Ink jet for promotion...

jd callow

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Good Day All,
Over the years I've used personal inkjets to produce promotional items and an occasional print for sale -- commercial stuff. I generally produce postcards and portfolio items. I've used the epson 1280 or 1290 fitted with various MIS continuous flow systems. I have ruined or run 4 of these into the ground (epson's QA tolerances may also have contributed). I killed my last two epson's a few months back and need to get a replacement.

As mentioned, I print postcards mostly and will not need it for finished prints, or diginegs or anything archival. I do want the output to be good. I don't need a wide format or at least wider than ~12". Cost is an issue, I like to pay under $500.00.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.
 

donbga

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The new Epson 1400 is slated to cost about $400 - a 13x19 printer. Of course these are dye based inks but they may be improved from previous dyes from Epson and be less fade resistant.

Don Bryant
 

Greg_E

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The 1400 is Claria dye inks. I've been testing these inks on several matte papers for about 6 weeks in the central New York "sun light", fading is not going to be an issue with Claria and matte papers. The dmax is not very good on matte papers though, about the same as Ultrachome Photo black on matte papers (i.e. not very good). For glossy work they will be very impressive and the single glossy paper I have in the test (PGPP) shows almost no change after 30 days, and what was shown could have been measurement or mathmatic errors in building the profile. I dropped a message about this in a thread at DPReveiw that got very little notice, and also a thread in the Yahoo digital B/W the print group which was received a little better. The targets are back in the window, and aging.

Depending on exactly what you need, I have an Epson cx6600 with an InkRepublic CIS attached. That thing has been going for more than a year, and more than about 5000 pages. More than 250ml of each color. No problems.
 

colivet

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Beware of running costs with the claria ink printers. Epson will sell you the cheap printer and you'll run out of ink almost the same day you bought it. Maybe the 13" wide printer will not be the case but the smaller units certainly are. Google the thing before buying.
 

Ted Harris

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See my first impressions of the HP B9180 over at the LF Forum. I am busily putting it through its paces for a full review/evaluation in View Camera and, so far, have nothingbut praise for this printer. It uses pigment based inks similar to the larger Z2100 sries and to the Canon and Epson pigment based printers.

Th results are outstanding and you will find street prices from a hair over 500 to 540 or so.

I have been using a pair of R800's for three years for the sort of production work you describe, including printing notecards for sale. One of them is dying and I suspect the other is not far behind. Unless something changes I will replace them with a B9180 which will also allow me to do some presentation printing (up to 13x19) without cranking up oen of the big wide format printers.
 

Helen B

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Would the ability to print on CDs be useful? That's one of the main jobs I use my R800 for.

Best,
Helen
 
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jd callow

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Yes, direct CD printing would be prefferable to labels. Roll feed on the 1280/90's was nice as well.
 

sanking

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Do you know anything about the UV blocking of the Claria dye inks? I am hoping to use this printer for making digital negaitives for alternative printing. Negatives from the 1280 printed smoother (less grain) with alternative printing than negatives from the 2200, though the latter produced more sharpness, and I am hoping that the 1400 will print smoother still since its ink drops are much smaller than those of the 2200 (or 3800). In any event I decided to bit the bullet and buy a 1400 and give it a try since I am having Venetian blind problems with my current pigmented ink printer.

Sandy King
 
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jd callow

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Sandy,
Please let us know your thoughts regarding the 1400. New egg has it for 362.00, but I've yet to find a CFS system for this printer.
 

Greg_E

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No idea about the UV blocking abilities of the Claria inks.
 

sanking

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jd callow said:
Sandy,
Please let us know your thoughts regarding the 1400. New egg has it for 362.00, but I've yet to find a CFS system for this printer.
Click to expand...


I will let you know. The 1400 should arrive here on Monday or Tuesday,and I hope to test if for digital negatives right away.

Sandy
 

Helen B

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jd callow said:
Sandy,
Please let us know your thoughts regarding the 1400. New egg has it for 362.00, but I've yet to find a CFS system for this printer.
Click to expand...

I'm also interested in a 1400 as a general purpose printer to replace the R800, so I've asked Inkrepublic if they intend to sell a CIS for the 1400. Their i-Ink system uses generic 'dampers' and separate, dedicated chip holders.

Best,
Helen
 

Greg_E

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The big thing with a CIS will be the new chips, as well as the ink. The new chips have some kind of electronic absolute shut off in them to keep you from sucking air into the heads. This appears to be different from a simple ink counter in that it appears to actually determine if ink is present or absent. I'm not sure where the reverse engineering is right now, but I know people are working on a solution.

Meritline did have some G&G carts for the Claria printers, but G&G also has a habit of buying the carts that steal the Epson patents. They were named in the last legal preceding, and I'm sure they will be named in the next. It's going to take time to sort through the technical issues, and make sure that no Epson patents are infringed. I'm a little surprised that Image Specialists doesn't have an ink ready for these printers yet, but I'm sure they are working on it.
 
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jd callow

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That is not good news. It is sad that epson feels the need to chip thier ink carts. I wonder if the cheapness of the printers is a result of Epson trying to sell the printers at or near cost with the anticapation of making money on the ink.

If there is no reverse engineering of the 1400 ink cart chips I may buy an R800 and wait untill I can swing a wide format printer if and when I decide I need one. The R800 has the roll feed, is usable with a continous flow ink system, and has the handy disk printing option.
 

Greg_E

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The R800 R2 would be the version to have, better yet would be the 1800. From profiling these printers with the IR CIS, the newest 1800's work the best. The older R800 had some problems with linearization that was supposed to be fixed in the R2 model. I don't know if I've seen the R2 model yet, but the R1800 has had few problems with profiles on many common papers.

The reason that Epson put the final ink detector in the carts is a direct result of all the bitching from customers. They were unhappy that up to 5 ml of ink remained in the cart after it would no longer print. That ink was a safety buffer to keep from killing the print heads. Now when that device says there is no more ink, there really is less than 1ml left in the cart. It's actually a better design, but it does make it more difficult to reverse without stepping on Epson's toes. All I can say is that the third party ink business is a multi million a year industry, all you need to do is wait for them to catch up.

The HP Z series might help to push you in the direction of a wide format machine. Personally I would probably go with a used Epson and third party inks, but the new Z series are supposed to be very good.

If you need a decent promotional and text printer, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend the cx6600 if you can still find one. Mine has been super good using the IR CIS and Image Specialists inks. I'm not too sure about the newer econo business printers, but they are probably about as good.
 

Greg_E

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A quick look through the Image Specialists list shows some inks that seem to be unique to the Claria based printers. I wonder how it compares to Claria for longevity.
 

dmr

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I just got one of these too, and I'm now climbing the learning curve to learn how to really use it. I am very impressed so far, but I've done only one real large print.

The one thing I dread is when those cartridges start running out. They seem to run ca. US$30 each and there are 8 of them. You can actually buy a smaller decent printer outright for what it will take to completely re-ink this one.

Anybody have any experience first-hand as to how much capacity these ink cartridges actually have?
 
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