Recommend high volume photo printing on inkjet

[ullipops]

I run a school photography business and spend a fortune on printing services so I'm considering setting up my own printing facility. Minilab printing is out of the question due to initial costs so it has to be inkjet.
For each school I print a couple thousand images of sizes up to 7x10". I thought about having maybe 4 or 5 printers set up in parallel. Could any of you recommend a printer that is up for the job (and is it realistic at all).

Requirements:
1. Big capacity cartridges or reliable CISS
2. Great photo quality. Selling photos I feel 3 monochrome colours are a minimum.
3. Probably be pigment based since I charge people money for the prints
4. Reasonably fast printing speeds
5. Either roll paper capability or large sheet capacity. Will likely print on 170g paper.

I would definitely run it with non OEM inks. I just got a Canon pro9500 for small scale use, but have yet to try it out, would something like that work? A possibility could be to have multiple sets of cartridges and just switch them whenever they run dry, depending on how often that is. Any guesses on the number of 7x10" prints I can get out of a single refil? I shoot on white backgrounds and sell both B&W and colours. This is one from the last job, most kids have lighter coloured clothes than this one btw.

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Thanks a bunch

 

[palombian]

The Canon PRO9500 is IMO too slow, and it can't use roll paper.
The maintenance manual of my (now defunct) Mk I mentioned a life of 20.000 pages.

 

[CakeHole]

I think given your item number 2 requirement a big factor here is going to be what budget do you have.

 

[The Hat]

The pro 9500 would get my vote for excellent output on pigment inks, very reliable and will print on 170 gm paper all day, not the fastest printer but then all Pro printer are slow, that’s the nature of a Pro printer.

Best printer for easiest refilling with aftermarket available inks and resetter, so with a couple of these printers you’d fly through your photos, I also recommend to print on standard size paper with small white border all round.
Nice Photo..

 

[ullipops]

Agree the pro9500 doesn't look to be the one. It is slow and can only hold 20 sheets and no rolls. Rolls are not mandatory as I sell a lot of 5x7" prints as well (haven't seen any 7" rolls at least).

Budget is probably around $4-5000 maybe more. Last school I spent around $4000 on printing service alone.

How about the Epson R2400? It looks like a potential fit with 3 monochrome inks, pigment based, roll films and Fotospeed CISS (not know how much hassle that is though). At that price I could have a bunch of them and worry if one suddenly dies.

 

[ullipops]

Thanks TheHat! How many sheets of 170g do you think the pro9500 paper holder can take? Also how many 7x10" prints do you think I can squeeze out of each refil? I suspect it will be the gray and black ones to empty first with a mix of colour and b&w prints.

Running a number of printers at the same time I could imagine it being a nightmare keeping track paused or cancelled jobs due to the cartridges running empty. I realise that it is a hands on job and I'm ok with that if the savings are significant and the quality in top. I guess I could pack and labels envelopes while running the printers.

Btw I just got the second hand pro9500 yesterday with two empty cartridges so can't run any tests and it's driving me mad. Already ordered ink set, resetter and some other bits and bobs from Octoinkjet - can't wait to get it!

 

[costadinos]

If you are printing by the thousands forget about the "smaller" A3 printers. Especially the Canons with their tiny cartridges. An R3000 could probably work but it's still TOO slow for what you want to do.
I would strongly suggest investing in an Epson 4900.
It's the fastest printer around, and relatively cheap. For the number of prints you mention it should pay for itself in no time.
You can easily get 350ml refillable cartridges so you wouldn't have to worry about refilling all the time.
But most importantly it takes roll paper, so you could in theory load the roll, arrange, for instance, your 8x10s in 2x3 grids, send the job to the printer and come back in 4 hours to pick the prints. You could get around 220 8x10s from a single roll, and it takes the printer about 4 hours to go through a 30m roll, so you should be able to complete the job in 2-3 days, whereas it would probably take a couple of weeks with the 9500, not taking into account the time it takes to refill every 20 or so sheets.

 

[pharmacist]

Quite fast is an Epson 1400/1500W. Despite the 90 nozzles per channel, printing speed is slightly faster compared to my Epson Pro 3880. You can install a CISS easily.

 

[ullipops]

I considered the Epson 4900 last year for the exact reasons you mentioned, I just read too many horror stories about print heads constantly clogging up and needing expensive replacements so I'm a bit nervous about that model. It seems a bit overkill with an A2 printer for the sizes I print (I really would like to avoid doing any cutting) but if they were reliable I could live with that any maybe buy two of them to run in parallel. Am I overly concerned about the 4900? I can see myself fighting with a dead print heads while thousands of files need to get printed done pronto...

The Epson 1400/1500W/L800 are all dye based which I would like to avoid and they also have just 6 colours which I feel would influence b&w quality, so not ideal either.

 

[palombian]

... whereas it would probably take a couple of weeks with the 9500, not taking into account the time it takes to refill every 20 or so sheets.

Agree on this

But it doesn't clog