My new Epson R2000

[pharmacist]

I bought myself an Epson R1900 for Christmas and as always I am going to use aftermarket inks, when the cartridges will run out.

Now I am planning to mix my current stock of OCP K3 ink to make the red and orange inks, but somehow the magenta and cyan on the R2000 is somehow way lighter in tone. Have a look here:

It looks like the R2000 is using a light version for both the cyan and magenta.

Could I make red by mixing 1 part of yellow + 2 parts of magenta and orange by mixing 3 parts of yellow and 1 part of magenta? All other colors I have in stock: yellow, cyan, matte black, photo black and gloss optimizer, so only red and orange.

I have done some prints on Netbit Glossy paper (Lidl) with both the Epson Pro 3880 and R2000: The Epson R2000 has a more even gloss compared to the gloss optimizer and less bronzing, but on first sight the difference is minimal. I use Inktec Powerchrome K3 on my Epson Pro 3880, which really does a great job on glossy papers.

 

[The Hat]

@pharmacists you must have an enormous den to hold all of your big printers in, mine are all cluttered together, with not enough room to swing a cat.

To get the red, orange, green and grey colours I need for my printers, here is the method I use, but of course you can choose your own way.

If the colours are just straight forwards then the mixing of two colours will work quite easy but if you need to tint a shade downwards then you’ll have to add some other colours to get the right balance. (Only start with two)

It’s not that easy to achieve the colour you want if you’re not comfortable with open bottles of ink everywhere, but it is enjoyable once you have a friend called patients, but you’ll still need a clean area to work within.

Firstly you’ll have to pour a little of the original ink colour that you want to reproduce/match onto an A4 sheet and using a pallet knife or flat blade spread it down the sheet quickly, now you have your original colour swatch to work from.

To mix a red or any other colour use your syringe for exact measurements and lids from plastic bottles as small containers, now just add in your measured colours in the quantity you think that will work. (Say 50/50 to start with)

Make sure you only use syringes with 1 ml increments otherwise you can end up with a lot of wrongly mixed inks, the best approach is to start with the lightest colour as your base colour and add in the darker ones as you go.

To match your new mix colour to the original lay them both down side by side then cover your swatches with a sheet of paper, wait a couple of seconds then remove the covering sheet and you first impression is the right one, it is or it isn’t the right match, staring will only confuse you more.

If you have made carful notes of each of your failed trail mixes you can still use that ink by adding a little more to it to match to the new colour, good luck and have fun, if you have an electronic device for measurement then all the better..

 

[martin0reg]

Looking at the nozzle checks, C and M of the r2000 looks indeed more similar to the LC and LM of the K3.
BUT the C and M of your K3 ink looks to me rather like blue and red than like cyan and magenta .. is this OCP ink?

I only have a R285 no R2000 - but you can take a look at precision colors to compare the ink numbers:
http://www.precisioncolors.com/E9B2.html
http://www.precisioncolors.com/E8C2.html
- R3000/3880 (K3) C=2070 LC=2082 VM=6202 LVM=6204 Y=7031
- R2000 (highgloss) C=2080 M=6115 Y=7055
So all three C-M-Y for R2000 seem to be different from the K3 set!

For mixing I am not sure, but according to a color circle like this:

red should be mixed with 1part M and 1part Y
orange with 1part M and 2parts Y

There are other color circles to find in the web.
And as I said, the magenta of your nozzle check looks more on the red side to me...

PS: good luck with the r2000 and "high gloss" pigment..

 

[pharmacist]

Hi Martin,

No it is Inktec Powerchrome K3. The intense color is due to the non profiled Epson scanner and I run the nozzle checks 3 times to increase color intensity, otherwise the prints are rather very light. Despite the dark towards red and blue tending tone, it is magenta and cyan.

Does someone has a R1900 or R2000 and using refill ink? And if so: could they make some swabs with a cotton ear stick on glossy paper to see the tone and possibly compare the colors and tone with K3 compatible pigment refill ink ?

 

[pharmacist]

Ohhh, if one could RIP the printer to have the red ink removed and substituted by a grey cartridge, I will be very happy, so the printer can print neutral ABW. However: after profiling the black&white prints are stunningly neutral compared to my Epson Pro 3880 with K3 inks.

I also ordered 2 sets of refillable R2000 cartridges with a reset knob on top of the cartridge, so I can reset all cartridges at once after refilling to prevent the horrible cascading cleaning and ink dropping problem.

 

[costadinos]

Did you get an R2000 as per your picture, or a 1900 as per your title? These two use a different inkset.

I had one R2000 myself, and when I ran out of Red ink I replaced it with the magenta from the durabrite inkset which is closer to red than the regular magenta.
And for the orange, you could get some from the HDR Ultrachrome inkset.
Now that I think of it, even the older K3 OCP magenta was more red than it should be, so this could be another possible substitute for the red if you have some left of that.

As for mixing up inks to make a new colour, I'm not sure how effective this can be. If it was as simple as that the printer could reproduce these new colours by simply laying out both inks at the same time. I'm guessing the reason Epson included these two extra colours was for that extra increase in gamut which can not be achieved by the standard CMYK colors. It should work in theory, but the gamut you'll get out of that is not going to be optimal.

In any case, red and orange are the colors that get used the least with the R2000, so you could as well buy a smaller quantity of these...

 

[pharmacist]

My fault: it should be an Epson R2000 (both use the same ink colors).

 

[costadinos]

My fault: it should be an Epson R2000 (both use the same ink colors).

Yes, you are right. I was thinking of the R1800 when I replied earlier

 

[Emulator]

Why are there so many new? R2000s without printhead or ink, for sale on Ebay for £60 or less? Are the ink and printhead that costly?

 

[pharmacist]

This one is a brand new one . I just tested some mixing and I think the best ratio for orange is 1 part of magenta + 3 parts of yellow and for the red: 5 parts of vivid magenta + 1 part of yellow. Well I will test this when the refillable cartridges will arrive and suck some ink from the cartridges to determine the right hue and tone of the ink and make some swaps on photo paper and do some empirical mixing until I get what I want. Also for the apparent different hue of cyan. It could be the print head just put much less ink when executing the nozzle check and it could be an optical illusion due to the smaller amount of ink on the paper.