Help me choose a printer (17" or 24")

[Dan Wells]

My  Epson 3880 has clogged terminally (dropped a color channel, no amount of cleaning restores it), and, at three years old, fixing it doesn't seem worth it. I'm not terribly enthusiastic about another 3880, for three reasons.

1.)This one has dropped channels three times requiring a trip to the shop each time
2.)The lack of roll feed really reduces flexibility, especially in the 16" wide range, where many aspect ratios want more than 22" of length, and 17x25" paper is rare (not to mention that anything longer than 17x25" is REALLY rare)
3.)The 7 year old UltraChrome K3 Vivid Magenta inkset isn't a truly modern wide-gamut inkset.

I've been printing for a lot of years, and have actually had larger printers in the past - including an iPF6100 that I was very happy with - probably the best printer I've owned.

In the $1500-$2200 range (yes, someone offered me a 7900 around  $2200), there are at least three options (not counting the old iPF5100). There is the Epson 4900, the Canon iPF6400 and (at least with the incentives where they are right now) the Epson 7900.

The 4900 seems awfully expensive (and bulky) for a 17" printer - I do print some 24x36" images, although they aren't a huge part of my output, and I have been thinking about trying canvas and/or fabric, which is very restricted on a 17" machine. On the other hand, I do some greeting cards, and I could run the prescored Moab cards I've been using on the 3880 through the sheet feeder on the 4900. Either of the 24" printers would require rotatrimming the cards from roll paper (I could lay them out easily enough) then scoring and folding. On the other hand, there are certainly good matte roll papers suitable for making cards somewhere in between "cheapo Staples garbage" and Moab Entrada (the Entrada is so darned expensive that the finished cards are expensive, too). I haven't found much in the way of prescored paper in between those extremes.

The iPF6400 is probably what I'm most inclined towards, largely because I was so fond of the 6100 I sold when I moved 4 years ago (a friend has it, and it's still going strong). As an individual artist, I like the Canon printers' ability to sit for a few weeks, then wake up to a troublefree weekend of printing! I will often print once a month, but run off 10-20 prints and 100 or more cards in a weekend when I do. The 6400 is basically a 6100 with improved gamut, more scratch resistance, a somewhat better user interface and the ability to mix 300 ml tanks in with the 130s (especially for those grays that Canon printers love to drink), if I'm not mistaken?

I can get an Epson 7900 for only a bit more than the iPF6400, and I'm wondering if it's a much better machine? Some folks say the gamut is really close, while others say that the Epson HDR inks are the state of the art right now, and the Lucia EX inks on the iPF line are a second choice. I've also heard both ways on the latest-generation Epson heads having noticeably higher apparent resolution than the Canons. Of course, the 7900 also means dealing with Epson clogging. Has anyone run the two next to each other? How different are they? Does one have an advantage for some kinds of images?
 
                                                 -Dan
 

[Geraldo Garcia]

The Epson's X900 printers have slightly better gamut on matte papers, while the Canon's IPF X400 printers have slightly better gamut on glossy.
The "better" resolution of the Epsons is nothing that you could see with the naked eye and certainly not even with a loupe on textured paper.
The Epson's ink are by far the worse regarding image permanence.
The IPF printers have smarter features, even the 6400 not having internal HD (paper calibration, detailed accounting, export plug-in and automated canvas edges/mirroring...).
Not to mention the replaceable print heads and better (non)clog performance.

Honestly I think the x900 printers, although very good and capable, are clearly inferior.

[BobShaw]

For what it's worth, i disagree on all three of your reasons.
1. I have had problems with my 3880 but no problems at all with clogging. Do you leave it on?
2. You can't print on rolls but you can certainly print on roll paper. If you throw away printing from applications (which you will always have problems with) and export a TIFF you can print 2m using Mirage Print.
3. Just disagree

I mean if you need a 24" then you buy a 24". If don't then you save a lot. As for being expensive, well try buying them in Australia.

[Robert Ardill]

I'm in the same situation in that I am upgrading my printer and having had two Epson printers in the past (4000 and 4880) both of which gave me endless head clogging problems I'm not sure I would take an Epson if it was given to me.  Like you I have low-volume printing, and even though I made sure to do at least one print a day I still ended up with clogging (eventually had to throw out the 4000 because the 2nd head died and I couldn't get a replacement head).  I've now had an HP Z3100 for 7 years and I have not had ONE problem with it, either turned on or turned off for extended periods.  I want at least 24" so I'm buying either a 44" HPZ3200 or a Canon iPF8400.  If I wanted a 24" printer I would get the 24" Z3200 or a Canon iPF6400 or iPF6450.  The choice is down to price as I believe that neither the HP or Canon have head clogging problems.

I also used to print greeting cards, and I personally wouldn't print off roll paper.  You need heavy stock and it will be very difficult to get the cards flat.  If that's important then a Canon iPF5100 may be a good choice.

Robert

[Dan Wells]

I'm not sure that my repeated channel drop issue with the 3880 is technically "clogging" - I've never had a classic clog (like I had with older Epsons) with it - what it has done (3 times now) is completely lose one of the black channels. No amount of cleaning will bring it back, and the repair shop has replaced parts (other than the head - to my surprise, the head has never been replaced) both times now. One repair was a pump, and I forget what the first one was.

I find cutting sheets off of rolls to be a big pain (much worse than slicing short pieces such as cutting cards from a roll print - I'd have the printer cut the dimension it can, then simply separate the several cards across). I'm not sure whether I'm OK printing cards off a roll, but I'd MUCH rather do that (with short cuts) than use cut rolls in a 3880, dealing with much more curling.

I've seen 3880 prints up against an iPF 6100 on the same image, and the 6100 is clearly superior (not to mention the Epson x900 inkset, or the more recent Canons, neither of which I have as much experience with, but both are known to be better than the 6100)- the Vivid Magenta inkset was state of the art when it was released, but it's an OLD inkset, and hasn't the gamut of the newer inks.

A 4880 is still the Vivid Magenta inkset, and it's still a 17" printer, so I'm not sure what its advantage would be over another 3880 (other than a primitive roll feeder - Epson added the easy-loading powered roll mechanism in the 4900 if I recall correctly)? I don't think the HP Z3200 is competitive in gamut with the newest generation of Epsons or Canons, although I've never used an HP wide-format machine, so I'm not sure.

If the iPF 6400 has a better gamut on glossy than the newest Epsons, it's looking more attractive by the day. I still worry about slicing up cards, though - has anyone else done cards from roll paper? I can get any of a number of matte papers similar to the Entrada 190 that the prescored cards are made from (and some of them quite a bit cheaper).

Of course the other possibility is a 6400 and a dedicated card printer -do any of the HP OfficeJets with the robust feeds and nice big cartridges do more than four colors? I'm not concerned about state of the art gamut on $3.50 greeting cards, but I would like decent gamut (e.g. something with the light cyan and magenta, and at least one gray)...

Dan

[Robert Ardill]

Of course the other possibility is a 6400 and a dedicated card printer -do any of the HP OfficeJets with the robust feeds and nice big cartridges do more than four colors? I'm not concerned about state of the art gamut on $3.50 greeting cards, but I would like decent gamut (e.g. something with the light cyan and magenta, and at least one gray)...

Yes, definitely.  If I was still printing cards I would look at an OKI, or equivalent printer.  You can get them refurbished at a good price.  The quality is totally excellent for cards, the printers are very fast, and they can use standard card stock (SRA3, typically), which is a LOT cheaper than inkjet paper.  Or get your cards printed commercially - saves a lot of hassle, these guys have the guillotines and automated scorers and can run the cards off in a flash.  The last cards I had printed (on beautiful Veltique board from Fedrigoni) were stunning.

Robert

[Dan Wells]

What are the OKI printers of interest to photographers? Looking at their website, all I could find was a relatively ordinary looking bunch of 4 color laser (actually LED) printers, with a couple of expensive models that offer a clear or white as an extra channel, but none with true 6+ color capability. Is there a legendary discontinued model or something? The least expensive model with the extra channel seems to be over $3000, although there are some more reasonably priced 4 color models with a feature they call "HD Color", which they don't explain terribly well.

 I looked at the HP OfficeJet Pro line as card printers, because they seem to be the only non wide-format inkjets that use decent-sized cartridges (I don't want to deal with semi-bulk card production on a machine that uses 13 ml ink cartridges, especially in the same room with an iPF or Stylus Pro that has 300 ml cartridges). The OfficeJets also seem to have very robust paper feed mechanisms, probably well suited to feeding cards, but, again, all that I could find are 4 color machines. The only 6+ color printers I can come up with are either the usual wide-format suspects discussed in this and many other Luminous threads, or they are a small selection of small-cartridge machines with relatively constrained paper feeds.

As for having the cards professionally printed, the problem is the fairly low volume and high number of designs. When I last looked into it, the price got attractive around 50-100 cards of a single design. I have about 30 designs (individual images - the cards are otherwise identical) at any one time. I'm not selling a volume right now that makes a 1500+ card total order for $750 or more make financial sense. Does anyone know of a print shop that will give decent prices on a few hundred cards, but of mixed designs? With a digital press, it shouldn't actually matter - an Indigo is just a huge inkjet printer, so 50 cards of 50 different designs is no different from 50 of the same - but every shop I've found still does their price breaks based on number of identical images.

Dan

[dseelig]

Get a HP Z 3200 longest life inks cheap head replacement.