Need a printer for 10,000 (moderate quality) 13x19 prints a year

[Artur5]

Why don’t you look into getting a second hand Pro 100 or Pro 10, they can handle every one of your needs x 10…

For printing as much as 10.000 A3+ canvas a year, I'd say that a Pro10 is too slow.
My Pro-10s takes at least 10-15 minutes to print a single A3+ canvas/fine art sheet in high quality mode. Say you need to get 50 of those A3+ prints. That's 8-10 hours continuous printing, not counting the time to replace the carts
I don't know if the Pro100 is faster than the Pro-10 but, IMHO for this amount of printing, a Pro-1000 is more suitable. I'm sure it's way faster than the lower models and the cartridges are much bigger so no need to keep changing them every other day. Vacuum aided paper transport helps also a lot with canvas media, which can be quite thick and possibly not perfectly flat.

 

[artprint1]

Pro-1000 is more suitable. I'm sure it's way faster than the lower models and the cartridges are much bigger so no need to keep changing them every other day. Vacuum aided paper transport helps also a lot with canvas media, which can be quite thick and possibly not perfectly flat.

wouldnt the pro-1000 cost us a LOT to refill though?
is there a cheap 3rd party ink solution?

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

This market segregation by Epson - as well by Canon - is more than a nuisance and makes it pretty difficult to make a reliable recommendation - a model - like the L1800 - may be available in Mexico, but not in the U.S. or available in Poland or Malaysia but not in Germany or Australia - the L1800 would be a good fit - with a built-in CISS for the ease of refilling - and a paper transport which can handle the mentioned paper types. The Epson ET-7750 can handle A3 but has a very flimsy rear paper bin which only takes a few sheets at a time, the ET-8550 is a more suitable successor (but Epson apparently does not want to sell it to you.....)

And I don't see a clear preference yet for dye or pigment inks - 3rd party refill dye inks - for a CISS or as a substitute for ET-printers have a poor fading performance - all of them - as well refill inks for the Canon printers, only OEM inks are performing much better - Canon or Epson - with the benefit that Epson inks - bottles are available for the ET-..printers. Pigment inks are more robust, as well 3rd party refill inks - for Epson or Canon , but I'm not aware of CISS solutions for the A3+ type printers.

 

[artprint1]

This market segregation by Epson - as well by Canon - is more than a nuisance and makes it pretty difficult to make a reliable recommendation - a model - like the L1800 - may be available in Mexico, but not in the U.S. or available in Poland or Malaysia but not in Germany or Australia - the L1800 would be a good fit - with a built-in CISS for the ease of refilling - and a paper transport which can handle the mentioned paper types. The Epson ET-7750 can handle A3 but has a very flimsy rear paper bin which only takes a few sheets at a time, the ET-8550 is a more suitable successor (but Epson apparently does not want to sell it to you.....)

And I don't see a clear preference yet for dye or pigment inks - 3rd party refill dye inks - for a CISS or as a substitute for ET-printers have a poor fading performance - all of them - as well refill inks for the Canon printers, only OEM inks are performing much better - Canon or Epson - with the benefit that Epson inks - bottles are available for the ET-..printers. Pigment inks are more robust, as well 3rd party refill inks - for Epson or Canon , but I'm not aware of CISS solutions for the A3+ type printers.

thanks

I can get an Epson Ecotank L1800 delivered to USA via eBay
http://ebay.com/itm/193875418330

For the ink i'm not very knowledgeable about it. We've been using this ebay stuff http://ebay.com/itm/201362489925 which i think is dye?

Looks like someone sells L1800 Ink Refill genuine bottles
http://ebay.com/itm/133712520728

And someone is selling these big Refill bottles
http://ebay.com/itm/192045717053

We're just printing art for tourists and kids so it doesnt have to hang on the wall for more than a few years. So it'd be nice to find a cheap ink solution. The above http://ebay.com/itm/192045717053 is the cheapest i guess ya?

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

We're just printing art for tourists and kids so it doesnt have to hang on the wall for more than a few years.

This changes the scope of your inquiry - you are printing for business - and I would try to give my customers the best I can produce.

Just forget any 3rd party substitute dye inks - as well substitute inks for the Ecotank-printers - they fade faster than the genuine Epson inks which I think are priced already pretty low, you won't get any commitment in this espect by the listed Ebay-dealers above

 

[The Hat]

it looks like the PIXMA PRO-100 takes a lot of little cartridges though.

Yes, but all the carts put together amount up to a lot of ink, so changing doesn’t occur that often, and when it does, you change all of them together, and refill later..

You need to look at the big picture, there are no printers that will suite your requirements, Canon/Epson are not going to make a printer just to suite you, so you need to match yourself to a printer, it’s a crap shoot…

P.S. cheap dye inks are always going to be fast at fading, mostly very fast..

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

An Epson A3+ printer with pigment inks could be the WF-7210DTW, a printer only model with cartridges. 3rd party cartridges with pigment inks should be available since this cartridge type is used in several models since years. I had the predecessor WF-7110 for a while, it delivers quite good print output and runs with 4 cartridges, but the high end photo quality output of a Pro-200 or Pro-300 and similar is not possible

 

[maximilian59]

it looks like the PIXMA PRO-100 takes a lot of little cartridges though.

I have a two Pro-100 one with OEM and one with Precision Colors inks. I would recommend a starter kit like this one https://precisioncolors.com/PC42cref.html.
You will need at least two sets of cartridges. With the redsetter it is possible to reset independently from how much ink is in the cartridge. If one ink is getting low you change all eight to full ones, reset the used ones and fill them up again. So you have always a full set filled and one in the printer. With this method changing ink is tremendously reduced.
As far as I know these inks are the best aftermarket inks you can get.
Cheers Maximilian

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

The Pro-100 is not available anymore at a regular price, it got a price hike just because of the refill capabilities as @maximilian59 explains it - the successor Pro-200 does not offer this refill capability at this time anymore

 

[Artur5]

In all likelihood, with a Pro-10/Pro-100/Pro-200, the waste inkpad counter would reach full long before printing 10.000 13x19" canvas sheets. The machine would stop working unless that counter is reset with a software tool AND the pads cleaned/replaced, which is not easy even for experienced users and it takes a lot of time too.
I think that @artprint1 would be better served with a printer that has user replaceable maintenance cartridges, be it Canon or Epson.