Two 3880's are different?

[Some Guy]

I bought first 3880 2 years ago.  New one this month for different ink set.

New one shuts itself off entirely after 6-8 hours (Makes some noise (Head capping?), and the green light goes out.).  Old one remains on 24/7 unless I power it off manually.

There was a paper in the new one explaining Auto-off.  Seems they tweaked the electronics somewhere along the line.

Also, I noticed the small chip numbers on each cartridge are different than the older ones during the refill tank switch-out.  I know they match the chip with each color of ink, but don't know why the numbers are different.

More bizarre is I fed two different types of canvas (Heavy Premier Art Canvas, and a thinner Inkpress canvas.) through the top auto-feed doing some calibration and not one time did it not accept the canvas where the older one was a struggle to get it to accept canvas.  Seemed odd, but never thought about it until now.  Maybe this is the new model of 3880, just some internal tweaks?

SG

[DeanChriss]

Some guesses based on experience with a 7900:

Various performance differences could be due to running different firmware versions in the two printers.

The ink cartridges that come with the printer contain less ink than the replacements, and they have different identifying numbers.

[howardm]

1.  They updated the firmware to include the power-off timer.  If you want the old behavior, the piece of paper tells how.
2.  Different version of the tiny circuit board on the ink carts.  No big deal.
3.  Can't say.

They're not 'different' in any meaningful way, just very very slight in-line production changes.

The carts included w/ a 3880 are full 80mL carts, not 'starter' carts like the bigger printer.

[Some Guy]

What I find interesting is why the new one takes canvas so easily!  The old one was a total pain to get it to feed right, and sometimes took 10-15 attempts either the top or rear feed.  I did the taped-leader "once" on the old one and the tape came loose and wrapped up inside to the point I had to take the thing apart.

Could be small manufacturing changes being made, but least this new one is working correctly - or a fluke - and it's printing canvas right now on a single feed.  I hit "Print" and in it goes.  Yay! 

I've had some bad luck with roller (skid marks on ejecting) impressions on Canson glossy papers with the older one.  Maybe new one has addressed those too if they altered the feed system slightly.

SG