Epson Drylab inks in L1800

[Ink stained Fingers]

there are new Epson printers announced, that may have impact on the pricing of similar
printers of the previous model range.

http://www.dpreview.com/articles/31...es-quartet-of-surecolor-large-format-printers

 

[DryAxE]

I bought Canon ipf6400 month ago but i am dissapointed since it is not suitable for photobooks on matte paper that i use the most. Color transfers on the other page. Print like this would need coating or lamination. I dont remember if i tried this kind of print with Epson 3880 before i sold it. Well i just dont remember that Epson ever had this kind of color transfer problem. Is this due to resin encapsulation of Ultrachrome K3 inks?

 

[DryAxE]

Ink stained Fingers: I am aware of those new printers. Prices of older models will surely start to decrease in future months or if not there might be some good deals at least.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

that is probably a combination of the ink and the coating of the paper, how the ink , the outside of the pigments bond to the paper. O.k., and the plan now is to use dye inks on glossy paper?

 

[DryAxE]

Plan is to use dye on all sorts of paper. I know dye is superior on glossy and semiglossy to pigment, but in this case also matte will be printed on dye since Canon pigment is causing color transfer to other page.

I am dissapointed since i wanted at least matte to be printed on pigment (usually no gloss differential and other pigment issues with matte), especially i wanted to print on textured papers like William Turner but now i know that on paper like that Canon ink transfers to oposite side. I know varnish would be a solution bu that means extra costs and work (time). That really sucks and i am thinking of selling it after less than month of owning...

 

[W. Fisher]

ISF, is there any info on the boxes that tells where the ink was made? China or Japan?

Curious as I suspect Epson has been making their "better ink" in Japan, and the cheaper (fading) stuff comes out of other Asian countries. Maybe some sort of "Keep it close to home" idea where others won't run off and copy their secret formula - if they have one.

Does seem when the 3rd parties claim "Claria compatible" they aren't talking about longevity or even ability to not clog, separate, or whatever, maybe just a better color match.

I'm getting more suspicious of marketing claims made by some of the 3rd parties too....

W. FIsher

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I don't think it's that simple, even if an ink is made in Germany or US or China, you don't know where the dye base material is coming from - there are several chemical companies producing such stuff , and they trade worldwide. Claims about longevity by 3rd party companies are not
substantiated by any testing , or even so they are not willing to publish the results anyway. It's only the Epson, Canon , HP etc either referring their own tests, or tests in connection with WIR or in line with their test procedures, but that's it. Anything else is marketing speech.

 

[Smile]

The main drawback i see with this printer is its feeding tray since it is clumsy and you have to manualy single feed for every print (when you cut your paper from rolls). So my main concern is how to improve this feeding mechanism to work automatically with multiple sheets feeded. That would mean that i would not be needed every 15 mins to feed next sheet of paper, i could put the whole job through and forget about it.
Does anyone have any experience or at least information where to search for printer mods? For printers epson 1430, 1500W and L1800 (i believe they have the same feed mechanism).

The media cut from rools needs to be pressed with heavy weights etc for at least a month to be anything close to flat.

 

[Smile]

Photo books are usually limited to A3 format, and square variations of them. Why wide format printer with huge picoliter sizes for such fine printing with DYE ink? You need something like 2pl nozzles max.

If you wan roll option and auto cutter you are limiting yourself because those are found only on wide format printers and they tend to be divided to CAD or photo types. CAD uses 4 inks and large nozzle size while photo ones have dozen inks (because they are pigment based) so those should be avoided.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

roll paper may not be suitable for photo books, you would have to find a way to uncurl it. But otherwise I disagree that large format printers are not suitable to print photos very fine. Models with 3 or 4 pl and 6(7) to 10 inks print very similar like to old R200 which as well was running with 4pl and light colors. No normal and even carefully looking user would see a difference between prints from a 4800/7800 or similar or smaller photoprinters. Only when you start printing resolution charts you would see variances. It may take some time to print with large formats with the highest quality settings but that's not a perceived quality issue.