pro 2000 or Epson p7000 for the light user
« Reply #12 on: January 05, 2018, 11:33:15 am »

In response to Gary mentioning me, I would add that my 2 year old p9000 has been a stellar performer.  I no longer keep a humidifier running in the room which I found was helpful with the 9900.  A missing nozzle and clean is rare.  I tend to use the printer heavily for a few days, followed by a period of inactivity (week to 2 weeks, sometimes a little longer).  I still run nozzle patterns just to make sure because the prints are normally quite large and the printer runs unattended, so I want to make sure all nozzles are firing. I cannot remember the last time a nozzle pattern showed a problem, it's been several months.  I'm guessing I've performed at most 3 cleans in the last year. My p5000 was problematic at first, but after a week of issues performs similarly.  I switch inks in the two printers on occasion and even after ink swaps (which triggers an auto nozzle check followed by a  clean if there is a problem) I haven't seen either printer perform a clean in a long time.  I've seen the p5000 clean a couple of times in the past six months when it was powered on (which also triggers an auto nozzle check), that's pretty much it.


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ymc226

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Re: Canon Pro 2000 or Epson p7000 for the light user
« Reply #13 on: January 05, 2018, 12:29:27 pm »

Evidently I keep posting things incorrectly but here goes again.

As the owner of a Canon Pro-1000 I would have to disagree with any recommendation to purchase a Canon if someone is a light user.  The ink wasted in cleaning cycles is unbelievable.  And yes, I leave the printer on and I know the initial setup uses about 50% of the ink cartridges. And yes, at Canon's recommendation I took my unit to a service center. I do almost everything to minimize this waste. This printer, in a non production setting, will waste 7-10 times the ink it actually puts on paper. I can give the details to anyone who wants them. I have discussed this at length with Canon to no avail. Unless I find out that the Epson P-800 does the same, my printer will soon be a boat anchor. The savings in ink will pay for the new printer in short order.  I doubt the Pro-2000 and up are any different but then they are marketed as production units.

An added comment: There is an online video showing a 6 minute cleaning cycle that reportedly uses 59 ml of ink.  This happened to me and it occurred even though I had printed the day before and it drove every ink cartridge to low. And no, there was no requested maintenance cycle.  I just hit print.

Mabe Hall
In response to Gary mentioning me, I would add that my 2 year old p9000 has been a stellar performer.  I no longer keep a humidifier running in the room which I found was helpful with the 9900.  A missing nozzle and clean is rare.  I tend to use the printer heavily for a few days, followed by a period of inactivity (week to 2 weeks, sometimes a little longer).  I still run nozzle patterns just to make sure because the prints are normally quite large and the printer runs unattended, so I want to make sure all nozzles are firing. I cannot remember the last time a nozzle pattern showed a problem, it's been several months.  I'm guessing I've performed at most 3 cleans in the last year. My p5000 was problematic at first, but after a week of issues performs similarly.  I switch inks in the two printers on occasion and even after ink swaps (which triggers an auto nozzle check followed by a  clean if there is a problem) I haven't seen either printer perform a clean in a long time.  I've seen the p5000 clean a couple of times in the past six months when it was powered on (which also triggers an auto nozzle check), that's pretty much it.



I can confirm what you said. I got a P7000 in July of 2016. Since then I have been away 4 times and the printer sat turned off and unused. The shortest period was 2 weeks and the longest was 5 weeks, all with no problems. I stopped printing nozzle checks in July 2017 after a year without finding clogged nozzles.

Thanks for all of your responses.  I am now more confidant in proceeding with the Epson as I am less familiar with the gloss optimizer in the Canon. 
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I.T. Supplies

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Re: Canon Pro 2000 or Epson p7000 for the light user
« Reply #14 on: January 05, 2018, 01:13:51 pm »

I was going to post a reply towards all the details and direct usage of others but forgot to do it.
Here is a demo video between the 44" Canon Pro series and 44" Epson P series.  Note that this is for demo purposes only per the users note at the beginning, but provides valid information.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5p25vhclF4Y

Of course speed and ink usage may be slightly less for the 24" models since it will slow down a little on larger versions with the extra space to work with and you can print wider (of course).  Ink usage between 17" and 24/44" will be different for sure since the smaller model only offers a specific size ink while the larger ones will have 3 sizes available (which depends on color usage to go with larger inks for better savings).

And remember, each user of one of the printers will have different details since not every printer will act exactly the same since it depends on environment, light specs, etc.  The users suggestions and what not help others for sure, but as I mentioned before, this really would depend on what you're printing and the possible settings.  Our company gets the details from customers this way to help determine which model we would recommend for them before they purchase.  They both have their cons and pros which is helpful though.

The Pro-1000 may be more "gas" guzzling than the Epson for some, but others may not feel that issue.  We have the Pro-1000 and have been on low ink status for most of our colors for a few weeks and still printing.  We currently have the Pro-1000, Pro-4000, Epson P800, P5000 and P7000CE in our office that we use weekly and for demos.  They may not be as crazy as other users may experience (which is surely possible), but suggestions to others help for their decision.
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