The thing is Epson is basically "sealing" up their printers so you can't get in nor can you buy any parts. They are bringing all that part of the business back to them.

They're not making enough money on the ink?!!!!!

Epson, you love 'em and you hate 'em, right?

Scotti

quote:

Originally posted by O. Bisogno Scotti:
[qb] The thing is Epson is basically "sealing" up their printers so you can't get in nor can you buy any parts. They are bringing all that part of the business back to them.

They're not making enough money on the ink?!!!!!

Epson, you love 'em and you hate 'em, right?

Scotti [/qb]

They also know that the older 7600/9600 were easy to hack and lots of people were using 3rd party inks.

If you like Epson piezio technology, but want a better built and longer lasting printer, then look into Roland or Mimaki. You can also get a Seiko Epson instead, which is their seriously wide line of printers. Anyone doing a high enough volume of prints might find greater savings in much larger more professional printers. Printing costs can be as low as 0.12� per sq.ft. for many of the larger printers.

I have spent the last 6 months looking at alternative ink sets for the Epson's.

The biggest problem with most 3rd party ink sets is:

1) In many cases, the gamut is no better than the Epson Ultrachrome K2 inks for the 7600 (despite their claims), and

2) Most 3rd party inks do not have any kind of reliable longevity testing (again, despite their claims.)

What I have settled on is a dye ink set from OCP that is a supposed Claria match in gamut. It costs abouyt $25 per liter.

I use that for proofing. My ink costs are about $.025 per ml. Figure 1.0ml to 1.5ml per square foot.

For production images/print sales I use the Epson K3 inks in my 7600. I get about 2/3 of the gamut increase you would get going from the 7600 to the 7800. No need to upgrade the machine just to upgrade the ink.

If you are printing Matte Black, you can just stick with the 7600 inks. No need to upgrade.

Epson claims the Vivid inks will trash the heads on the older machines in 6 months. Not sure I belive them. Might be worth trying to run Vivid inks on a 7600, with a flush of the Vivid lines once a month or so.

FWIW, my Epson K3 inks cost me about the same as the Cone 3rd party inks ($180 per liter), and just a little more than the Lyson ($150 per liter.)

Best,
Michael

Gordon,

Don't get me started on Mimaki. Argh

They also know that the older 7600/9600 were easy to hack and lots of people were using 3rd party inks.

The master hackers are all on the Epson Wide Format Group. It's odd, but I haven't seen any mention of the 7900/9900 over there.

Scotti

On the Yahoo one? Thats where I got the story in the first place. There are some really crafty guys there.

Yeah, the Yahoo group. I must have missed it. Normally I check it out every day.....like PDN.

Scotti