Epson 4800 Ink Behavior
Having the Epson 4800 on loan from Printerville has been awesome. It’s a workhorse printer that just loves to be used. And, no matter what I throw at it, it produces results that are just great. I expected all that. But, what I continue to find interesting is how much better it is about ink handling. After all, ink is expensive stuff.
In short, the Epson 4800 has given me very little trouble. It’s not quite as hands-off at the HP 9180 was, but then again, it’s not dumping hundreds of dollars worth of ink into it’s nether regions either. Most of the time, I can leave it alone for a few weeks, then come back to it and make a clean print straight off the bat.
Sometimes, especially if I’ve let the printer sit just a bit too long, I’ll get the tell-tale banding in the first print or three that indicates a color is clogged up. To fix this up, I’ve found I don’t need to engage any of the hard core cleaning modes. Instead, thanks to listening to Rick LePage’s advice, I just run an auto nozzle check (aka the R2D2 pattern). It’s the same advice I’ve found elsewhere on online. This prints out a set of patches and checks the resulting blocks until the pattern sets in. It seems to do the trick every time.
The example here is the result of a check that I had to run earlier this evening. The light magenta channel was acting up, but the test run quickly sorted things out. This is about as much as it ever seems to take to clear things up.
The one odd thing I’ve seen happen a few times is that a channel will block up after running many dozens of pages through the printer. The solution is still easy: run the R2D2 test and things clear right up again. But, I’ve never seen this sort of thing before. Before this on other printers, I’ve only seen misprinting colors at startup time.
As far as ink consumption goes, the 110mL cartridges that I put into the printer last December are still going. They’re expensive to buy, but they sure do last a long time. Certainly, much longer than I’m used to. And the value proposition is there. Each $55 110mL cartridge will yield out a touch more ink than 4 HP38 cartridges (with 27mL of ink) that cost $30 each, assuming full utilization (a pretty big assumption).
I have to say, when I first started using this printer, I was a bit worried about ink clogs would affect things. I’ve had nasty experiences with previous (and much smaller) Epson printers. Now that I’ve had a while to settle in with the 4800, however, I have to say that I’m fairly happy. Sure, in a perfect world, there wouldn’t have to be the need to deal with any of this. But, at least when it does come up, all that’s been needed so far is to run a pretty simple routine that uses a minimum of ink. I can live with that.
6 Comments
I'm glad to hear about your experiences with the 4800. In contrast, if I let a couple weeks go by (in the dry Arizona air) I find that it may take multiple passes of the head clean/check pattern that you showed in your blog. That is, the printer will use multiple sheets of paper, filled with the colored squares!
Oddly, I often get one or two patches which start off "solid", but after a few rows of squares where the printer is clearing other colors, the previously solid squares show huge drop-outs. I'm sure it's because there is air in the lines, but it results in quite a lot of wasted ink.
From things I have read, my experience is not unusual.
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Jim, I've seen something close to what you describe where things start off fine and then all the sudden a color channel cuts out. Once in a while, I've seen a channel block out after printing a few dozen pages. After you made your comment, I realized I missed that and added it to the post here.
Have you ever had to go to something more extreme like run the head cleaning or even the dreaded power clean?
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I'm nowhere near at the level you guys are, but I have just never found it worthwhile to print photos at home. My B&W laser cranks documents all the time, and my kids use the colour inkjet for school projects and stuff, but when I want a photo print, I get a lab to do it on Fuji paper, and have generally loved the results.
Do you really find the hassle and expense of dealing with printers like these worthwhile? Only for larger prints maybe?
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Derek, I do find it worthwhile, even for 8X10 prints. But, I have to say that there's a catch-22 with expense and hassle. It’s only when you invest in the 17" and above pro printers that most of the the hassle goes away (thanks, in big part, to better linearization) and the runtime cost comes down to a reasonable level.
At this point, unless you’re is willing to "go big" with a pro printer, and can use it enough to make it worthwhile, sending off to a lab is a much more reasonable option, all things considered.
That's the short answer at least. The full answer is a post in and of itself. :)
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That seems pretty reasonable. I certainly don't understand anyone who regularly prints 4x6 or 5x7 at home, since they're so cheap to have made well at even a one-hour lab.
There is one instance where that could be good, though: a party or family gathering where people would like to take prints home of pictures you took that same evening.
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Try the 220 sized inks--they run about $80 each at ATLEX--sometimes cheaper on EBay but many vendors are selling outdated ones there, or only full sets. Glad you're enjoying the4800. My guess is that with the new 7900 etc from Epson, it's technology will soon filter down to a new "4900"
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