Epson 7600 available and seems to be a real healthy "mule"...no clogs?

[Pacific Photos]

Yeah Guyz and Ladies of LULA...just found a seemingly reliable Epson 7600 for peanuts.... ($600.) do these units keep on keepin' on, or what??
Does anybody out there crank out prints day in day out on one of these units?  Or would it be like buying a car with 300k on the odometer and expecting reliability?  Lemme know ok?

[eronald]

Well, it's ... complicated.
These machines decide they need heavy maintenance at certain points in their life. This can be reset, but only once AFAIK.
By themselves, if switched on once a week, these devices last forever. If you leave them switched off for more than a month you'll have to clear the clogs.

Edmund

Yeah Guyz and Ladies of LULA...just found a seemingly reliable Epson 7600 for peanuts.... ($600.) do these units keep on keepin' on, or what??
Does anybody out there crank out prints day in day out on one of these units?  Or would it be like buying a car with 300k on the odometer and expecting reliability?  Lemme know ok?

[BobShram]

I think I maybe lucky as I don't suffer with clogs on my Epsons and don't do a lot to protect them from clogs. I have had shut downs of a month or two with no problems. Mine are in a basement, higher than average humidity and sure there is good docking station sealing. Not realy sure if that is the reason or not though.

You could try and see how much life is still in the heads, etc. from the service menu before you buy, may save money later on.

[Pacific Photos]

Well, it's ... complicated.
These machines decide they need heavy maintenance at certain points in their life. This can be reset, but only once AFAIK.
By themselves, if switched on once a week, these devices last forever. If you leave them switched off for more than a month you'll have to clear the clogs.

Edmund  Yeah Edmund, that is so cool that you like the 7600 and have given me a glimmer of hope that this machine may be a good unit. The guyz use it daily and they will include lots of inks and stuff, cuz they wannna upgrade to the new Epson HDR inks....
  2.)say Bro, I read your site about the mammy/canon versus thingee....that's so good dude!!!. You say the Canon is "hungry" to take good pics....sweet!!!.

[Pacific Photos]

I think I maybe lucky as I don't suffer with clogs on my Epsons and don't do a lot to protect them from clogs. I have had shut downs of a month or two with no problems. Mine are in a basement, higher than average humidity and sure there is good docking station sealing. Not realy sure if that is the reason or not though.

You could try and see how much life is still in the heads, etc. from the service menu before you buy, may save money later on.
 

   Yeah Bob, scuse me cuz I am not quite sure about quoting you, then replying???
I seem to be typing away in the "quote box"
   But....you and Emund
 have given me "green lites" on this big old gal (Epson7600).... The shop uses this thing daily and it lives up in the Redwood Trees and Fog of Felton Ca.  That may be a bit like your basement "haunts", huh??? 
That Docking station "pad" seems to be a way to keep that head clean?   A couple of sites have really fallen in love with old Epsons, and give newbies hope by offering special chemicals to squirt onto the docking station.....even step by step maps to guide you in getting "down" on her "innards" without fear!! I welcome this good news with open arms Brother!
Does the  printer actually report it's head status??

[BobShram]

Try this link and download the field service repair manual. http://www.eserviceinfo.com/download.php?fileid=10251  Look under control panel map it should be on one of the first pages and it will show how to power up into one of the menu's. You should be able to find out how much life is left in the heads as a %. They are good machines and you can work on them if you wish to, sounds like you are happy to get stuck in. Best of luck with the printing.

[Schewe]

The shop uses this thing daily and it lives up in the Redwood Trees and Fog of Felton Ca. 

Just understand you are buying a used printer (sounds like it was used a lot) that is now 3 generations old. After the 7600 came the 7800 then 7880 and now the 7900 (and arguably the 7890 just announced). The 7600 while a workhorse is old...you may be better off getting a 3880 in a similar price range that will out perform the 7600 unless you absolutely need a full 24" wide printer. Otherwise, I would suggest trying to find a 7800/7880 used.

[BobShram]

I have only just passed on to a new guy my old 7000 and 9000, yes they are slow and need attention some times but they were a great start for me in the wide printer world, when money is tight it is good to have a machine that you can repair yourself with out the worry of high parts costs. It also allows you to understand the equipment better and dare I say overcome some manafacturers blocks!!!

[framah]

Also, keep in mind that you might not be able to find ink carts that work in that machine as eventually Epson will stop making them. Then there is the problem with drivers. They are only good up to a certain OS. Epson has stopped updating drivers for these older machines.

With that said, I miss my  9600. It never gave me a bit of trouble and would put out a clean print every time.. unlike my 9900 which is always having minor head  clogs or even a whole channel missing which requires constant channel cleaning. I find I lessen the problem if I keep it turned on all the time.

[BobShram]

There are still fillable carts availble for 7000 printers. You can use a 7000 or a 9000 on Vista or 7 by removing one line of code, will be the same with 7600. It's not that the drivers are not being updated its that the drivers are being updated not to let that machine run on a newer OS

[Farmer]

It's not that the drivers are not being updated its that the drivers are being updated not to let that machine run on a newer OS

That's simply not true.

[Pacific Photos]

Wow, you guyz sound like a bunch of well meaning "uncles" and "aunts".
   Farmer and Framah and Bobshram are lighting me up with hope and confusion. No matter what, I feel loved and cared for.... the pre owned Epson 7600 looks like a winner, but I may not be able to run it on Snow Leopard, Jaguar or Panther or Vista or Windowz 7 but who cares?
    Like Alfred E. Neumann...."what, me worry"? The thing may develop clogs, unless I run it in my basement, or outside in the Santa Cruz Fog....but who cares man, it's an Epson baby!!  The inkcarts may be out of production soon, and Epson has won a lawsuit prohibiting anyone to manufacture 3rd party inks....under penalty of Death!  But who cares brothers....this is a Large Format Epson baby!
We have broken the codes and now we can run homebrew inks from Appalachian moonshine "stills'
... who cares if this Epson is old and 3 generations removed from any warranty.....Like Hans Solo and the "millenium Falcon"....we will power up the "Flux Capacitor" and.....make some beautiful 24x36" museum quality prints!  On this old Epson 7600.

[Bob Smith]

I still run a 9600 that I purchased new in 2003.  It works well with minimal trouble.  I works on the latest version of Snow Leopard with CS5

I bought a 9800 after I had fully depreciated the 9600 (four years).  I made the 9800 my PK machine and left the 9600 for MK.  The main improvement  on later printers dealt with speed and PK performance.  If you don't mind slow, the X600 series printers still performs extremely well on matte papers with matte black ink.

I also use a 9900.  I ran some tests early on comparing the 9900 to my 9800 and 9600.  When printing the type of work where the 9600 excels there was little to no visible image quality improvement on the 9900 but it was several orders of magnitude faster.  I don't have the numbers in front of me but a bw print (through QTR) on the 9600 took about 35 minutes.  The same print using ABW on a 9900 took about 8 minutes.  The quality of the printed output was very similar.

Just know that these older printers could crater any day and reach paper weight status.  The price on the printer varies wildly by market but they seem to sell for roughly the value of the ink that's in them.  I don't think I'd pay much more than that... and then only if I was sure it was in good working condition.  I wouldn't worry about the ink carts being discontinued.  The same basic carts (different ink in most slots) were used through the 4880.  There are so many of these things still in service that ink is likely to be easily available for some time to come yet.

Bob Smith

[BobShram]

That's simply not true.

Farmer I ran both a 7000 and a 9000 by removing 1 line of code from the last set of drivers that was not in the drivers from an earlier set. Take a look for yourself, I'm sure your able.

Epson make what I think are the best large printers. I can't see them making a great deal of profit from the machine so it must be the ink. When I started, it was with 3rd party ink and cheap software. I now can afford new printers, good software and the correct inks, which I would have not been able to without the start up. What Epson get from me is my loyalty, a new printer once in a while and I purchase their inks. I understand the reason why they wish to get people to upgrade and I have no problem with it at all. If they or any other company stop supporting a product, then it is up to the individual to keep the perfectly operational product running by their own means.  

[Farmer]

Farmer I ran both a 7000 and a 9000 by removing 1 line of code from the last set of drivers that was not in the drivers from an earlier set. Take a look for yourself, I'm sure your able.

I never suggested that you didn't.  I quoted the bit where you claimed it was done deliberately to stop people.  That's simply not true.

Epson make what I think are the best large printers. I can't see them making a great deal of profit from the machine so it must be the ink. When I started, it was with 3rd party ink and cheap software. I now can afford new printers, good software and the correct inks, which I would have not been able to without the start up. What Epson get from me is my loyalty, a new printer once in a while and I purchase their inks. I understand the reason why they wish to get people to upgrade and I have no problem with it at all. If they or any other company stop supporting a product, then it is up to the individual to keep the perfectly operational product running by their own means.  

There's a big difference between a driver working and being able to support it through all the hundreds of uses that people put them to.  There's also more than one OS supported.  OSes change their printing paths (have a look at the OS X issues with colour) and so on. 

As you say - they stop supporting a product, but they do NOT release drivers specifically to code them to prevent them running on future OSes.

[BobShram]

Phil at the risk of not getting the last word in as this is my last. Your statement;     

That's simply not true.

     is in my opinion simply not true. My reasons as I may not of got over are that; a company decides (rightly) not to support a product in the future say 5 years, it writes a simple program along with its partners that is set off by one line of code and will not allow that products drivers to be opened in a new OS. Many reasons including compatibility, resource issues for this. The OS downloads the drivers, understands that it should not open the said driver program, flashes a warning and will not allow the program to be opened. But the reason it will not open is because of the what the OS is told by the driver program that it does not make the grade, remove the one line opener and the program opens. I am sure many a company has used this method and will continue to do so. 

[Pacific Photos]

Yeah Bob, I was just wonderin' how you can find that one line of code, understand it, then delete it?  It sounds very tricky?
For instance, on an Hp b9180 we had, it did very well in Windoz XP and had a nifty little PhotoShop "plug in" that really sped the workflow along..... but in Snow Leopard, the software would not load off the included disc for mac....I went to "SoftWare Updates" and some very generic software downloaded from HP which made using the HP B9180 a real pain....color fidelity problems etc etc.  Finally I brought the printer back to life by going back to a Windoz machine with Vista on it and work out of PS 3  with the nifty little PS plug in's and all!!.   
  This sounds very much like what you and Farmah are talking about..... also too, the B9180 was probably not designed for a 64bit OSX?
 Does this mean in essence, that we will be led around by our little consumer "nose rings" to buy and spend constantly on new equipment that may last for just a few years? makes me wanna cry, or just use a good photo lab....
Do tell!

[BobShram]

Marty, I'll send you a message