EPSON SureColor P20570 - anyone bought it, and then the needed $6000 of carts!!

[narikin]

Is it worth it?? - comes with NO inks, so you need to spend a lot to get it working.
500 x12 = $6000 of ink, before you get a single print out of it.

Canon gives you a starter set with their 60" /11 channel printer,
Epson does same with the old top-dog 64" P20000, just not the updated P20570 64" Aqueous.

Is this the new business model - no ink with a brand new printer?

Maybe the Epson is worth it somehow?

[dgberg]

We still have two 44" pigment printers for artists reproductions but went solvent with a 64" s80600 for our canvas hospitality wall art printing.
You can find them used for around $10k and the price on the new one is down around $16k.
No spraying our big canvases anymore.
With new canvas profiles printing through the Onyx the output matches the pigments just about perfect.
With two heads it is screaming fast as well. Can you tell I like my Epson Solvent.

[narikin]

Good to know Dan, but sadly can't consider solvent options in my unvented basement printing space.

[langier]

One of the considerations before having the head replaced on my 9900 is that any newer printer would come with very small cartridges, just enough to charge the lines and make a few prints. Then you are hit with a massive "upgrade tax" in that you've then gotta buy a supply of ink carts, possibly adding another 50% or more to your overall start-up costs with a new printer.

In any case, in purchasing a new printer, beware of those hidden "update taxes" that seem to haunt us all! That includes system compatibility and other consumables costs before jumping into a new printer.

This was one of the selling points brought up when I replaced the head a few years ago by my service tech. That made it a no-brainer when it came to fixing or replacing the printer for me!

[Richard.Wills]

I can't find off hand the envelope I did the calculations on, but late summer I was looking at the costs of Epson's new 64", Canon 60", take ups, couple of litres of ink per channel (3-4 monthes worth), plus rip, and they both came to itro £20k.

I was slightly shocked that the Epson came with no ink, but the carts are 1000ml, and the cost/sqM was definitely lower. Just the sticker price is slightly misleading. A printer that has 1litre carts Is a production machine (though the Canon with mere bottles (drop per drop as much as Dom Perignon or Johnny Walker Blue Label) with rip and TUR is also for production).

I'm heading towards Dan's setup - a 4600 (with take up reel), and a second user 80600 (inkj is way cheaper) for the big vinyl, Phototex, banner, fabric, poster printing.  And with a suitable RIP to drive them both.

I'm in a basement as well, but we started fit out of the new space a couple of years ago, and so factored air handling, both for post covid type business recovery, and for the health of folks in the darkroom and film processing.

[Lessbones]

If you're primarily doing canvas prints for hospitality or the like as Dan was mentioning (OP im not sure what your client base is like) then you could do latex/resin... that would solve the same problems without needing the ventilation, however they do require a ton of power for the heat curing.

Epson makes the R5070 which looks pretty nice, although I've only used the older HP latex printers, which did a good job but had terrible gamut-- I'd think the Epsons probably do a bit better in that regard, but you're still limited to CMYK gamut with no specialty colors.  But you get white like you would with the solvent.

[narikin]

I was slightly shocked that the Epson came with no ink, but the carts are 1000ml...

Just to correct that - the P20570 carts are 1.6 liters each(!) - greater than a 1500ml Magnum bottle!

That does make them better value in calculations, but this is offset by being forced to buy 1600ml of even the rarely used colors, like violet and orange (for me*). Those will take years to run down. There should be 700ml versions of the less-used colors, and afaik Epson don't sell those, at least in the US.

(*maybe you are doing Home Depot house point-of-sale stuff!  )

[Richard.Wills]

I sit corrected about the Magnum+ cart sizes.

I forget what the ink shelf/in printer life is like on the Epsons, but I currently go through at least a bottle of the odd colours (red, green, blue) every six months on our 8400.