Hi all...
I'm in the market for a replacement to my Epson 3800... It has suffered a major clog (or something) and no longer prints black. I've tried every thing I can think of, and wasted over $400 in inks. I'm more then finished with this printer unless some one can give major suggestions.
Any way... I'm considering an upgrade to the Canon iPF6300. I've read all the major reviews and the iPF Wiki. And it all looks great. But I do have something I hope some one can clear up.
Ink usage during "Sleep" or Cleaning Cycles after wake/shutdown. I do print seasonally. The printer will run, making prints for a few months out of the year during summer sports season. But sit idle during the winter months. I am concerned about ink waste. Something I'm not sure if the Epson 3800 preformed with out my knowledge or not? I know it went threw a few "cycles" or something after long sleeps. But if it affected my ink levels I really don't know. - Clogging really was not an issue... until this month. It was my first MAJOR clog in nearly 3 years of use.
* I don't really want a printer that will "bleed" ink while sitting for a week or two. (Or after 4 months in winter) Will this be an issue?
* Also what is the minimum feed length? I do get a lot of orders for 5x7's or 8x10's I'd like to lay out.
* What is the smallest paper that can feed? Would 2x 5x7 on 8.5x11 be a problem?
* Am I going to choke, if I happen to get that order for one 5x7 and have to feed it?
The same thoughts apply for the Canon iPF5100 (Also a consideration)... Any reasons NOT to get a 24" printer?
First, when it comes to leaving the printer on all the time so it can perform automated self-diagnostics and head cleaning, there's a big difference between the Epson printers on one side, and Canon and HP on the other. Epson uses Piezo heads; they contain tiny diaphragms that change dimensions when a tiny current passes through them, causing them to 'pop', ejecting ink out onto the paper. They have relatively fewer but larger individual 'jets' per head, so a single clogged jet can show up as banding. HP and Canon instead use a heat-based technology, where current generates heat producing a tiny bubble that 'pops' ink out of the jet. They have lots more jets per head, of much smaller size. Their automated maintenance systems periodically fire just a few tiny picoliter-sized droplets from each jet, and clean only the sections that are misfiring. When a jet becomes clogged beyond the ability of a cleaning cycle to clear it, the jet is 'mapped out' and replaced by another by the printer's logic. You may eventually run out of working jets, but I used an HP Z3100 for more than 3 years and thousands of prints with the original heads, and never ran out of jets. And you can replace the printheads on the HP and Canon printers yourself in just a few minutes. With the Epsons it's a service call and well over $1,000 to replace one of the heads.
Each system has its pros and cons. The Epson printers use more ink per square foot of print- a
lot more- and they also waste a vastly greater amount of ink on cleaning cycles. You can almost watch the ink levels in the carts drop as you run repeated power cleaning cycles. By contrast the Canon and HP printers use almost no ink at all for routine self-maintenance. I never saw any appreciable drop in ink levels with a Z3100 left on for months, and I rarely had to do any manually selected cleaning cycles. Epsons are another story entirely; some folks have fairly good experiences with few clogs, others are plagued by repeated clogs that waste huge quantities of ink. I had an Epson 7600 which had few clogs, but it did require printing at least every couple of weeks or it would require a cleaning cycle or two. It is apparently an idiosyncratic problem that depends a lot on local environmental conditions like humidity or dust; some folks are tormented and others have few problems.
Most all of the 24" printers can print on 8.5x11" paper, but they really can't handle anything smaller. For 5x7" prints it makes sense to use 8.5x11" sheets with several images per page, or waste a bit of paper. They really should be seen as roll-paper printers that can print on sheets when required. Roll paper is cheaper and easier to handle, as long as you have something to de-curl prints toward the end of the roll.
I've owned a Canon iPF6300 for about two months, and it's terrific. Extremely frugal with ink, a straightforward and logical driver, relatively simple set-up, excellent color gamut and very good black & white mode. Sheet paper handling isn't quite as smooth as the Epsons, but much better than the HP Z3100. It's also extremely fast; even a 24x36" print pops out into the basket before I've had time to get coffee. The 'media configuration tool' permits you to experiment endlessly with variables like inkload, drying time, head height and vacuum strength for 3rd party papers, but I've chosen instead to standardize on just a few papers that serve my needs. The canned profiles from Hahnemuhle for their papers have worked extremely well; IMHO modern printers are so well standardized once you run the calibration step that custom profiles are no longer mandatory for excellent output.
My take on wide format printer choice is that the Epsons are great if you need third-party support, plan to use a RIP, and print all the time so clogs have less opportunity to develop. They excel at paper handling, and are supported by everyone. On the other hand, they chug ink like a drunken sailor, and the 7900 generation appears to have some issues with quality control and automated maintenance routines. My HP Z3100 was always pretty finicky, the driver was squirrely and paper handling a pain; but the Z printers are still the best choice if you're mostly doing black & white. They have hands-down the best d-max on both matte cotton rag and semigloss/baryta papers, totally neutral grey/black inks, the best print longevity, and a very good BW driver mode. On the other hand, even with the Z3200 the gamut is the smallest, especially in the red/oranges. Canon's iPF6300 matches the fine detail and huge gamut of the 7900, and it's far better in terms of ink economy and avoiding clogs. On the other hand, third-party support is much less, so if you need a RIP or want canned profiles for exotic papers, you'll have fewer choices.
Hope that helps.
