9880 Romance Over

[DougMorgan]

I'll add another correction to the mix -- in my own printing to date the darkest images  (night/twilight panoramas) are no more than 1.5ml per foot with the 9880 and not 2ml as John stated.    The images are 18x72 inches printed area so I'd consider the numbers from the machine accurate.  Other images are slightly less than 1.4mls and are larger yet.  I'm only printing matte with the 9880.   With the 4000 it was more like 1.2mls per foot and didn't seem to make much difference between types of paper.

Adding the cost of the Canon print head as well as John's stated usage for the auto head cleanings and I think the economics of the Epson are as good or better provided you don't have to switch inks, of course.  If you have to switch inks than everything changes.

Doug

[John Hollenberg]

I'll add another correction to the mix -- in my own printing to date the darkest images  (night/twilight panoramas) are no more than 1.5ml per foot with the 9880 and not 2ml as John stated.   
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I hadn't seen any figures on ink use for quite a while, so it is good to have more updated information.  This certainly swings the economics toward Epson, assuming that the cleanings on Epson and the Canon iPF printers use about the same amount of ink (hard to know for sure, but probably a reasonable assumption given the data I have on printhead cleanings on the Canon iPF5000).

One other aspect of the Canon printers I really like is the loading of roll paper.  Not that it was difficult on the Epson 9600 I had, but the Canon is really nice with the motorized roll feed.  I don't know if the 9880 generation has changed any in this regard.

--John

[DougMorgan]

For roll paper loading I find that the 9800/9880 is simple and probably a bit easier than the 4000.   There are only two tricks I've found so far.  Foremost is to always leave the printer set to autocut/roll feed as if set to no-cut it will let out a leader and waste a bit of paper.  For art papers with a sensitive coating (moab's entrada comes to mind) it may be wise to roll the paper back on the spool while it's positioning itself and not let it drag against the inside of the roll paper cover as insurance against  flaking.  For the last a powered roller might be a little more hands-off but it would be to roll media back up, not feed the paper.

  I haven't used the 5000 directly and the local user I know may not be the happiest camper at the jamboree but they gave up on the roll feeder.  In Canon's defense they may still be using an original defective unit on an early model.  Though I believe it was replaced once previously it may not be the final, fixed design.

Doug

[John Hollenberg]

I haven't used the 5000 directly and the local user I know may not be the happiest camper at the jamboree but they gave up on the roll feeder.  In Canon's defense they may still be using an original defective unit on an early model.  Though I believe it was replaced once previously it may not be the final, fixed design.
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If they gave up on the roll feeder, it is almost certainly defective.  Once properly fixed (applies to 5000 only, as I am sure the X100 series will not have this problem) the roll feed unit is a dream.  I don't think there have been any complaints on the Wiki in regards to the functioning of a non-defective RFU.

--John

[Wayne Fox]

Reading Schewe's earlier post *appears* to me to be comparing K3 with K3+Vivid Magenta, not K3+Vivid Magent 4880/7880/9880 with K3+Vivid Magenta 11880, but I agree it could be read either way.

If you look at part numbers, there are new K3 inkset part numbers.  So the new Cyan, for example, works in the 9880 and 9800 but the old Cyan only works in the 9800.

Suggests to me there was more to Vivid Light Magenta than the change in the magentas, but not that the 11880 uses a different subset again.

Having said that, if you look at the new head technology it could certainly be that changes were made to the pigment encapsulation to work/take advantage of the new design.

Of course, I feel a bit dumb speculating on the meaning of something posted by someone here...I'm sure Schewe will correct my assumption subject to any restrictions on his commenting imposed by Epson :-)
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If you read the thread I mentioned a few posts up, Jeff provided the following information


"Reformulated resin to reduce gloss differential (even more than the K3 inks) and a further increase of pigment density (beyond the K3 inkset). The reformulated resin and new head design also decreases the likelihood of clogging (that head change may also be in the smaller printers–I can't remember).

Epson didn't want to over-promote the reformulated K3 with Vivid Magenta inkset for the 11880 just yet..."

If you read that thread in context, that answer was a direct response to a question about the 11880 inkset being different than the 48/78/9880 ink set.

[Farmer]

Thanks, Wayne.  I've re-read it (again :-) and now get the context of it.  Interesting stuff.