Best wide format Epson for refilling?

[Vogelkop]

Hello everybody

I have two Epson Pro 7900's that I am about to give up.
The story of me trying to rescue them are long and sad, so I will leave it at that..

I still have a LOT of ink (UltraChrome HDR) that I will use in my p600 and r2400 at home, but I still dream of having a A1 or even A0 printer..

I am aware that it is not the exact same formula as the older K3 etc., but i would like to use the ink and profile my paper.

So the question is:

Which Epson 24" or 40" printer is considered the most reliable regarding clogging etc.?

Is it the 7880? 7800? 7600?



I assume that newer models do not accept refillable cartridges?

I appreciate your inputs!

Ronald

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

It depends what you are typically printing but you may look for the T3100X, a Ecotank version of a 24" model, it comes with dye inks, but the base model T3100 is running on pigment inks, so it doesn't matter; you most likely would need specific icm-profiles for your ink/paper combinations - as you do anyway.
The 7600 would be too old , and you would need to check in your area whether reliable refill solutions are available for the 7800/7880, Epson may handle 3rd party cartridges differently firmwarewise in different business regions - Europe - US ..... Most of the clogging issues depend on your attention to the printer - cleaning - regular printing etc

 

[Vogelkop]

Oh, going the EcoTank way is completely news for me.. An interesting idea to be able to refill without buying refillable cartridges. I wonder how many did put pigments in those printers?
Do they print at the same quality as the K3 and newer printers?
I think that buying a new EcoTank exceeds my economy. That is why I was looking at the older 7880's.

 

[Vogelkop]

Whar I want is to print on Fine Art papers. Probably matte most of the time. Or Semimatte/luster.

 

[robwignell]

I have an Epson 7880 that I bought second hand after it had not been used for 7 years. To get it going I replaced the ink buffers on the head and, because the Vivid Magenta line was blocked I used warm water to force about 30cm of solidified ink out. I have used InkTec, Cone and, most recently, Marrutt ink in the printer. Third party cartridges are easy to buy on eBay. The gamut volume of printer profiles that I make for the 7880 with these inks vary from low to mid 600K volume units. This is not as good as the low to mid 700K gamut volumes of printer profiles using the same process for my Epson 3880 using OEM inks.

For making printer profiles I use a set of colour patches with a bias towards neutral mid range colours. Scanning is done with an X-Rite DTP70 spectrophotometer. Profiles are produced using the ArgyllCMS software suite. The profiles I produce typically have fewer than 5 patches per thousand with a DE 2000>1 and an average less than 0.5.

I use the printer infrequently and usually need to run a couple of head cleans before I get a perfect nozzle check. I find it helpful to do a test print of at least a half A4 page between head cleans. (I alsways do a nozzle check before printing.)

Most recently, I have been getting a persistent single missing VM bar on the nozzle check. I don't notice any effect from this on run of the mill prints but would persist with more cleaning cycles before printing fine art images.

In summary, I can recommend the Epson 7880 as being reliable and easy to run with non OEM inks. I haven't ventured into a new set of Epson inks because they cost way more than I have spent on the printer.

The lower gamut volume of the printer profiles compared to the 3880 are probably because I am not using Epson ink, but I am unable to test this hypothesis.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

the T3100 and T3100x use basically the same hardware, it shouldn't matter much which type of ink you use. You just need matching color profiles.
Buying a used (7880) printer would require some knowledge or experience with such printer, it's like buying a used (isn't called now 'pre-owned' ?) car - it may be a bargain or problems creep up a few days after the deal. Are you able to do some maintenance action on such printer - e.g. replacing the dampers in the printhead - do you know how to get into the service mode of such printer to read out some of the usage information - lifetime status of several components like the motor , the number of flexes of the tubes - the total paper length printed etc...
Your inks should be o.k. for most applications unless you thrive for the last percent of the widest gamut. The final print quality is a combination of the printer hardware - droplet size - inks - paper type - driver settings and a matching profile.

 

[Vogelkop]

the T3100 and T3100x use basically the same hardware, it shouldn't matter much which type of ink you use. You just need matching color profiles.
Buying a used (7880) printer would require some knowledge or experience with such printer

Well, I just did take two 7900's apart and swapped several parts back and forth, so getting into the thing does not frighten me. But the 7900's are known to drive people insane. Clogging, mainly.. That is why I am interested in the approach that Rob Wignell is desribing above.

Do you know if the T3100's print in the same quality as the X880 series of printers?

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Do you know if the T3100's print in the same quality as the X880 series of printers?

No, not really, it's not clear what you expect in terms of quality - which parameters are relevant for you, it could be that the gamut is similar or slightly smaller or that ink drops of the dithering may become slightly more visible at very close distance since the light colors are missing or B/W prints get a color cast under varying light conditions since a light gray is missing or or ....you may not see it or such effects are relevant for you or not since you imply a greater viewing distance.

 

[Charles218]

There is an excellent forum for Epson Wide Format printers at <https://groups.io/g/EpsonWideFormat>. It is very active with many knowledgeable members. You will probably be able to get excellent additional information there.

 

[Algo Después]

it could be that the gamut is similar or slightly smaller or that ink drops of the dithering may become slightly more visible at very close distance since the light colors are missing or B/W prints get a color cast under varying light conditions since a light gray is missing or or ....you may not see it or such effects are relevant for you or not since you imply a greater viewing distance.

I share a similar interest. In that way, I have been looking very closely at an EPSON that was launched in 2014, the SC-T5200/ T5270 (36 "), according to its technical sheet it has 2880x 1440 dpi, uses pigmented inks and allows 5 refillable cartridges (two types of black) with one life chips . It can also print with a maximum thickness of 1.5 mm. I have compared the technical sheets in B&H with a P8000 (44”) and its main differences are the type of ink (the p8000 uses Ultrachrome HDX vs Ultrachrome XD ) and it has 4 extra cartridges .

At this point I understand that with the T5200 I will have a poorer gamut but I suppose it should not have any serious effect on the resolution, right? Especially if I use it for black and white photo printing jobs. Maybe the answer to my question is in what you say here. The other part should be to see printer proofs, but the local Epson service in my region is not the best in any case.