L.A. Times: "Raising a stink over printer ink"

[Ernst Dinkla]

Inconsistency not only wastes ink but media and time.

Consistency is worth a lot and can be achieved without wasting ink.

In that case I do not mind to pay the price.



met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst Dinkla

Dinkla Gallery Canvas Wrap Actions for Photoshop
http://www.pigment-print.com/dinklacanvaswraps/index.html

[feppe]

Defending high price of modern inks based on the poor performance of inks of days gone by is a weak defense.

I bet you don't use the same metrics to value products in the rest of the camera industry. Early digital cameras were very bad by any standard, yet one can buy a dSLR now which will rival any 35mm film camera for a few hundred euros. Similar progression can be seen in the computer and car industry.

[Jonathan Wienke]

Defending high price of modern inks based on the poor performance of inks of days gone by is a weak defense.

...made even weaker when manufacturers admit that the ink is only a small part of the cost of the cartridge (meaning most of the cartridge cost is the proprietary electronics whose sole purpose for existence is to make it more difficult for consumers to use 3rd-party inks).

[bradleygibson]

Whether or not high quality printing has ever been this cheap before misses the point for me, at least.

It's the blatant wastage of my time and money with clogs, nozzle checks which waste about as much media as possible, drain perfectly functional lines when entirely different colors are clogged (with the excuse that individual lines can't be purged--huh??  How is color controlled then, when making a print?), chipping cartridges and maintenance tanks to ensure one must buy only the manufacturer's inks.

As I said before--I think these practices should be illegal.  Still, some available alternatives are showing that as cheap as things are today (if you consider $500-$700+ for a full set of inks to be cheap), things could be much cheaper without these wasteful and restrictive practices.

[Ernst Dinkla]

Whether or not high quality printing has ever been this cheap before misses the point for me, at least.

It's the blatant wastage of my time and money with clogs, nozzle checks which waste about as much media as possible, drain perfectly functional lines when entirely different colors are clogged (with the excuse that individual lines can't be purged--huh??  How is color controlled then, when making a print?), chipping cartridges and maintenance tanks to ensure one must buy only the manufacturer's inks.

As I said before--I think these practices should be illegal.  Still, some available alternatives are showing that as cheap as things are today (if you consider $500-$700+ for a full set of inks to be cheap), things could be much cheaper without these wasteful and restrictive practices.

I do not see the waste problems with my Z3100 and Z3200 while their output is very consistent.

That's why I wrote: Consistency is worth a lot and can be achieved without wasting ink.

In my experience compensating the cost of wasted ink with cheaper third party inks degraded the consistency of the printers even more. That was before I bought the HP models.


met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst Dinkla

Try: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Wide_Inkjet_Printers/

[Graeme Nattress]

Sooner someone invents a printer that runs on single malt scotch rather than ink, the better. Not only would it be cheaper to run, but the "waste bucket" would be very enjoyable to drink after work.

Graeme

[bradleygibson]

I do not see the waste problems with my Z3100 and Z3200 while their output is very consistent.

That's why I wrote: Consistency is worth a lot and can be achieved without wasting ink.

In my experience compensating the cost of wasted ink with cheaper third party inks degraded the consistency of the printers even more. That was before I bought the HP models.


met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst Dinkla

Try: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Wide_Inkjet_Printers/

If that happens, then yes, I will be looking at other brands of printer, but so far, consistency has not been an issue for me with the 3rd party inks.  But I'll give them a few more months before I have enough experience to be certain of that.

Graeme:  Now there's an idea!!

-Brad

[Neuffy]

It is hard to put a price on whatever the good manufacturer's do to maintain that level of consistency, but it should be worth something.  Imagine what it would be like if you had to tweak the color balance of your printing files every time you swapped a cartridge.

Well, if I had to recalibrate and/or reprofile every time I switched an ink, it would suck. I'd still do it though, rather than tweak the image files. As to how much that is worth, I'd be willing to do it if I was printing more on cheaper papers and could drop my cost for ink to around 1/2.

As it is, with the price of the papers I'm using, I'm rather pleased with the current situation. Ink costs are just not an issue relative to the massive media costs.

[feppe]

Slightly off-topic, but to me it seems that some are complaining about media costs of maintenance when they should be essentially zero. Surely no one prints head tests on expensive archival fine art paper? I use the cheapest copier paper for those prints. If I have any reason to suspect head clogs (long downtime), I run a test before making a print.

[John.Murray]

Sooner someone invents a printer that runs on single malt scotch rather than ink, the better. Not only would it be cheaper to run, but the "waste bucket" would be very enjoyable to drink after work.

Graeme

Perfect!  The more you print, the better things look.....

[EricWHiss]

Thanks for reminding me - I was starting to forget all the reasons I hated my epson printers.  

OK, here's a data point on wasted ink vs ink that lands on the paper.

I'm a "hobby" user, not a production house.  I dont' get paid for my prints.  
I use an Epson 4800 and by and large I'm delighted with the quality of images it produces.  

I'd better be delighted.

Since my last maintenance tank exchange about six months ago, I've made about 50 letter size and 20 16X20 sized prints and I have done about five "auto" head cleanings due to this infrequent use.   Each "auto" head cleaning took about three sheets of paper.  I just took the opportunity to compare the weights of the Epson 4800 maintenance tank both empty and full.  The printer has pumped 478 grams of ink overboard in an ongoing attempt to keep printing normally.

At 1 gram per ml and $100 per 200 ml cart, that's over $200 in wasted ink.  In six months of infrequent use.

[bradleygibson]

Slightly off-topic, but to me it seems that some are complaining about media costs of maintenance when they should be essentially zero. Surely no one prints head tests on expensive archival fine art paper? I use the cheapest copier paper for those prints. If I have any reason to suspect head clogs (long downtime), I run a test before making a print.

You're right of course, unless the clog happens mid-print.  Not an issue I'd experienced before but on a recent job (all genuine Epson inks), print #3 in a batch job stopped getting light black.  I noticed 6 or 8 pages later, didn't have enough media to complete the run (after unclogging) as a result, had to make a run to buy another 25 sheets at $110...

Adding in the time for all this just added insult to injury.

Anyway, yes consistency is key; but so is reliability.  I'm glad to hear HP seems to have things in order.  Some are saying good things about the latest Epsons too on this issue.

[feppe]

You're right of course, unless the clog happens mid-print.  Not an issue I'd experienced before but on a recent job (all genuine Epson inks), print #3 in a batch job stopped getting light black.  I noticed 6 or 8 pages later, didn't have enough media to complete the run (after unclogging) as a result, had to make a run to buy another 25 sheets at $110...

Ouch

[Peter McLennan]

A CIS (continuous inking system) removes much of the pain of high ink costs.  I've used several CIS systems for over a decade and the freedom to print big and often is wonderful.  I have had zero issues with image fading or non-compatibility with papers, despite the dire consequences others have suggested.

MIS Associates are currently offering free "funnel fill" carts for many common medium format printers.  All you need to do is buy a set of inks.  (ink which costs a quarter of what Epson charges) This is a heck of a deal.  The eight empty carts in my 4800 cost me $400.  

Funnel fill carts are preferable to the tank-and-tube systems,IMHO.  On my printer, you never even need to remove the carts.  When the printer says that the cart is empty, you simply raise the ink lever, count to three and lower the ink lever again, saying to yourself "I just saved $100".  This is really fun.  The more often you do it, the more fun it is.

www.inksupply.com

[EricWHiss]

What I am enjoying on the HP z3200 is the accounting feature which measures the ink by individual cartridge and also total used per print.  You enter into a table your costs for ink and paper and it keeps a log of how much each print has cost.   I'll be able to determine how much ink went onto prints and how much is consumed through cleanings etc. and over time how accurate the ink cartridge volume is.  So far this printer has used very little ink in comparison to the epson 7600 and 4000 that I had previously.