Buying an Epson A3+ printer, which one?

Arciphel

I've decided I am gonna splash some of this month's pay packet on an Epson A3+ printer :pac: I am looking at either the Epson stylus photo 1400, the R1900 or the R2880 (at a stretch).

• The 1400 is cheapest at about €300 on elara, but it only has 6 inks, doesn't do great gloss prints and i hear the b&w printing is hit & miss.
• The 1900 is the middle model, has 7 seperate inks (both matt & gloss black) as well as a gloss optimiser for glossy prints upto & exceeding lab standard (I do a lot of glossy prints).
• The 2880 is the pick of the bunch, has reputedly got great b&w output, but is also the most expensive of course. Also the thoughts of having to swap between matt & gloss black doesn't appeal.

Does anybody out there have one of these (Stsc, I'm looking at you!) and what advice would they impart on me, as I am unexperienced with these photo printers? I am most interested in print quality, moderately interested in running costs and don't care about print speed tbh.

Cheers,
Paul.

stcstc

discount the 1400, its not the one to use

the 1900 uses ultrachrome inks, which i belive dont have the same lightfastness as the k3 inks, but it does give a higher colourgamut

the 2880 uses the K3 inkset, which has slightly less colour gamout, but you woul dhave to compare side by side to notice. BUT has by far the longest lightfastness. so if your selling pictures etc this is THE one to buy


but actually at the moment the one to buy is none of the above, buy the epson 3800, ok it cost a bit more but uses much bigger ink cartridges which makes the cost per print much much less

one other thing, when buying something like this, saving a little on the cost of the printer is not always the best thing, buy it from someone local, then if you get stuck you will get support

Arciphel

Thanks Steven, I was hoping you'd pop in here and have a look!

I was leaning towards the R1900 for the glossy prints. will haveto have a look at the 3800 now.

oshead

I've got the R2400. I guess the R2880 is it's successor. First let me say, the R2400 is an excellent printer. By all accounts the R2880 is even better. The only real problem's I found with this is the cost of replacing empties. It costs approx €160 to fill the printer. Another, is switching the printer setup from Glossy to Matt paper or vice versa. It's a real hog on the cartridges and eventually your pocket.

Buying off a local seller is good advice in this case. Printers have so many moving parts and things are liable to go wrong with any of them. I bought mine at Photo Fest a few years back and got a good deal off the marked price. You might do well waiting for the next event on the 29th of this month. For more info on Photo Fest and Exhibitors see www.photofestireland.com/.

Just a parting comment. If you've never done any serious amounts of printing, you may find the learning curve with managing your colour profiles, paper settings, monitor configuration etc... may cost your pocket a bit until you get up to speed. This is the reason going with a professional printer like stcstc is probably more economical in the short to medium term.

stcstc

the 3800 is an A2+ printer

the big big diff is the cost of ink

the 2400 & 2880 use 13ml ink carts and cost about 15 euro each

so per ml = 1.16 euro


the 3800 uses 80 ml carts that cost about 50

so per ml = 63 cent

so on an average 10*8 print you will save about 80 cent to 1 euro

obviously on the larger prints its more

and over the life of the printer the saving is huge in comparrison with the extra cost of the printer

in terms of colour management etc

if your stuck i can help you, but if you stick to the good brands of papers etc and only use proper epson inks, you should be fine with the manufacturers profiles for example

Arciphel

Hi Steve,

I was looking at the 3800, it is a beast of a machine but the cost and the footprint needed to plonk it down are out of my means so I think I am gonna go for the R1900. Anywhere in Dublin where you would recommend I pick one up - elara have one for €431 but I am open to suggestions.

stcstc

well in dublin, well malahide to be exact - sheldon at sheldon photographic
wouldnt supprise me if he has one in stock

s

tell him i sent you, generally it will help

or if not, there is a guy in bray carl, company lancast, try him, he wont have it it, but generally will get it next day

Arciphel wrote: »

Hi Steve,

I was looking at the 3800, it is a beast of a machine but the cost and the footprint needed to plonk it down are out of my means so I think I am gonna go for the R1900. Anywhere in Dublin where you would recommend I pick one up - elara have one for €431 but I am open to suggestions.

Arciphel

Update - I ended up buying the Epson r1900 from Elara.ie for a very reasonable €426 - even cheaper than pcworld.co.uk's online special offer price rip off ireland is dead folks!

I have it installed here with a "Trucolors" pigment ink CISS from cheapprinterink.co.uk - cost £115, prefilled with 100ml of pigment ink (roughly 8 cartridges worth of each colour).



Very happy with the results! And very cheap price per print too, although the print longevity isn't gonna be 100% as good as the offical Epson ultra-chrome inks, I am very happy with it.

oshead

I was going to buy one of those contraptions. Never did in the end. Have you had a chance to compare them with epsons for colour reproduction. Are they as good?

mikeanywhere

I am about to sell my Epson 3800 if you are interested. PM me for details or wait until I post it on the for sale section

Arciphel

Mikeanywhere, i think oshead meant a CISS when he said "contraptions", not a printer Although I hear that model is a fine machine!

oshead, I haven't compared. The set of nine ink cartridges I got with it haven't been opened and will be going up onto adverts.ie shortly for some other poor soul to sacrifice to the epson ink god ...

mikeanywhere

Arciphel wrote: »

Mikeanywhere, i think oshead meant a CISS when he said "contraptions", not a printer Although I hear that model is a fine machine!

Apologies as saw the thread title and went from there!!

Arciphel

I have the full set of Epson ink cartridges for the R1900 available for sale here on adverts.ie if anyone is interested

CabanSail

You can always save money on Ink & buy the cheap stuff.

At a recent talk Steve (stcstc) showed some really interesting effects that cheap inks will give. Not only do you save money but you get the added bonus of having a different print each week ....... as the colours fade.

Where is the best place to buy cheap inks Steve?

Arciphel

No offence to Steve - but I'm not running a business, and I don't need my prints to last 200 years in archive conditions either.

What I do need to be able to do is not fork over €92 to Epson every time I print ~10 glossy A3 prints!

CabanSail

I take it you want your prints to last more than 18 months though?

Arciphel

Absolutely! And I am confident that they will too - these are pigment, not dye, inks. And I have seen the test results for these third party inks, and while they don't have the same longevity as the OEM inks, they do have about 80% of the durability.

Also you have to bear in mind that published ink test data is all done using accelerated testing, which i something I understand very well, and that usually overstates the durability of the material being tested.

We should do our own boards.ie test - print a sample image on the same papers, using the OEM and third party inks, stick it in a window so it can UV age, and have a look at it in a few months.

SKYDOG

CabanSail wrote: »

You can always save money on Ink & buy the cheap stuff.

At a recent talk Steve (stcstc) showed some really interesting effects that cheap inks will give. Not only do you save money but you get the added bonus of having a different print each week ....... as the colours fade.

Where is the best place to buy cheap inks Steve?

www.inkmaestro.ie :came across this site when looking for new cartridge, found they prices v.good.

stcstc

there is a place in the uk called

www.svp.co.uk

they sell jetec inks, which are mad cheap, but you really do get what you pay for in my experience

BUT, it really depends what you doing with the prints, if they are for like camera club comps, where they only need to last a matter of weeks, cheap inks kind of work.

The other issue with cheaper inks is they change between batches in terms of the actual colours

one thing you can do to help this is always buy 2 or each of the light magenta and light cyan & yellow, if your printer uses them

these are the ones that get used the most in photos.

mcdonnells

mikeanywhere wrote: »

I am about to sell my Epson 3800 if you are interested. PM me for details or wait until I post it on the for sale section

Hi mikeanywhere, are you selling?
what sort of price? Might be in the market.
S:rolleyes:

Arciphel

Steve, just wondering, do you use a waste ink tank with your printers? I installed one this weekend on the printer that I bought, and I was shocked to see the amount of ink that gets flushed through when only one cartridge is replaced.

Ballyman

Hi PAul

I'm about to buy a second hand Epson 1800. How do you find the CISS with your 1900?? Have you had any problems??

What paper do you use?? And where is the cheapest place to buy Epson A4 and A3 paper??

stcstc

my printer has a built in tank

its a part from epson

its very light when it goes in, and very heavy when its taken out full

ValueInIreland

1900 if Gloss prints are your thing .
2880 for Pure quality and use it with either Semi-Gloss type papers or Matt, but try to avoid switching as this wastes a lot of Ink (Money).
If you will be printing a lot the 3800 makes huge sense and it has all the benefits of the 2880 and it will Print A2's, the Ink is HALF the price (per ml) of the 2880 and has the Matt Black on line so there is virtually no waste switching between paper types.
Continous Ink Systems (CIS) only work if you print a LOT. Only consider one if you spend €100 + per month on Ink and then only go for one of the big Photographic brands (PermaJet, Fotospeed or Lyson) as they will have downloadable profiles for most Photo printers. Any other CIS type system will cost you because you won't get the quality results and you will throw it in the corner!
FACT: Most people who buy a CIS system never buy a replacement ink!

Arciphel

Ballyman, I have had no problems so far, put about 30 A3 prints and 20 A4 prints through it so far. I'm using PermaJet A3 Oyster (Semi-gloss) paper, and Ilford Smooth pearl & Smooth Gloss. Also got some Hahnenmule media to try out this week too....

ValueIn Ireland, the R1900 takes both Matt Black and Gloss Black cartridges so there's no wastage when swapping. With regards your comment about the bulk ink only making sense if you print a lot, well I have already gone through the equivalent of two sets of cartridges on mine (roughly €120 per set) and I wouldn't consider myself a big user yet! PermaJet will do you a free bespoke (customised) profile on their own media, I posted off my test swatches this morning. They will also do you a custom profile for other manufacturers papers for €30 for each 2 other profiles you need. The Ilford Icc profiles seems very very close to me other of the box so to speak, but I will probably get these profiled too as these are the media types I imagine I will use the most.

I'd love to hear the market research on your statement FACT that "Most people who buy a CIS system never buy a replacement ink!" Where did you hear this?

stcstc

if your stuck etc, i could write profiles for you

never thought of really offering it, but have the kit so might as well use it

Arciphel

Steve, I think there would be a big market for that kind of thing in Ireland I'll send you a PM.