Epson Expression 600 -860+ series

Anyone considering purchasing this series of printers are a glutton for punishment. My first experience with these printers was not good about three years ago. It took three machines from Epson before I finally got one that produced a proper nozzle check out of the box with one head clean. The first one emptied the set of cartridges and could not produce even ONE proper nozzle check. So read carefully the above it was not the ink nor the cartridges that were faulty but the aspect that Epson designed this series of printers so that aftermarket users would have hell and they succeeded. Yes, you are going to get one that is good and then it goes bad because the EXACT tolerances for the ink delivery system, is hard to meet. I still have an XP610 that I have managed to keep alive but there will come a day when it will fail. And YES, I have to refill the OEM in order to keep it there. The aftermarket refillable carts will bring that day of reckoning sooner.

So this last Black Friday, I saw a deal from Epson that allowed me to acquire a successor of the 1430 of sorts. Took delivery and sure enough. BAM. Six head cleans later, still have not produced a proper nozzle check AND the cartridges are near depleted.

There is also a longer story to this about how Epson has cleverly designed the system so that you actually get less than 30% of the ink to print in real usage.

So unless you are a glutton for punishment. I would recommend you think long and hard about WHY you really want to own these machines.

It is the weekend. I will place a call to Epson on Monday. In the meantime, enjoy the nozzle check I have submitted in sequence of 1 to 6. Again, think long and hard why you really want one of these machines. Epson has outengineered themselves on this series. So what is causing this? I mention the tolerances and it is precisely that. These cartridges are are designed similar to the Canon PGI-9 and PGI-72 but are a little more evolved in their design to thwart refilling back to the original. It is not the second aspect that is causing the problem but likely that Epson is unable to maintain the tight tolerances required when such a design in incorporated into a piezo printhead. So what is happening is that the film of ink that bonds the contact of the cartridge and printhead is breaking down and is allowing air to enter into the printhead. In prior Epson carts we are used to seeing secure high pressure seals, but these allow CIS units to be used successfully. No more of that says Epson. The tight specification engineering wise to maintain that bridge is not reliably maintained even by Epson at times. It could be the assembly of the cart, a spring that is too strong or even the material used in the pad. But even Epson cannot maintain that tight spec properly with their own ink and carts. See yourself chancing aftermarkets? And yes, after six head cleans, my waste ink tank is likely 20-25% full and not even one page has been printed.

I am having a hell of a week with Epson. Yesterday, I had to take in my SP 3880 to the Epson doctors for adjustments due to the famous ERROR CODE 150C. It is out of warranty.

oh well, I got a similar XP unit some longer time ago, and experienced almost exactly the same, I dumped the unit pretty quickly, and I'm happy enough with some R265, L300 and L800 models printing away with no hazzles at all...

Well that's horrifying. It's making me want to buy that R2000 just to have a printer that'll work with refills even if I don't see any significant increase in quality over the 1400 with pigments and good profiles.

well, whether the R2000 is 'better' than a pigment 1400, needs some more explanation. It won't be better in terms of print resolution, there may be differences in terms of media handling, custom print formats - I don't know. The R2000 uses a gloss optimizer which is supposed to reduce some effects of pigment inks on glossy papers. This is a difficult discussion since the effects in focus - gloss, gloss differntials, bronzing depend very much not just on the inks but as well on the papers, their coating in combination. I have seen very strange effects in this repect - e.g. cyan matte just on one sort of paper, with the other colors o.k., and the same cyan as glossy as the other inks on another glossy paper, strong bronzing on one sort of paper but about none on another paper etc. And similar effects with a GO - it does not take away all ink deficiencies. The R2000 uses some more colors than the 1400, that should show up in the gamut, it should be somewhat wider in the area of these colors, it may be measurable, but whether it is actually visible in printouts is another question. Profiling is a definite must as soon as you use 3rd party inks and papers, and a profile can show another ink/paper parameter - the black level which is very important for a good contrast in the darker image areas.

Yeah. I was going to skip getting the R2000 (watching a display model to see if the price drops more) but if it goes down to $200 that's about the same price as a refurb 1400/1430. If one of mine is broken or starting to break anyway I'll need a replacement. Right now I'm using dye in one for gloss papers and pigment in the other. I've been reading all the posts on dye fading here, still trying to decide what I want to use. I have a lot of Epson paper and way too much Canon paper from one of their ridiculous B1G9 sales. For 13 x 19 I have various Red River papers and more Canon.

This is an interesting read. I'm a long time Canon addict but the days of robust printers and easy refilling seem to be on the wane for all printers, However, I do like to experiment and have just purchased a S/H Brother printer which seems pretty solid. Print outs are nowhere near as good as Canon's but it's quick and seems sturdy. I had thought about trying out an Epson printer but from this thread and from what I've managed to glean elsewhere, it doesn't look promising.

I have a soft spot for Epson because it was the first colour printer I had.

I need a printer which can give me duplex printing and cartridges which can be refilled or reset. Or at least being able to purchase refillable cartridges at a reasonable price.( Don't most of us)

Are there any Epson printers which fit the bill?

I was able to convince Epson to give me an RMA for this little monster.....considering I had purchased a P800 and P600 within two months of this I think they really should.
You have to be careful about which Epson printers to select now. The named ones on this thread you need to think twice about.
They do have more traditional machines of which I think are actually good machines for the user. They are the WF3620 and WF3640. What is interesting about these is that they produce acceptable print quality and are featured for long term use and do not have issues such as described above. One little feature is a user replaceable waste ink tank built in....so no worry about filling up a waste ink tank. This is something that can be useful. I've used a WF3640 for over a year and it has been reliable and fast. I can't imagine being without it. Do note....it is NOT a photoprinter at all. For general office tasks and printing it cannot be faulted. The printhead has not skipped a beat. Choose carefully and you will be rewarded. So the world has not completely turned, you just need to know where to turn to. I have mine on the network and it is on all the time.

I am also very pleased and surprised with my EPSON WF-3620DWF which is almost indentical to the WF-3640 except for the secondary paper container.
I didn't plan to print photos with this printer but after reading an interesting review including pictures of the results, the reviewer concluded that this machine was really special: Excellent paper management (Dual auto printing, scan and copy thanks to its automatic document feeder) + excellent text printing (Best in class)+ surprisingly and unexpectedly good pictures using OEM pigmented inks (Best in class by far)....
I confess that I have decided no to use my old EPSON STYLUS 895 for photo printing after getting used to my beloved WF-3620.

I suspect that if I had used professional dye inks for printing pictures with my WF-3620 instead than pigmented ones the result could rival those of some domestic photo printers...
The WF-3620 is a superb printer in my opinion because covers brilliantly very different and even opposite printing needs with only one single device... and it also includes a good scanner and fax with a very good automatic document feeder.