Thursday, January 3, 2013

Emma Chisit - with Epson Printers



A customer rang through yesterday with a number of questions about Epson printers. He is just on the cusp of commencing his home printing and wanted to get some advice about what to get. I think he will want to do a little more study about the subject so that he can make sure what is happening when his computer commands a printer to operate.

He has been getting prints done by a local chain store, and apparently is dissatisfied with the results - I think he would like a little more control of the process. Already he is calibrating his monitor screen with a Spyder device so things are looking up. If he gets one of the books published by Epson, or indeed one of the very entertaining books by Scoot Keilby or Matt Kosklowski, he can trace the line of choice and command through from his camera to the Photoshop program to a new printer.

Here is where we come in. We've got both the R3000 and the R3880 printers in stock, as well as spare ink cartridges and lots of Ilford and Epson paper. The caller asked about the economics of these things and I've just done some careful costing - here's the result. Please note that the calculations are based upon making full-size A4 prints using about 240 dpi settings - I find these more than adequate for home printing and it is economical on ink.

1. If you get an Epson R3000, you can print up to A3+ paper, you can print roll paper, you can print CD's. You can print wireless with WiFi. If you print the A4's that I mentioned earlier:

a.  Cost of printer - $ 1349
b. Cost of 100 sheets Ilford A4 Smooth Pearl - $ 85
c. Cost of Epson 157-series ink per ml - $ 1.52
d. Amount of ink used per A4 sheet - 2.5 ml
e. Therefore each print costs $ 3.80 and by the time you make 466 of these prints you have spent about
$ 3128. I say about because you will inevitably smudge something somewhere....

2. If you get and Epson R3880 you can print up to A2, can print only flat sheet, but can print thick poster boards as well as regular paper. No CD's though...

a. Cost of printer - $ 1965
b. Cost of 100 sheets Ilford A4 Smooth Pearl - $ 85
c. Cost of Epson 0500-series ink per ml - $ 0.99
d. Amount of ink used perA4 sheet - 2.5 ml
e. Therefore each print costs $ 2.48. At the 466-print mark you are even in costing with the R3000 printer but every print after that sees you draw away from it in terms of a lower cost per print.

This is the economics of ink - the R3000 has 25.9 ml cartridges and the R3880 has 80 ml cartridges. Every ml of ink is cheaper.

Some people have suggested modifying cartridges to provide ink flow from open bottles - Epson won't have a bar of this and neither will I. Quite apart from the fact that it negates any warranty on the heads, it might supply inks to the printer that do not match what the pinter thinks it is applying - leading to totally skewed results. Plus you risk blocking the jets. Stick with the proprietary Epson cartridges.

I've been printing with an Epson R3800 for years and have been delighted with the results. I've fed Epson, Ilford, and Harman paper through it and sold and hung the results. I hope our customer will come in and be equally successful.

Uncle Dick

PS: It's a 1948 Ford Convertible. Thanks for asking.



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3 Comments:

Blogger Safdar Ali said...

Nice post with great details. Can i Print Plastic Cards by this printer?

January 19, 2013 at 2:38 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Printing lastic cards would depend on two things - whether you can get plastic card sheets from Avery or some other manufacturer that would accept the inkjet ink, and whether you can fool the Epson into taking the sheet in. The Avery people make a sheet that allows you to print fridge magnets with the 3880 so they likely make business cards as well. If they can pass through the rear feed, do that. If it needs to go in through the front feed, you can do that- you might have to secure the plastic sheet on top of a paper sheet to manage this.

February 5, 2013 at 9:05 AM  
Blogger James Werk said...

Do anybody knows the best type of Ink and Cartridge for Epson branded printer specially for high yield printing.

December 2, 2014 at 8:54 PM  

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Emma Chisit - with Epson Printers



A customer rang through yesterday with a number of questions about Epson printers. He is just on the cusp of commencing his home printing and wanted to get some advice about what to get. I think he will want to do a little more study about the subject so that he can make sure what is happening when his computer commands a printer to operate.

He has been getting prints done by a local chain store, and apparently is dissatisfied with the results - I think he would like a little more control of the process. Already he is calibrating his monitor screen with a Spyder device so things are looking up. If he gets one of the books published by Epson, or indeed one of the very entertaining books by Scoot Keilby or Matt Kosklowski, he can trace the line of choice and command through from his camera to the Photoshop program to a new printer.

Here is where we come in. We've got both the R3000 and the R3880 printers in stock, as well as spare ink cartridges and lots of Ilford and Epson paper. The caller asked about the economics of these things and I've just done some careful costing - here's the result. Please note that the calculations are based upon making full-size A4 prints using about 240 dpi settings - I find these more than adequate for home printing and it is economical on ink.

1. If you get an Epson R3000, you can print up to A3+ paper, you can print roll paper, you can print CD's. You can print wireless with WiFi. If you print the A4's that I mentioned earlier:

a.  Cost of printer - $ 1349
b. Cost of 100 sheets Ilford A4 Smooth Pearl - $ 85
c. Cost of Epson 157-series ink per ml - $ 1.52
d. Amount of ink used per A4 sheet - 2.5 ml
e. Therefore each print costs $ 3.80 and by the time you make 466 of these prints you have spent about
$ 3128. I say about because you will inevitably smudge something somewhere....

2. If you get and Epson R3880 you can print up to A2, can print only flat sheet, but can print thick poster boards as well as regular paper. No CD's though...

a. Cost of printer - $ 1965
b. Cost of 100 sheets Ilford A4 Smooth Pearl - $ 85
c. Cost of Epson 0500-series ink per ml - $ 0.99
d. Amount of ink used perA4 sheet - 2.5 ml
e. Therefore each print costs $ 2.48. At the 466-print mark you are even in costing with the R3000 printer but every print after that sees you draw away from it in terms of a lower cost per print.

This is the economics of ink - the R3000 has 25.9 ml cartridges and the R3880 has 80 ml cartridges. Every ml of ink is cheaper.

Some people have suggested modifying cartridges to provide ink flow from open bottles - Epson won't have a bar of this and neither will I. Quite apart from the fact that it negates any warranty on the heads, it might supply inks to the printer that do not match what the pinter thinks it is applying - leading to totally skewed results. Plus you risk blocking the jets. Stick with the proprietary Epson cartridges.

I've been printing with an Epson R3800 for years and have been delighted with the results. I've fed Epson, Ilford, and Harman paper through it and sold and hung the results. I hope our customer will come in and be equally successful.

Uncle Dick

PS: It's a 1948 Ford Convertible. Thanks for asking.



Labels: , , ,