EPSON 3880 and 3000, how many prints per tank?

[tkamiya]

I'm struggling to choose a printer.

Up for consideration are EPSON Stylus Pro 3880 and Stylus Photo 3000. I know former uses an ink tanks that are 80cc each and the latter uses ones that are 26cc. Epson guarantees 6 months life on cartridge once installed and 2 years unopened.

My printing volume isn't all that high but when I do print, I can empty my current printer pretty fast. (I have an older HP printer) I know buying 80cc ink is more economical than 26cc, and price comparison shows that, too.

If you own either of the printer, can you tell me how many 8x10 prints one can expect to make before ONE OF THE TANKS become empty? I'm fully aware of it all depends on the type of prints you are making, there are multiple tanks, and some goes much faster than the rest but some type of idea will be nice.

 

[L Gebhardt]

It depends on the ink as well. The light colors get used up at a much higher rate then the darker colors.

I have a 3880 and I was worried about the life of the inks once opened, but it has not proven to be an issue. I don't print a lot and I still have several of the original inks in my printer that I've had for over 2 years. So far there have been no issues, and test prints confirm that there hasn't been a visible change in the prints since new.

I think each 8x10 print uses about 1ml of ink. But I didn't track how many 8x10s I printed before needing to change the first cartridge. But this site gives you the relative usages for their set of prints. Cost of Inkjet Printing Report Epson 3800 3880 Based on the Enhanced Matte usage it looks like you can expect the LLK to run out around 480 8x10 prints and the Yellow to last 430 prints. I mostly use the glossy FB papers and my yellow was the third color to empty, so it's certainly dependent on the paper and image type.

 

[tkamiya]

Thank you.

 

[Nathan Potter]

I use a 3880 and recorded all the 8 X 10 prints produced by the first set of inks. It was just about 150 8 X 10's. No ink delivery glitches on the first machine over about a 2 year period despite very intermittent use. I had up to a 4 month dead time between prints and the printer came right up with a perfect print. Quite remarkable performance. Cost is about $4.00 per print for ink at about $600 for an ink set.

Nate Potter, Austin TX.

 

[jeffreyg]

This is not an answer to your question but may be useful information. I have an Epson 2200 that I purchased new nine years ago. While most of my printing is in a wet dark room, I have done hundreds of prints with the 2200. Last week a notice popped up saying that some parts could be wearing out and the printer should be serviced. I went to the Epson website to see if there was any information about this. It basically suggested getting a new printer. I further searched on the net and found suggestions as to how to change the ink pads and/or reset the counter. Not wishing to do that I found a technician to check it out. He totally checked the printer, placed new pads and reset the counter to zero at a fee of less than one third of a new printer.

He told me that the printer keeps a record of each process and assigns points. When a certain number of points are reached which in my case was 45,000 the notice comes up. If you ignore it and continue to use it at about 65,00 points the printer will shut down and not work. He also recommended using only Epson inks and using the printer at least once a week (which I already knew to do).
He gave me a test print that he made after the service and I printed with it my self. It works just like new.

I was almost ready to get a 3880 to replace it but for now I'm happy to save the $. I would like the larger size and the extra ink features but it really isn't necessary for my current needs.

HOME

 

[RalphLambrecht]

I'm struggling to choose a printer.

Up for consideration are EPSON Stylus Pro 3880 and Stylus Photo 3000. I know former uses an ink tanks that are 80cc each and the latter uses ones that are 26cc. Epson guarantees 6 months life on cartridge once installed and 2 years unopened.

My printing volume isn't all that high but when I do print, I can empty my current printer pretty fast. (I have an older HP printer) I know buying 80cc ink is more economical than 26cc, and price comparison shows that, too.

If you own either of the printer, can you tell me how many 8x10 prints one can expect to make before ONE OF THE TANKS become empty? I'm fully aware of it all depends on the type of prints you are making, there are multiple tanks, and some goes much faster than the rest but some type of idea will be nice.

I use the 3880 and are very happy with it. I also buy roughly 5replacement cartridges per year for about100 8x10 prints on Canson high-gloss paper. I calculated a printing cost of $0.17per square inch of photo.YMMV.

 

[jeffreyg]

I now have a 3880 (a gift) and have been very pleased with it. I haven't kept a record of how many prints. It takes nine ink cartridges and depending on what you print and the size of the prints and type of paper. While most of my prints are black and white, I found that to get the tones I like I use a tone plugin with very slight brown tone and double the brown in sepia merged with the black and white so colors are being used.

http://www.jeffreyglasser.com/