9180 for occasional use?

Is this a good choice for an occasional user? I'm gearing up to do digital negatives and I'm not sure how much I'll like the workflow and or how often I'll actually use it. It seems like I might run into problems with clogging and wasting expensive ink if it sits around. And the inks seem remarkably dear. Would I be better off in this regard with an older dye-based printer? Was curious also if there's a great deal of difference between newer generation printers and, say, the older 1280 when doing negatives only. This is for kallitype, pt/pd & possibly carbon later on. Thanks for any advice on the matter.

as an occasional user i can only say , it has been for me.

i got this printer to basically do the same thing your wanting to do, learn to print digital negative for alternative processes.

I began also to learn more about inkjet printing and began doing some other types of work that i would not have predicated a few years ago.

I have had no issues with clogging and there have been weeks when i have not used it . HP suggest you leave it on, as it has a routine it follows to avoid problems. However, they did tell me if i was going to be gone for any length of time to power it off.

I am sure there are more knowledgeable about these things than myself, and hopefully they will chime in with more specifics for your situation.

Frankly, and i am surprised i am saying this, i have had some fun with inkjet printing

Thanks Ann, exactly what I was hoping to hear. I think I may really like the hybrid process and the things it leads to, but who knows. My biggest fear was having to buy new ink or run wasteful nozzle clearing routines if it sat for more that a week or so, or have it seize up entirely.

colin,

so far, i have had to only replace one cart, they don't depleat at the same rate.

with some carefully shopping one can find the inks at a fairly nice reduction in retail price, and i am talking about the HP inks not third party ones.

i was very surprised at how netural a black and white print was when using this print. I have been running some test with another smaller printer with only black inks and have been pleased with those, but it wasn't helpful with my learning about icc profiles, etc.

try running this test on your printer when you get it, or in fact on any printer you get

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it is an incrediable test

here are the directions for reading the test
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there is a yahoo group called 9100series@yahoo.com

they are very helpful

More great news, many thanks Ann. I've bookmarked your links and I guess all that's left is to find the best deal. I do appreciate the help.

colin,
i don't know where you are, but i took sandy king's advice and got mine at buydig. it ws 489 with free shipping.

Thanks Ann, but it looks like they no longer list it in their inventory. Serves me right for hugging the fence for so long! I found one for around $600 and free shipping, seems reasonable enough. Thanks again for the help.

Colin Graham said:

Thanks Ann, but it looks like they no longer list it in their inventory. Serves me right for hugging the fence for so long! I found one for around $600 and free shipping, seems reasonable enough. Thanks again for the help.

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I have had the 9180 for several months and have had no problem with clogging. As per HP recommendation I leave it on all the time.

My only complaint is that the printer is very large and must be positioned so that there is some space on the back if you plan to print from the speciality media platform, which is necessary when using Pictorico OHP.

Sandy King

I got the 9180 and so far I've been impressed. I did get it for just doing regular prints, not digital negatives or anything esoteric. I think I'm somewhere between "regular" and "occasional" use. I leave mine on, as they suggest, and yes, it clicks and jukes around a bit once every evening or so.

ann said:

so far, i have had to only replace one cart, they don't depleat at the same rate.

with some carefully shopping one can find the inks at a fairly nice reduction in retail price, and i am talking about the HP inks not third party ones.

Click to expand...

May I ask where you find this nice reduction in price? I've googled a bit and found a few $$$ off HP's price, but nothing significant. Two of mine are now showing the yellow ! warning. They do seem to last quite a long time, however, at least for my use.

try running this test on your printer when you get it, or in fact on any printer you get

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it is an incrediable test

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Thanks. I'm downloading that now. I'll print it out when I get home.

I'll also check out the Yahoo group.

I went to amazon and began price comparison, discovered that it is important to watch for shipping cost (am sure most of you already are aware of this issue).

Am used to shopping very carefully for school as we are very limited with budget funds, so i go with the best deal.

i found the following Light gray and Light cyan cheapest at Abacus24-7

the rest from ANTOnline

it was a little over 200 dollars for the complete set, which is anywhere from 25 to 40 dollars less. not a huge saving, but none the less a savings.

hope this is helpful.

ann said:

i found the following Light gray and Light cyan cheapest at Abacus24-7

the rest from ANTOnline

Click to expand...

Thanks, I will check them out.

it was a little over 200 dollars for the complete set, which is anywhere from 25 to 40 dollars less. not a huge saving, but none the less a savings.

hope this is helpful.

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Oh yes, it was. I'm not looking forward to the day when most of them start running out. Hopefully somebody will come out with a third-party source by then. Of course I'm not going to try an off-brand ink in that thing unless I know it's decent.