Moderator: E.J. Peiker

All times are UTC-05:00

  
« Previous topic | Next topic »  
Reply to topic  
 First unread post  | 15 posts | 
by Bill Chambers on Mon Oct 02, 2017 1:10 pm
User avatar
Bill Chambers
Forum Contributor
Posts: 4015
Joined: 8 Feb 2006
Location: Milton, Florida
Good afternoon,

I used to print my own work (max size 13" wide by however long).  I used the Epson R2400.  It gave me excellent results but then the head clogged and no one where I lived could repair it.  I always used Epson inks, never used any generic inks. They wanted me to send it to Dallas.  I didn't do that because shipping costs would be outrageous!!!

Fast forward - I'm once again considering printing my own work.  I want to be able to print to at least 24" wide, but to do so without breaking my budget.  In other words, I don't want/need commercial quality printer capable of printing 8 hours a day, every day.  I loved the print quality of the Epson but lack of repair capability really left a bad taste in my mouth.  I understand that Canon printers CAN be repaired in my area.  Can you recommend what YOU think would be the best printer for the buck, regardless of brand, and why?

Thanks in advance!!
Please visit my web site, simply nature - Photographic Art by Bill Chambers
Bill Chambers
Milton, Florida
 

by DavidSutton on Mon Oct 02, 2017 4:20 pm
DavidSutton
Forum Contributor
Posts: 142
Joined: 13 Jun 2009
Location: New Zealand
I was wondering something similar when I wanted to go from a 17" Epson to a 24" printer that could take rolls and was suitable for low use. I bought a Canon ipf 6300.
Some six or seven years later it is still chugging along just fine.
I don't have a clog problem, it wakes up each night and it squeezes a drop of ink through each nozzle. Though now that it's getting on a bit and is sitting in a very dry atmosphere, I put a de-clog pattern through it every six days. I've replaced the heads with the help of the on-board menu (one under warranty) and had one problem which was sorted at no charge by the tech man by email and on the phone. Oh, and it was thrown a metre in the air in an earthquake without harm.
Hope that's some use.
David
David Sutton
Website: http://davidsutton.co.nz/
 

by signgrap on Mon Oct 02, 2017 5:14 pm
User avatar
signgrap
Lifetime Member
Posts: 1776
Joined: 1 Sep 2004
Location: Delaware Water Gap, PA
Member #:00424
Nozzle clogs have a lot to do with how often you print. Epson 24" printers are "Pro" printers which means they're designed to print at least 2-3 times a week. When I said that I printed less frequently than 2-3 times a week they said I should get a "Prosumer" printer like the Epson SureColor P800 (17" bed"). So you should factor in printing frequency into your purchase decision if you want to avoid nozzle clogs.
Dick Ludwig
 

by Bill Chambers on Mon Oct 02, 2017 6:28 pm
User avatar
Bill Chambers
Forum Contributor
Posts: 4015
Joined: 8 Feb 2006
Location: Milton, Florida
DavidSutton wrote:I was wondering something similar when I wanted to go from a 17" Epson to a 24" printer that could take rolls and was suitable for low use. I bought a Canon ipf 6300.
Some six or seven years later it is still chugging along just fine.
I don't have a clog problem, it wakes up each night and it squeezes a drop of ink through each nozzle. Though now that it's getting on a bit and is sitting in a very dry atmosphere, I put a de-clog pattern through it every six days. I've replaced the heads with the help of the on-board menu (one under warranty) and had one problem which was sorted at no charge by the tech man by email and on the phone. Oh, and it was thrown a metre in the air in an earthquake without harm.
Hope that's some use.
David
Excellent.  Thanks David, exactly the type of information I was looking for.  I'll look into the IPF6300, or it's replacement if it's been updated.
Please visit my web site, simply nature - Photographic Art by Bill Chambers
Bill Chambers
Milton, Florida
 

by Bill Chambers on Mon Oct 02, 2017 6:30 pm
User avatar
Bill Chambers
Forum Contributor
Posts: 4015
Joined: 8 Feb 2006
Location: Milton, Florida
signgrap wrote:Nozzle clogs have a lot to do with how often you print. Epson 24" printers are "Pro" printers which means they're designed to print at least 2-3 times a week. When I said that I printed less frequently than 2-3 times a week they said I should get a "Prosumer" printer like the Epson SureColor P800 (17" bed"). So you should factor in printing frequency into your purchase decision if you want to avoid nozzle clogs.

Thanks for the info.  That was my problem with the Epson R2400.  I printed also daily for the first year but slacked off later and the heads kept clogging again and again.  It cost a fortune in ink getting cleared and, finally, they refused to clear regardless of how many times I cleaned them.
Please visit my web site, simply nature - Photographic Art by Bill Chambers
Bill Chambers
Milton, Florida
 

by E.J. Peiker on Tue Oct 03, 2017 8:16 am
User avatar
E.J. Peiker
Senior Technical Editor
Posts: 86760
Joined: 16 Aug 2003
Location: Arizona
Member #:00002
The current printer is the iPF6400 - that is a big printer like the large Epsons, something more in line with an Epson 3880 which will do 24" wide is the Canon iPF 670E. Canon printers are excellent and have user replaceable heads.
 

by Bill Chambers on Tue Oct 03, 2017 9:59 am
User avatar
Bill Chambers
Forum Contributor
Posts: 4015
Joined: 8 Feb 2006
Location: Milton, Florida
E.J. Peiker wrote:The current printer is the iPF6400 - that is a big printer like the large Epsons, something more in line with an Epson 3880 which will do 24" wide is the Canon iPF 670E.  Canon printers are excellent and have user replaceable heads.
Thanks, as always, E.J.  The IPF670E sounds like it may be exactly what I've looking for since space is an issue.
Please visit my web site, simply nature - Photographic Art by Bill Chambers
Bill Chambers
Milton, Florida
 

by Royce Howland on Tue Oct 03, 2017 10:54 am
User avatar
Royce Howland
Forum Contributor
Posts: 11719
Joined: 12 Jan 2005
Location: Calgary, Alberta
Member #:00460
Hey Bill. The Canon iPF x300 printers are long gone from the market, and x400 series printers are retired at least a year ago. Though some of x400's may still be available in the sales channel. The current photographic printers from Canon are the PRO-2000 (24"), PRO-4000 (44") and PRO-6000 (60"). These are all floor-standing models. Canon has only a couple of desktop photographic models: the PRO-1000 (a prosumer 17" model with no large sheet or roll support) and the ancient iPF 5100 which may still be available but wouldn't be that recommended due to the age of the head and ink design among other things. Canon has no current "professional" 17" desktop model, and there are no desktop 24" photographic printers from any vendor.

The Canon iPF670 / 670E is not in any way a photographic printer. It's a 5-ink dye based high speed printer designed for commercial signage, posters and the like, mainly printed on low cost media. Not at all suitable for photographic work.

If you want to print 24" wide, you're looking at one of 4 choices from 3 vendors. Canon have the PRO-2000. Epson have the SureColor P6000 (8 ink design) or SureColor P7000 (more expensive 10-ink design, more suited for commercial work). And some respected people I know are still die-hard boosters of the HP Z3200, which has a 24" version. Despite the fact that HP has not updated their photographic printers in approximately forever, they are still solid workhorses with an unrivaled inkset.

All Epson printers will clog, including the newest & most expensive ones which we run at our shop. They may clog a little or lot, but it's simply a fact of life. Epson printers produce the reference standard in high quality photographic prints, which is why we run them. Epson virtually created this market, and they still dominate it. But for people who print a lesser volume, perhaps on an infrequent "bursty" schedule and just want to turn the printer on & make a print on demand with no drama, Epson may not be the best choice. Canon and even the much older HP may be a better choice for hassle-free, periodic printing.

(Edit: Regarding HP, there are some recent reports that important software support for Windows has been dropped by HP. If this is true, then I could not recommend the HP printers. Lack of Windows support couldn't be considered anything but bad news for the viability of the printer. And even if a person was running Mac which still seems to be supported by HP for now, Mac OS X is a flakey & unreliable platform in my opinion, especially for printing and colour managed applications. And it's only getting worse as Apple continues to push its over-priced, planned-obsolescent, lifestyle product design philosophy.)

Both Canon and HP use a different ink and head design; it's not a cold piezoelectric design like Epson uses but a thermal design that includes a user-replaceable head. The head is user replaceable because it's essentially a consumable part of the printer, unlike Epson heads which are intended to last for the entire service life of the printer. Canon and HP heads will clog but they run extensive self-cleaning cycles combined with having surplus nozzles that can be mapped in to replace nozzles that clog beyond the printer's ability to self-clean them. Once the surplus nozzles are exhausted, or in perhaps other circumstances, the head has been consumed and must be replaced. Canons typically have 2 heads that can be replaced independently of each other. I believe HP has 6 heads that can be independently replaced, each at a much lower cost than the Canon heads. Epson heads potentially can fail; generally it's rare but the Epson x900 series (the 2nd-most recent generation) has become notorious for failed heads. Replacing Epson heads is not a job for most users; heck, I do a lot of our printer maintenance and I choose not to tackle head replacements myself. Also, as you found with your desktop Epson, an out-of-warranty head replacement costs enough that it's usually more appealing to scrap the printer and buy a new one.

It's not all roses of course. If Canon and HP were so overwhelmingly superior to Epson, they would have displaced Epson's dominant market position. Instead, HP all but withdrew from the photographic printing market (though they still make, sell and somewhat support the Z3200), while Canon has failed to make large inroads outside of the high volume commercial print lab space.

We just evaluated a Canon PRO-4000 at our shop, thanks to receiving a loaner machine from Canon Canada. There are things I like about the platform for sure, and I've previously used the x300 and x400 models and liked things about them too. But it's not a slam dunk with the new Canon models. In particular their paper loading & handling system is much more complex, slow, error prone and flakey than any printer I've ever experienced before, for our purposes. At our shop we print on many, many different sizes & types of media, so we are loading & unloading rolls dozens of times per day. The Canon roll system is quite slow, cumbersome and occasionally even fails to work. It has lots of opportunity for wasting paper by damaging 1 - 2 feet of a roll during loading, which must be advanced & cut off because it can't be printed on. We also occasionally need to print on some specialty media that I'm pretty sure the Canon can't take at all, while the Epson's take pretty well anything & everything.

I'll be writing up some review notes in the not too distant future, coming out of our PRO-4000 evaluation. But the short form is Canon prints look roughly equivalent to Epson prints -- both are high quality, though each edges the other out slightly in certain areas. Operationally, the Canon's don't clog, waste no ink remnants in replaced cartridges thanks to their subtank design, and have user-replaceable heads. But the Canon media handling system is a lot worse than Epson, for our shop needs.

So it's a bit of a toss-up. But if I was buying a floor standing 24" model for personal use on a sporadic basis, I'd likely go Canon and just have to live with the design annoyances and limitations, especially around media handling.
Royce Howland


Last edited by Royce Howland on Wed Oct 04, 2017 8:20 am, edited 2 times in total.
 

by Bill Chambers on Tue Oct 03, 2017 1:16 pm
User avatar
Bill Chambers
Forum Contributor
Posts: 4015
Joined: 8 Feb 2006
Location: Milton, Florida
Wow, thanks so much, Royce for such a thorough write up and explanation. I'll be looking into both the Canon and HP, but it sounds like Canon is the way to go.
Please visit my web site, simply nature - Photographic Art by Bill Chambers
Bill Chambers
Milton, Florida
 

by E.J. Peiker on Wed Oct 04, 2017 12:18 pm
User avatar
E.J. Peiker
Senior Technical Editor
Posts: 86760
Joined: 16 Aug 2003
Location: Arizona
Member #:00002
Thanks for the clarification on the 670 Royce, wow, Canon sure doesn't represent that openly, they have named it as if it were a photo printer.
 

by chez on Sat Nov 04, 2017 6:44 pm
chez
Forum Contributor
Posts: 175
Joined: 2 Dec 2003
Location: British Columbia, Can.
Just an update on the HP printer utility. The latest version is availabe for Windows now. 

I have both a 24” and 44” z3100 printers and for casual use they are the best out there. No clogs even if they sit idle for weeks. Printer heads are user replaceable...very easy and they only cost $60 rather than $500+ for Canon heads. Just replaced the belts in both printers...total cost was $80. 

If i was looking for a personal large format printer...not a production environment that churns out prints all day long. I’d give the HP printers a long look. Very economical to run and zero issues with time/money consuming clogs.
Harry Ogloff
 

by Bill Chambers on Mon Nov 06, 2017 12:33 pm
User avatar
Bill Chambers
Forum Contributor
Posts: 4015
Joined: 8 Feb 2006
Location: Milton, Florida
Thanks Harry!
Please visit my web site, simply nature - Photographic Art by Bill Chambers
Bill Chambers
Milton, Florida
 

by Bill Chambers on Mon Nov 06, 2017 1:08 pm
User avatar
Bill Chambers
Forum Contributor
Posts: 4015
Joined: 8 Feb 2006
Location: Milton, Florida
chez wrote:Just an update on the HP printer utility. The latest version is availabe for Windows now. 

I have both a 24” and 44” z3100 printers and for casual use they are the best out there. No clogs even if they sit idle for weeks. Printer heads are user replaceable...very easy and they only cost $60 rather than $500+ for Canon heads. Just replaced the belts in both printers...total cost was $80. 

If i was looking for a personal large format printer...not a production environment that churns out prints all day long. I’d give the HP printers a long look. Very economical to run and zero issues with time/money consuming clogs.
Unfortunately, it doesn't appear the Z3100 is still in production.  Any suggestions as to an updated version you would recommend?
Please visit my web site, simply nature - Photographic Art by Bill Chambers
Bill Chambers
Milton, Florida
 

by Royce Howland on Tue Nov 07, 2017 10:22 am
User avatar
Royce Howland
Forum Contributor
Posts: 11719
Joined: 12 Jan 2005
Location: Calgary, Alberta
Member #:00460
Bill, the current HP large format printer is the Z3200, which I referred to up above. It's available in both 24" and 44" formats, same model number. This printer has been on the market for many years in technology terms (launched just over 9 years ago), so it's very much a known & stable platform. As I mentioned in my notes, the HP inkset is extremely good, better in most longevity ratings than either Epson or Canon, though of course all 3 have their strong suits.

HP's historical weakness has been flaky software and mediocre support, but then what vendor is not guilty of the latter. The printer itself is robust, the heads are cheap and user replaceable, and it produces excellent prints. If your printing needs are not particularly exotic in terms of speed, production volume, or wild & crazy media support, and if you're okay with some of the support risks inherent in a platform made by the distant 3rd player in a 3-player industry, then it can be a really good buy in terms of both print-making and operational factors. People who love their HP's really love them; hardly anybody I know of loves their Epsons or Canons as much. HP is something of a cult classic. :)
Royce Howland
 

by Bill Chambers on Tue Nov 07, 2017 1:31 pm
User avatar
Bill Chambers
Forum Contributor
Posts: 4015
Joined: 8 Feb 2006
Location: Milton, Florida
Thanks again, Royce!
Please visit my web site, simply nature - Photographic Art by Bill Chambers
Bill Chambers
Milton, Florida
 

Display posts from previous:  Sort by:  
15 posts | 
  

Powered by phpBB® Forum Software © phpBB Group