Epson P800 vs Canon Pro-1000

[Pete Berry]

I reported this indicator of relative ink use elsewhere, but it may be instructive here.  My 3880 (which I've read is comparable to the P800 in ink use) is on its 3rd maintenance cartridge after 48 ink cartridges used, whereas my Pro-1000 is on its 5th maintenance cartridge after 30 ink cartridges used.  This to me (somewhat unscientifically) indicates that the Canon uses substantially more ink for maintenance than the Epson.

To use my teenage grandkids very appropriate language here, "That Sucks!!! How large are your ink tanks?
Pete

[MarkFarber]

3880, P800, and Pro-1000 all have 80ml ink tanks, I believe.  As Mark points out, it's the maintenance cartridges we don't know the capacity of.

[Panagiotis]

3880, P800, and Pro-1000 all have 80ml ink tanks, I believe.  As Mark points out, it's the maintenance cartridges we don't know the capacity of.

Canon PRO-1000 maintenance tank (MC-20) when full contains approximately 220 ml of ink.

[MarkFarber]

Wow.  How do you know that?

[Panagiotis]

Wow.  How do you know that?

I weighted six of them empty and full and I averaged them. Empty is 285g full is 520g. The difference between an empty and full ink cartridge is 88g. So 80ml is 88g. I calculated from there.

[howardm]

To that I'll add that on my 3880, when the maint. cart had 9% 'capacity' remaining, it contained 155gm of ink.

That equates to around 2 full ink carts 'down the drain'.

[MarkFarber]

So, based on Panagiotis' calculation of 220ml in a Pro-1000 maintenance tank, 34% of the ink I used in 14 months (including the initial charge) ended up in the maintenance tanks or currently remains in the ink tubes.  I filled 4.5 220ml maintenance tanks and emptied 36.8 80ml ink cartridges.

[Mark D Segal]

The tubes hold a fair amount of ink, so that percentage isn't too insightful without knowing how much to adjust for ink in the tubes. But yes, without trying to put too fine a point on it, these printers (I'm speaking from experience of desktop models) all use quite a bit of ink for maintenance.

[mearussi]

Agreed.  Guilty as charged, but we revert to the "unscientific" when we can't get real data.  Yesterday, Canon tech support again couldn't / wouldn't tell me the capacity of a maintenance cartridge.

Weigh them.