Poll

After using the Epson 3800 for more than a month ...

I have had no technical issues.
- 40 (66.7%)
I have had some minor issues but am overall satisfied.
- 16 (26.7%)
I have had major issues which make me question my purchase.
- 4 (6.7%)

Total Members Voted: 59


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Author Topic: POLL: Printing Experience with Epson 3800  (Read 33343 times)

Mark D Segal

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POLL: Printing Experience with Epson 3800
« Reply #40 on: April 11, 2007, 10:47:07 pm »

Eric,

No, this does not happen with the 4800 driver on Windows XP. NOTHING changes unless the user changes it. Now that said, I do not change orientation or paper size in Page Set-Up in Photoshop. I do that in the Epson Driver itself in the Paper tab. I suggest you try making those two changes in the driver rather than on Page Set-Up in Photoshop and verify whether the media type still reverts to Premium Luster. I see no reason why the media type should default to anything, and if it is doing that, this is a bug Epson should fix. (Or maybe it is a conspiracy to sell more Premium Luster???) Not a bad paper, really.  
« Last Edit: April 11, 2007, 10:47:42 pm by MarkDS »
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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madmanchan

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POLL: Printing Experience with Epson 3800
« Reply #41 on: April 12, 2007, 12:04:49 pm »

Hi Mark,

You are right -- if I change the paper setting / orientation in the Epson driver, but not through the Page Setup option in PS, then all the driver settings are retained (media type, etc.). Thanks for pointing this out.

But yeah, it's a little weird how changing the paper size / orientation through Page Setup causes the driver settings to revert. Oh well ...

I believe the actual defaults (usually Premium Luster, etc.) can be changed by going to the Printers/Faxes box in Windows, right-clicking on the 3800 printer, selecting Properties, click Printing Preferences, and making changes in the resulting box.
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Eric Chan

retro987

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POLL: Printing Experience with Epson 3800
« Reply #42 on: April 12, 2007, 12:05:54 pm »

Usual niggle, no way to stop ink changing from Matt / Photo black otherwise extremely pleased with the printer, no clogging, leave switched on most of the time. Use IP rip and will soon need my first set of ink refills.
« Last Edit: April 12, 2007, 12:08:20 pm by retro987 »
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Mark D Segal

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POLL: Printing Experience with Epson 3800
« Reply #43 on: April 12, 2007, 12:51:26 pm »

Quote
Hi Mark,

I believe the actual defaults (usually Premium Luster, etc.) can be changed by going to the Printers/Faxes box in Windows, right-clicking on the 3800 printer, selecting Properties, click Printing Preferences, and making changes in the resulting box.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=112039\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Eric, yes, normally, re-setting stuff the way you describe it above "holds". I also create a set of presents in the Advanced menu of the Color Section on the Main Tab, give it a name - e.g. "Mark Basic", and that also holds till I change it.
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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alfin

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POLL: Printing Experience with Epson 3800
« Reply #44 on: April 14, 2007, 04:04:21 am »

I vote for “no technical issues”. However, I haven’t used the printer for about a week and yesterday when printing, the printer started some cleaning cycle of its own, consuming more than 2 ml ink of each cartridge.

That’s more ink waste than swapping blacks and I’m not even sure it was necessary. I can’t remember any of my other printers doing that after only about 7 days. The thing I did differently was that I installed (or rather activated) the LFP Remote Panel, I don’t know if that has anything to do with it, but I didn’t initiate any cleaning cycle, the printer did that by it self.

Do you guys know when these automatic cleaning cycles are supposed to kick in? If it’s after say a week, then it’s better to print whatever after 5 days to avoid the ink waste.
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Lars Mollerstrom

madmanchan

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POLL: Printing Experience with Epson 3800
« Reply #45 on: April 14, 2007, 06:55:32 am »

alfin, the 3800 has measures built-in to discourage clogs from forming. One of them is running occasional, automated cleanings, based partly on how long it's been since the last cleaning and how long since the print was made (the 3800 "remembers" this info).

It is true that it's unclear whether the cleaning was necessary in your particular case (or anybody else's case) but some ink waste is inevitable ... think of it as going into the printer's maintenance budget! Also, better to "waste" some ink on a cleaning rather than on a ruined print. (If a print ends up ruined, you'll have to perform the cleaning anyways, so you'd end up using more ink ... not to mention the paper ...)
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Eric Chan

alfin

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POLL: Printing Experience with Epson 3800
« Reply #46 on: April 14, 2007, 07:11:55 am »

Eric,
What you say is of course very true. I was just trying to figure out if you or anyone else knows the interval between these cleaning cycles. I usually do my printing during weekends, but if I can avoid unnecessary cleaning by printing more often, then I do so.

BR/Lars
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Lars Mollerstrom

picnic

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POLL: Printing Experience with Epson 3800
« Reply #47 on: April 14, 2007, 07:58:30 am »

Quote
Eric,
What you say is of course very true. I was just trying to figure out if you or anyone else knows the interval between these cleaning cycles. I usually do my printing during weekends, but if I can avoid unnecessary cleaning by printing more often, then I do so.

BR/Lars
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=112331\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I remember a long discussion about the LFP on dpreview in the month after the 3800 was introduced and shipping.  The consensus was that turning the LFP OFF was the better thing to do--stopping  more often cleanings.  I think that all of us participating in that thread ended up turning it off-deactivating.  Mine has been off since December with no problems.   I can't remember if one/some of them had talked to Epson people or not though.

Diane
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Mark D Segal

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POLL: Printing Experience with Epson 3800
« Reply #48 on: April 14, 2007, 09:58:22 am »

Quote
Do you guys know when these automatic cleaning cycles are supposed to kick in? If it’s after say a week, then it’s better to print whatever after 5 days to avoid the ink waste.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=112318\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I don't own a 3800 (yet) but as a "long-time" (8 years is an eternity in this technology) owner of Epson printers (now a 4800), I can confirm this is normal Epson printer behaviour. The firmware has coding that tracks not only the interval between printing sessions but also the square-footage of printing from the previous cleaning, and depending on the combination of time and accumulated printing, it triggers a cleaning cycle. Normally these cleaning cycles consume 4.1 ml of ink; however occasionally they consume 8.2 ml. I don't know what factor makes it select between 4.1 or 8.2. This applies to both the 4000 and the 4800. Since the basic technology is the same, I would expect similar performance from the 3800, give or take a bit for technical refinements from one model to the next.

Perhaps you could explain how you know the cleaning cycle used 2 ml per cartridge. That would imply an automatic cleaning of 18 ml, which is highly unusual based on my experinece with these other printers. Reviewing the content of the LFP panel functions, I doubt this utility has anything to do with the printer's cleaning cycles, except indirectly through the amount of ink used as determined by the media and quality settings you select in the Media Adjustment tab of the LFP.
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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alfin

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POLL: Printing Experience with Epson 3800
« Reply #49 on: April 14, 2007, 11:19:05 am »

Quote
Perhaps you could explain how you know the cleaning cycle used 2 ml per cartridge. That would imply an automatic cleaning of 18 ml, which is highly unusual based on my experinece with these other printers. Reviewing the content of the LFP panel functions, I doubt this utility has anything to do with the printer's cleaning cycles, except indirectly through the amount of ink used as determined by the media and quality settings you select in the Media Adjustment tab of the LFP.

I don’t know if this is the correct way to interpret the ink used, but I just looked at the ink consumption of the first print made when the printer was doing its cleaning exercises, compared to the ink consumption of the following print without prior cleaning. Both prints were A4 Enhanced Matte, very similar portraits of the same person. I assumed that the difference was due to the cleaning cycle.

PK/MK Ink Used   1.97ml   0.07ml
LK Ink Used   2.06ml   0.17ml
LLK Ink Used   1.97ml   0.04ml
C Ink Used   2.05ml   0.11ml
M Ink Used   2.07ml   0.13ml
LC Ink Used   2.06ml   0.14ml
LM Ink Used   2.12ml   0.22ml
Y Ink Used   2.31ml   0.05ml

The difference is 15,68 ml of ink between the two prints.

BR/Lars
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Lars Mollerstrom

Mark D Segal

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POLL: Printing Experience with Epson 3800
« Reply #50 on: April 14, 2007, 12:13:44 pm »

Lars, both columns of data are of some concern. Adding the right column yields 0.93 ml. Depending on this size of the border around your print, this amount for one A4 print could be somewhat high to begin with. As guidance, here in Canada we use letter size which is close to A4. I calculate my ink usage on a standardized basis of 54 sq.in. per print. At 2.54 cms per inch, this works out to about 348 cm.sq. For this my 4800 averages about 0.68 ml, but can vary between limits of 0.58 and 0.84 - quite broad, depending on the images. Most images fall between 0.62 and 0.74. Also, I don't pull the data from the "per print" information in the LFP, rather I do a nozzle check and cumulated ink usage is shown from one check to the next. I assume though that both sets of information come from the same calculations in the firmware. Other variables of course are the quality settings and inking limits. I use default inking limits and 1440 DPI quality on EEM paper.

It does look as if you have a net usage of 15.67 ml for the cleaning cycle, which strikes me as high. Not sure why this should happen.

It would be useful for readers to start accumulating and posting this kind of data so we can begin to assemble an impression of what would be normal for this model. But given the variances, it will take a period of accumulation to understand typical behaviour properly.
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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madmanchan

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POLL: Printing Experience with Epson 3800
« Reply #51 on: April 14, 2007, 12:28:30 pm »

Lars, thanks for providing the data. Can you please explain exactly how you obtained this? Is this information reported by the printer's front panel? Or the job history in the LFP tool, or some other means?
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Eric Chan

alfin

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POLL: Printing Experience with Epson 3800
« Reply #52 on: April 14, 2007, 01:47:39 pm »

Quote
Lars, both columns of data are of some concern. Adding the right column yields 0.93 ml. Depending on this size of the border around your print, this amount for one A4 print could be somewhat high to begin with. As guidance, here in Canada we use letter size which is close to A4. I calculate my ink usage on a standardized basis of 54 sq.in. per print. At 2.54 cms per inch, this works out to about 348 cm.sq. For this my 4800 averages about 0.68 ml, but can vary between limits of 0.58 and 0.84 - quite broad, depending on the images. Most images fall between 0.62 and 0.74. Also, I don't pull the data from the "per print" information in the LFP, rather I do a nozzle check and cumulated ink usage is shown from one check to the next. I assume though that both sets of information come from the same calculations in the firmware. Other variables of course are the quality settings and inking limits. I use default inking limits and 1440 DPI quality on EEM paper.

It does look as if you have a net usage of 15.67 ml for the cleaning cycle, which strikes me as high. Not sure why this should happen.

It would be useful for readers to start accumulating and posting this kind of data so we can begin to assemble an impression of what would be normal for this model. But given the variances, it will take a period of accumulation to understand typical behaviour properly.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=112364\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Why can’t you guys over there convert to normal metric system once and for all?   Anyway, you were kind enough to provide both, so maybe I can handle it!  

I use default inking limits and I also used 1440 DPI, but you have larger borders than I have. An A4 size is 210 mm x 297 mm and I had 15 mm borders on each side for this particular print. That gives 480 sq cm or 74.5 sq in if I calculate correctly, compared to your average of 54 sq in per letter sized print, it’s about 38% larger and hence, printed on your paper size with your borders, my ink usage should be 0.67 ml. That’s well within your normal consumption.

So, how you can use only 4 ml ink per cleaning cycle on your 4800 and I waste around 4 times more = 16 ml on my 3800 beats me. What’s worse is that ink prices in Europe are ridiculous compared to US and Canada. We have to pay more than 1 USD per ml ink here and that’s through the cheapest retailers!

BR/Lars
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Lars Mollerstrom

alfin

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POLL: Printing Experience with Epson 3800
« Reply #53 on: April 14, 2007, 01:57:31 pm »

Quote
Lars, thanks for providing the data. Can you please explain exactly how you obtained this? Is this information reported by the printer's front panel? Or the job history in the LFP tool, or some other means?
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=112367\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I just checked the LFP Job Logs and looked at the latest print job.

BR/Lars
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Lars Mollerstrom

Mark D Segal

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POLL: Printing Experience with Epson 3800
« Reply #54 on: April 14, 2007, 04:12:29 pm »

Quote
Why can’t you guys over there convert to normal metric system once and for all? 

So, how you can use only 4 ml ink per cleaning cycle on your 4800 and I waste around 4 times more = 16 ml on my 3800 beats me. What’s worse is that ink prices in Europe are ridiculous compared to US and Canada. We have to pay more than 1 USD per ml ink here and that’s through the cheapest retailers!

BR/Lars
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=112373\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Lars, here in Canada we live in weights and measures confusion, because we did convert to the metric system, but we live beside the USA which didn't and many people disliked the idea from the start anyhow, so we have different things measured in different ways. As for the cost if ink - yes, cartridges for the 3800 in the USA work out to about 70 cents per ml before any sales taxes. In Europe, where you have high VAT rates and they are included in the price, it only takes a VAT rate of 20% on 70 cents to to bring the price up to 84 - still less than a dollar, so yes, you are intrinsically costlier. This probably relates to major differences in the organization of retailing between Europe and North America.

I think the consumption for a single cleaning cycle is very high, but before doing anything about it I recommend you let a few more of them happen, see what they consume. This could have been a one-time experience. If they continue so high I would recommend calling Tech Support.
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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Ralph Eisenberg

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POLL: Printing Experience with Epson 3800
« Reply #55 on: April 17, 2007, 12:09:27 pm »

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Hi Mark,

One thing that happens under Windows with the Epson 3800 driver is that if you are printing from Photoshop, and you go to Page Setup and choose a different size, or you change from Portrait to Landscape orientation, the driver always go back to Premium Luster as the media type (by default). Maybe this happens with other Epson drivers, too (i.e., for other printers)?
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=111971\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Thank heavens I read this thread. (And thanks Eric for kindly having answered some e-mail questions on another subject).  Having since yesterday taken delivery of a 3800, I've also encountered this irksome problem, but printing out of Photoshop on the Mac OS. It is really bothersome to have to configure the printer driver for each paper size. The list of saved settings can become considerable. This does not occur on the R2400 which uses the same ink set. I would certainly welcome a revision of the printer driver as well as Epson making their software iterations uniform irrespective of geographic region.

If anyone knows of a workaround that permits paper size adjustments out of PS without having to reconfigure the printer driver, this advice would be welcome.
« Last Edit: April 18, 2007, 08:13:39 am by Ralph Eisenberg »
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Ralph

duranash

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POLL: Printing Experience with Epson 3800
« Reply #56 on: April 23, 2007, 03:51:38 pm »

I had to vote for questioning my purchase.  I've just set up the printer over the last couple of days and noticed a great deal of difficulty in getting paper to load from the top tray.  Even plain paper just won't feed unless I give it a hard shove.  I'm also getting a white print "artifact" (for lack of a better choice of words) right down the center of my test images.  A nozzle check prints OK.  Just got off the phone with Epson and they're going to send me a new printer - as soon as they have one available.  Is there any reason why I couldn't remove the ink cartridges from this printer and install them in the new one?  That would give me an unopened set of ink carts.

First couple of prints (ignoring the above issue) seem to be pretty much in the ballpark in terms of print vs on screen image.  I just happen to be working with an image with lots of blue sky, and it seems that my Epson 1270 prints the image with a slightly brighter, punchier blue than the 3800.  Not a huge difference, but clearly noticable.  Is that what others have noticed?
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madmanchan

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POLL: Printing Experience with Epson 3800
« Reply #57 on: April 23, 2007, 04:18:13 pm »

Quote
I had to vote for questioning my purchase.  I've just set up the printer over the last couple of days and noticed a great deal of difficulty in getting paper to load from the top tray.  Even plain paper just won't feed unless I give it a hard shove.  I'm also getting a white print "artifact" (for lack of a better choice of words) right down the center of my test images.  A nozzle check prints OK.  Just got off the phone with Epson and they're going to send me a new printer - as soon as they have one available.  Is there any reason why I couldn't remove the ink cartridges from this printer and install them in the new one?  That would give me an unopened set of ink carts.

Yes, there's a big reason. Once the inks have been installed for the first time, it is very important to ship the printer with the inks installed. Otherwise, damage to the printer could result. Don't worry, the new printer will still come with a full set of inks, so you won't have lost anything.

Quote
First couple of prints (ignoring the above issue) seem to be pretty much in the ballpark in terms of print vs on screen image.  I just happen to be working with an image with lots of blue sky, and it seems that my Epson 1270 prints the image with a slightly brighter, punchier blue than the 3800.  Not a huge difference, but clearly noticable.  Is that what others have noticed?
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=113849\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

This is hard to compare, because differences in color could have to do with the different inks (the 1270's dye inks vs. the 3800's K3 pigment inks), the paper, or the profiles. For example, the dye inks tends to have a deeper black and larger gamut, so you may be seeing a more saturated blue.
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Eric Chan

duranash

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POLL: Printing Experience with Epson 3800
« Reply #58 on: April 23, 2007, 05:07:39 pm »

the dye inks tends to have a deeper black and larger gamut, so you may be seeing a more saturated blue.

That's what I thought might be going on.

On the ink cart issue - just trying to get some "free" ink  
Thanks Jim
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Jess Ames

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POLL: Printing Experience with Epson 3800
« Reply #59 on: April 25, 2007, 12:00:49 am »

I've added myself into the Major issue - although I have not contacted Epson because I'm already going into this on the pessimistic side.  I have knocking, banding or fading on last 1" and foam pieces on the last print I did.  I will update as soon as I talk to Epson.
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