Epson Surecolor P900 lust

[Ferp]

Can someone please post the weight, preferably in grams, of a full P900 cart?  Ideally non-starter, but it sounds like that doesn't matter.

[Cem]

Can someone please post the weight, preferably in grams, of a full P900 cart?  Ideally non-starter, but it sounds like that doesn't matter.

121.5 grams

[Ferp]

Thanks Cem.  I guess it would also be useful to know the weight of an empty P900 cart.  Can someone with an empty oblige?

My thinking was that if the P900 carts really are the same as the P800 / 38xo ones, then we could impute the usable ink by weight.  I think that the 3880 carts were around 142.7 gms full and 76.2 empty, a difference of 66.5gms.  We don't know the SG of the ink, but it's unlikely to be less that 1.  The accusations of too much ink left in these carts is well known.

If the P900 carts empty weigh the same as the 3880, a big if, then that's 45.3gms of usable ink by weight.  That's a much smaller gap to the nominal volume of 50 mls than for the 3880.  (Yes, I'm assuming an SG of 1 but it's the relative difference between P900 and 3880 that I'm really interested in.)

It would be useful to get an empty P900 cart measurement to verify or vary this estimate.

[Cem]

Thanks Cem.  I guess it would also be useful to know the weight of an empty P900 cart.  Can someone with an empty oblige?

My thinking was that if the P900 carts really are the same as the P800 / 38xo ones, then we could impute the usable ink by weight.  I think that the 3880 carts were around 142.7 gms full and 76.2 empty, a difference of 66.5gms.  We don't know the SG of the ink, but it's unlikely to be less that 1.  The accusations of too much ink left in these carts is well known.

If the P900 carts empty weigh the same as the 3880, a big if, then that's 45.3gms of usable ink by weight.  That's a much smaller gap to the nominal volume of 50 mls than for the 3880.  (Yes, I'm assuming an SG of 1 but it's the relative difference between P900 and 3880 that I'm really interested in.)

It would be useful to get an empty P900 cart measurement to verify or vary this estimate.

I'll weigh the cartridges again when they are empty. May take a few more days. I am in the process of making trial prints and profiling prints right now.

[PatCastaldo]

I've found myself really disappointed with the P900, mostly around paper-feed issues.

Big Negatives I've found:

• 13x19 Matte Paper won't reliably feed from the top paper feed. Just refuses to grab.
• Loading nice thick paper, like Epson's cold press bright through the front-loading mechanism takes 1 min 40 seconds (I timed it) with constant supervision. You can't just set it and leave, you have to wait for the slow-slow screen to come back for the next step.
• The new screen is nice, but really slow compared to older models.
• The error chime is not as loud as on the P800 (I turned it up to max) — this matters in our busy/loud environment.

Things I like:

• I have noticed what feels like slightly better color than a P800 for the same prints, especially in darker tones.
• The display showing the time-to-print is really nice (though doesn't seem terribly reliable.

But the paper feed issues are really troubling; nothing really likes to feed 13x19 paper — the P800 is prone to skew — but not grabbing it at all is almost unusable for me.

I've got just one of the P900s, but 4 P800s, a P5000, a 3880 and a 7900 — the P900, fresh out of box, has already been the most trouble.

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

Pat,
You should check out Mark Segal's excellent and thorough review over on photopxl:
https://photopxl.com/the-new-epson-sc-p900-printer-review/

If you scroll down many pages, he clarifies a number of issues about paper handling for which the Epson manual  has no useful information.

[PatCastaldo]

Read that just now — his experience is the reverse of mine. Ha.

From the review, "My experience indicates it is very reliable." (top loader for less than .5mm)

I can't get it to reliably take paper at all that way, and the front feed, while it works fine, is 4x as as slow as the P800 was at "getting ready." I should probably make a video of how bad this feed mechanism is for me. Maybe after the holiday crunch.

[dgberg]

Still not buying all the fuss about the 900. The ink switch, not a big deal. New ink set same thing. Maybe for the at home printer it makes sense. Just too small with very expensive ink.
The great buy is a P6000 at slightly over $2000. You can buy 700 ml carts which are about as cheap as you can buy oem inks.
Gives you 24" printing capacity plus sheets and rolls are a snap to load. I think I may get one if I can find someone to take this oh so slow Z3200 off my hands.

[PatCastaldo]

Took a video today of the mechanism just not grabbing a single sheet.

https://youtu.be/JraIPtUWjhw?t=37

It works if you apply a little pressure on the sheet as it's trying to grab, but that's not useable for our production environment. I'm really disappointed in it, that and the general slowness of the interface makes me sad.

--

I'm looking for something like the P5000 but with better full-bleed capabilities; the P7000 is still single-sheet feed, and that's a non-starter for us. We can use the P800 with a 5-10 sheets in the top feeder and that's great.

[cunningIMG]

Man this is disappointing. One of the reasons I was wanting to buy a desktop machine was to speed up my sheet fed printing vs my P10000 ...maybe not so much.

[texshooter]

Is Epson going to fix the sheet feed problem? Or have they calculated 5% of returns is not worth the redesign costs.  Not sure if I should wait for a reliable P900 rebake or buy a Canon instead. The last time I bought the 3800, a month later they came out with the 3880 which fixed their magenta issues.  Makes me suspect a P980 is currently in the works.

[IPDOUGLAS]

Is Epson going to fix the sheet feed problem? Or have they calculated 5% of returns is not worth the redesign costs.  Not sure if I should wait for a reliable P900 rebake or buy a Canon instead. The last time I bought the 3800, a month later they came out with the 3880 which fixed their magenta issues.  Makes me suspect a P980 is currently in the works.


You are clearly an optimist?  I suspect Epson are not bothered unless enough potential Epson buyers switch to Canon but the Canons are not without flaws especially the Imageprograf Pro 1000 which was very nearly a legendary A2 printer.   Apart from the Epson P900 paper grab issues it seems not very robust and the ink cartridges are only 50ml yet appear to have far greater capacity? 

I suspect Canon will bring out a replacement for the Imageprograf 1000 before Epson do anything useful.   Neither company or their representatives seem to engage with forums (outside of their control) and openly discuss improvements or issues.  I was actually banned from the Canon USA forum (superior in some ways to any EU/UK Canon forum)  as I live in the UK but in actual fact Canon did not like what I was posting.

[texshooter]

Do all P900 copies have this paper feed problem or just a few? Is it a design flaw or a quality control issue? If it is a quality control issue, I might take the risk and buy one because I can always test it out before keeping.

[Balafre]

Hi Richard,

I hope I am wrong on this, but mention was made earlier in this thread that capacity of ink cartridges was 30% lower and price the same.

If some of that was an assumption that turns out to be inaccurate I'll gladly withdraw my comments.



Cheers,
Bernard

I believe Bernard is right - as he often is. I too have read of a 30+% price differential over the now older P-800, which resonated with me as I own one and am very sensitive to ink prices.

[IPDOUGLAS]

Epson's greed regarding ink cartridge volume and price of the P900 (especially compared to those of the P800) can only be answered by not buying it!

If you can bear the drop in size from A2 to A3 the new Canon Imageprograf 300 is testing as the better printer anyway.  Superior for monochrome despite Epson's 'carbon black' so sure to be popular with those (like me) that see monochrome as king.  Certainly (from reports)  paper handling is superior and build quality also.

[tastar]

Ink prices:

Canon Pro-300 PFI-300 ink, 14.4 ml per cartridge, $12.99 list, 90 cents per ml
Epson P900 T46Y ink, 50 ml per cartridge, $41.99 list, 84 cents per ml
Epson P800 T850 ink, 80 ml per cartridge, $63.00 list, 79 cents per ml

Tony

[Rhossydd]

I think that the 3880 carts were around 142.7 gms full and 76.2 empty, a difference of 66.5gms.

Over the years I've owned a 3800 I've weighed carts on installation and when empty.
Full weight has varied between 145gm to 148gms
Empty has varied more from 68gms - 78gms with an average of 73gms

[greyscale]

FWIW, the P900 is manufactured in Indonesia. Covid 19 is very widespread in that country now. May be awhile . Also, prolly not important but, the P900 has a cooling fan inside the printer.   Not sure yet If this fan could cause dust etc. to get on paper as printing is taking place.

[Ferp]

Over the years I've owned a 3800 I've weighed carts on installation and when empty.
Full weight has varied between 145gm to 148gms
Empty has varied more from 68gms - 78gms with an average of 73gms

I'm waiting for someone to do this for the P900.  I haven't measured my 3880 ink carts as systematically as Rhossydd, but my general impression has been that the weight has dropped by less than 70gms from full to empty.  The whole "we're getting ripped off by Epson because it leaves so much unused ink in the 3880 cart" debate is well-known.  I've read a suggestion somewhere, perhaps on Lula, that the P900 is better in this regard.  I'd really like to see the before and after numbers to get some sense of this.  Ripping open some supposedly empty carts would also be interesting.

[Rhossydd]

The whole "we're getting ripped off by Epson because it leaves so much unused ink in the 3880 cart" debate is well-known.

Shouted about without much thought.
If the printer is to remain working the print head and lines have to remain full of liquid ink, if they dry out...dead printer. It's hardly a surprise that manufacturers tend to be conservative about when to change the carts if getting that wrong would kill the printers prematurely.
Trying to squeeze more ink out of a cart might be possible, but it would require other compromises with different overall designs that might be unacceptably bulky or other cost additions that end users would find unacceptable.

The quality of results and generally great reliability of the 38xx series printers has shown them to have been really good buys in the long term.