Stick with Epson or switch?

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Alan
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Hi Guys,

I've been using an Epson R2880 which is an A3 printer for quite a bit now and yesterday it came up with an error which seems to mean that the waste ink thingy is full... I downloaded a key to reset the counter to 90% and that did the trick so I'm pretty sure that a full waste tank is the problem.

Epson say that they will fix it for £150 or so and they'll collect it too which seems like a good deal but I'm wondering if this is the time to change to something new. I've been happy with the print quality of the Epson but...

- The Dark Print Issue for which these seem to be notorious. This has bugged me since day one and I never ever trust it, I always do a thumbnail print first to check what mood it's in today. I have work arounds and I can cope but it's irritating.
- Owning this printer is like being married to a high maintenance super model. It's sloooooooow and demands constant attention.
- The ink seems to run out every 5 minutes and it's just short of £100 for the set. In fact annoyingly I've just bought a new set.

I was thinking of changing to something else, maybe a Canon as they seem to get good reports and when I checked Currys on line I spotted that Canon A3's start between £100-£200 which shocked me as the Epson was a lot more than that. Anyway, I'm wondering if these cheap Canon's are a match for the output of the R2880 and if they are maybe getting a new printer would be an idea especially if they demand less attention and are maybe a little cheaper to run?

Any input would be appreciated as printers aint my thing :D

PS.
I've just had a thought, I have quite a bit of Epson paper and it's expensive, could I use it and get good results with a Canon?
 
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rjbell said:
I'd not have another espon even if it was free!
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I know the feeling. I just can't walk up to this thing and produce a print, it's always a battle.

Many years ago I used to fix them and Mr Epson knew how to make printers in those days. Theses days I think gremlins build them.

But, I'm just wondering if I should stick with the devil I know and have come to be able to deal with.
 
Horses for courses I guess. I have owned and used both brands of printer and can say that they both have some things in common, as in they both cost a fortune to run on manufacturer inks ... A lot depends on what you want to achieve, if it is archive quality type prints then probably need a pigment based printer, for just putting on the wall and changing from time to time then a dye based printer may well do. Dye inks tend to be more saturated ime too. fwiw I much prefer the output of pihgment inks than dye based ones.

Another thing to take into account is the paper handling, I wanted the ability to print pano's which really meant using roll media, not many Canon printers supported roll based media when I last bought (which is why I bought and Epson this time).

And another thing too, check out how they handle black inks, some Epson's use the same channel so will flush these when changing between matt and gloss based - costs a lot in wasted ink - I think your R2880 might be guilty of this, the R2000 has separate channels so wastes far less ink. Can't remember what my Canon did, even though it had two black inks ...

I'm sure I saw a couple of videos on youtube that shows how to replace the waste tank thingamabob ... may be worth checking that out, as £150 is a lot to spend on something that ought to be user replaced imo.

All printers can be a royal PITA, and whilst you'll get fanboys of one brand or another, both Epson and Canon produce hugely capable printers.
 
PaulButler said:
I'm sure I saw a couple of videos on youtube that shows how to replace the waste tank thingamabob ... may be worth checking that out, as £150 is a lot to spend on something that ought to be user replaced imo.
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I got to page 6 of alleged search matches and didn't see anything and decided I'd rather pay Epson or Canon than look at page 7.
 
I don't have any experience with the 2880 so I can't say how easy it is, but I have Just changed the waste tank on my 3800 and it is really simple takes less than a minute
expensive though at 20 quid.
 
No direct experience of either at A3 size, but there was another thread similar recently, the consensus of which seemed to be that the Canon's were less trouble...
 
old bloke said:
I don't have any experience with the 2880 so I can't say how easy it is, but I have Just changed the waste tank on my 3800 and it is really simple takes less than a minute
expensive though at 20 quid.
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The only thing I've found on line so far is instructions for taking the pipe or pipes outside of the printer to an external tank which isn't really practical for me.
 
ChrisR said:
No direct experience of either at A3 size, but there was another thread similar recently, the consensus of which seemed to be that the Canon's were less trouble...
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That seems to be the consensus.

Epson will collect my printer and take it away and fix it for £150 or there abouts so if I can't get anywhere Googling instructions to DIY I might let Epson do it or I might just give up and buy a Canon. The Epson does give nice results but it's such hard work and 9 times out of 10 it just doesn't go smoothly and all I want to do is take it outside and smash it.
 
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My aging Epson started to leave stripes. Tried various cleaning methods but turned out the head needed replacing, it was cheaper to buy a new printer. I went for the Canon Pixma iP8750 and never looked back. Agos had one in store for £199, a friend gave me a gift voucher for £40 and Canon were offering £30 cash back plus I get 10% discount when I buy in Argos. A no brainer!! All jokes apart, the resuls are excellent, much better the my old Epson. So far, it doesn't seem too thirsty and replacment ink, cost wise, is probably on par with other makes.

By the way, I took my old Epson to the local tip. Took great delight in throwing it into a skip
 
Alan

Have you tried this method?

http://www.2manuals.com/product_info.php?products_id=1149

Then if it works or not get rid, forget pigment and buy a Canon dye based printer

The Canon Pixma iP8750 is an excellent printer albeit flimsy when compared to the Pro series, however don't let this put you off as a friend of mine has had one for years and it constantly churns out great prints.



 
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angelpaaul said:
My aging Epson started to leave stripes. Tried various cleaning methods but turned out the head needed replacing, it was cheaper to buy a new printer. I went for the Canon Pixma iP8750 and never looked back. Agos had one in store for £199, a friend gave me a gift voucher for £40 and Canon were offering £30 cash back plus I get 10% discount when I buy in Argos. A no brainer!! All jokes apart, the resuls are excellent, much better the my old Epson. So far, it doesn't seem too thirsty and replacment ink, cost wise, is probably on par with other makes.

By the way, I took my old Epson to the local tip. Took great delight in throwing it into a skip
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dcash29 said:
Alan

Have you tried this method?

http://www.2manuals.com/product_info.php?products_id=1149

Then if it works or not get rid, forget pigment and buy a Canon dye based printer

The Canon Pixma iP8750 is an excellent printer albeit flimsy when compared to the Pro series, however don't let this put you off as a friend of mine has had one for years and it constantly churns out great prints.
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Thanks guys.

The first thing I did was download the reset key and run the free trial one off reset to 90% but of course this isn't a fix as the tank or pad or whatever it is will eventually overflow.

I had a bit of a rethink last night and have decided to go for the external tank mod so I've ordered a kit. My thinking is that the outlay of £23 for the kit which includes the key to fully reset the counter will get me a quick fix and allow me to use my ink and paper stock and give me time to decide what to do next, stick with the Epson or go for a Canon.

Sadly it looks like the Canon printers are much harder or impossible to mod when this happens so I assume when their waste tanks/pads are full they're just scrap? This does seem a very unfriendly way of building these things as having an easily removable bottle would only add pennies to the cost but I assume that most people are ready to buy a new printer by the time the tank/pad is full or there are other problems like heads before that.

I'll report back on how easy the kit is to fit just in case anyone else is thinking of fitting one.

PS.
In preparation for the kit arriving I've just taken the panels off to expose the pipes, this took about 20 seconds. So far so good :D
 
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The advantage is there's no mess , the bottles are well designed , and the cis is built into the printer. It will cost about £50 to fill all 6 tanks , but can be filled individually, I have own it for over 12 months and gave not had to refill it yet, and also got perfect prints fron day 1
 
steve_lyt said:
The advantage is there's no mess , the bottles are well designed , and the cis is built into the printer. It will cost about £50 to fill all 6 tanks , but can be filled individually, I have own it for over 12 months and gave not had to refill it yet, and also got perfect prints fron day 1
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Thanks for this, I'll add that to the list of things to look at.

I only have the one printer and it gets used for everything from photo printing to money off vouchers. At the moment I need to print some pictures and some documents within the next couple of weeks so the external bottle mod will hopefully get the job done and use up some of my ink and paper stock and then I'll have a good think about if I want to keep the R2880 or change it for something else.
 
I just thought I'd pop back with a report on the external tank kit.

The kit comes with a box, tubing, instructions and a one use software key to reset the printer waste ink counter and you also have to download the counter reset software and then you're all set and that's everything you need.

The panels came off very easily, the pipes were easy to disconnect and reconnect to the kit pipes and then you have to drill a little hole in the side of the printer. As getting my drill out was too much trouble I made a little pinprick with the sharp end of a scriber and finished making the hole with a pozidrive screwdriver.

Here's the finished job...



It's amazing how much ink flows through, just goes to show why it's always running out.

Apart from that installing the external tank kit was a breeze and anyone looking to get one of these shouldn't worry, at least for any printer similar to my Epson R2880.

The kit is IMO well worth the £23 it cost considering that the Epson repair cost is £150.
 
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