Sick of Manufacturer's Ink Scam....

seanmcr6 said:

ok, I know that the manufacturer's make their money off the ink,
not the printers...at least not at the low end. I can understand
that, but their practice of making things overly expensive for
consumers is driving me nuts.

I don't think separate ink cartridges saves us any money at
all...as all the users I've spoken to, from multiple manufacturers,
use ink at the saem rate. Of course they can engineer this into the
print driver anyway....so unless you are printing images that are
overtly cool or warm, you will suck up all your ink in the same
time frame anyway.

Case in point...my R200. I use this printer for 4x6 proofing and
CD/DVD printing right now.

I used up my black cartridge first, but the others were not far
behind. The Cyan's seemed to have more left, as I print mostly
portraits and they tend to be on the warm side.

When balck fell below 5%, I replaced it. The others were all above
the last tick mark in the Ink Level display. I know this display is
an estimate but here is where my frustration really began.

I continued to print as normal, as yellow tipped of 10%
warning....then when it hit 5% warning, my magenta and light
magenta hit 10%. I printed a few pages of B&W text and then my
light cyan hit 10% warning.

I stopped printing in color all together and only printed about 10
pages of text using balck ink only (and man, did it suck up a lot
of black ink for just text!)

So now I had:

Black - 85%
Cyan - Above 10%, no low ink warnings yet
Light Cyan - 10% warning
Magenta - 10% warning
Light magenta - 10% warning
Yellow - 5% warning.

So today I bought Yellow, L Mag, Mag, L Cyan. I figured I'd get
Cyan next week as I don't intend to print much this weekend.

I get home....open the printer, change the yellow and then press
the Ink button.

yellow now full....and MG, LMG, LCY all read 5% warning now..and
Cyan says 10% warning for the first time? What the hell? Ok, no
point trying to use up the little bit, so I change the MG, LMG and
LCY and then press the button. All show full...no wait, now it says
Cyan is completely out...cannot print. WTH? I'm quite upset now, I
went from above 10% to completely out, without printing anything,
not even a test page.

I pull out the Cyan cartridge and I can hear ink in it...far more
ink that in the yellow (bone dry) and the other 3 (which all sound
like they have a little left, but not as much as the Cyan.)

Bloody hell! I know there is ink in it...and the damn printer will
not work at all until I replace the cartridge. I'm fairly certain
it's simply a software issue with relation to the ink cartridge
chip. But to lose that 10% is not right!

The damn thing costs more to refill with ink than to buy a new
printer! Now to lose even more usable ink due to their chip system
has me right bent! It just increased my cost for ink by just little
more than 5%...doesn't wound like much, but I just lost a possible
10 4x6 proofs out of a set of inks.

Maybe I should expect it...maybe I should just get of the fence and
buy the 4000 or i9900....

Sorry to vent, but I'm sick of throwing money down a toilet.....

where's that link to a good CIS system again?

sean

Click to expand...

seanmcr6 said:

What the hell....

anyone else have these issues?

sean

seanmcr6 said:

ok, I know that the manufacturer's make their money off the ink,
not the printers...at least not at the low end. I can understand
that, but their practice of making things overly expensive for
consumers is driving me nuts.

I don't think separate ink cartridges saves us any money at
all...as all the users I've spoken to, from multiple manufacturers,
use ink at the saem rate. Of course they can engineer this into the
print driver anyway....so unless you are printing images that are
overtly cool or warm, you will suck up all your ink in the same
time frame anyway.

Case in point...my R200. I use this printer for 4x6 proofing and
CD/DVD printing right now.

I used up my black cartridge first, but the others were not far
behind. The Cyan's seemed to have more left, as I print mostly
portraits and they tend to be on the warm side.

When balck fell below 5%, I replaced it. The others were all above
the last tick mark in the Ink Level display. I know this display is
an estimate but here is where my frustration really began.

I continued to print as normal, as yellow tipped of 10%
warning....then when it hit 5% warning, my magenta and light
magenta hit 10%. I printed a few pages of B&W text and then my
light cyan hit 10% warning.

I stopped printing in color all together and only printed about 10
pages of text using balck ink only (and man, did it suck up a lot
of black ink for just text!)

So now I had:

Black - 85%
Cyan - Above 10%, no low ink warnings yet
Light Cyan - 10% warning
Magenta - 10% warning
Light magenta - 10% warning
Yellow - 5% warning.

So today I bought Yellow, L Mag, Mag, L Cyan. I figured I'd get
Cyan next week as I don't intend to print much this weekend.

I get home....open the printer, change the yellow and then press
the Ink button.

yellow now full....and MG, LMG, LCY all read 5% warning now..and
Cyan says 10% warning for the first time? What the hell? Ok, no
point trying to use up the little bit, so I change the MG, LMG and
LCY and then press the button. All show full...no wait, now it says
Cyan is completely out...cannot print. WTH? I'm quite upset now, I
went from above 10% to completely out, without printing anything,
not even a test page.

I pull out the Cyan cartridge and I can hear ink in it...far more
ink that in the yellow (bone dry) and the other 3 (which all sound
like they have a little left, but not as much as the Cyan.)

Bloody hell! I know there is ink in it...and the damn printer will
not work at all until I replace the cartridge. I'm fairly certain
it's simply a software issue with relation to the ink cartridge
chip. But to lose that 10% is not right!

The damn thing costs more to refill with ink than to buy a new
printer! Now to lose even more usable ink due to their chip system
has me right bent! It just increased my cost for ink by just little
more than 5%...doesn't wound like much, but I just lost a possible
10 4x6 proofs out of a set of inks.

Maybe I should expect it...maybe I should just get of the fence and
buy the 4000 or i9900....

Sorry to vent, but I'm sick of throwing money down a toilet.....

where's that link to a good CIS system again?

sean

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

seanmcr6 said:

ok, I know that the manufacturer's make their money off the ink,
not the printers...at least not at the low end. I can understand
that, but their practice of making things overly expensive for
consumers is driving me nuts.

Click to expand...

seanmcr6 said:

ok, I know that the manufacturer's make their money off the ink,
not the printers...at least not at the low end. I can understand
that, but their practice of making things overly expensive for
consumers is driving me nuts.

I don't think separate ink cartridges saves us any money at
all...as all the users I've spoken to, from multiple manufacturers,
use ink at the saem rate. Of course they can engineer this into the
print driver anyway....so unless you are printing images that are
overtly cool or warm, you will suck up all your ink in the same
time frame anyway.

Case in point...my R200. I use this printer for 4x6 proofing and
CD/DVD printing right now.

I used up my black cartridge first, but the others were not far
behind. The Cyan's seemed to have more left, as I print mostly
portraits and they tend to be on the warm side.

When balck fell below 5%, I replaced it. The others were all above
the last tick mark in the Ink Level display. I know this display is
an estimate but here is where my frustration really began.

I continued to print as normal, as yellow tipped of 10%
warning....then when it hit 5% warning, my magenta and light
magenta hit 10%. I printed a few pages of B&W text and then my
light cyan hit 10% warning.

I stopped printing in color all together and only printed about 10
pages of text using balck ink only (and man, did it suck up a lot
of black ink for just text!)

So now I had:

Black - 85%
Cyan - Above 10%, no low ink warnings yet
Light Cyan - 10% warning
Magenta - 10% warning
Light magenta - 10% warning
Yellow - 5% warning.

Click to expand...

seanmcr6 said:

ok, I know that the manufacturer's make their money off the ink,
not the printers...at least not at the low end. I can understand
that, but their practice of making things overly expensive for
consumers is driving me nuts.

I don't think separate ink cartridges saves us any money at
all...as all the users I've spoken to, from multiple manufacturers,
use ink at the saem rate. Of course they can engineer this into the
print driver anyway....so unless you are printing images that are
overtly cool or warm, you will suck up all your ink in the same
time frame anyway.

Case in point...my R200. I use this printer for 4x6 proofing and
CD/DVD printing right now.

I used up my black cartridge first, but the others were not far
behind. The Cyan's seemed to have more left, as I print mostly
portraits and they tend to be on the warm side.

When balck fell below 5%, I replaced it. The others were all above
the last tick mark in the Ink Level display. I know this display is
an estimate but here is where my frustration really began.

I continued to print as normal, as yellow tipped of 10%
warning....then when it hit 5% warning, my magenta and light
magenta hit 10%. I printed a few pages of B&W text and then my
light cyan hit 10% warning.

I stopped printing in color all together and only printed about 10
pages of text using balck ink only (and man, did it suck up a lot
of black ink for just text!)

So now I had:

Black - 85%
Cyan - Above 10%, no low ink warnings yet
Light Cyan - 10% warning
Magenta - 10% warning
Light magenta - 10% warning
Yellow - 5% warning.

So today I bought Yellow, L Mag, Mag, L Cyan. I figured I'd get
Cyan next week as I don't intend to print much this weekend.

I get home....open the printer, change the yellow and then press
the Ink button.

yellow now full....and MG, LMG, LCY all read 5% warning now..and
Cyan says 10% warning for the first time? What the hell? Ok, no
point trying to use up the little bit, so I change the MG, LMG and
LCY and then press the button. All show full...no wait, now it says
Cyan is completely out...cannot print. WTH? I'm quite upset now, I
went from above 10% to completely out, without printing anything,
not even a test page.

I pull out the Cyan cartridge and I can hear ink in it...far more
ink that in the yellow (bone dry) and the other 3 (which all sound
like they have a little left, but not as much as the Cyan.)

Bloody hell! I know there is ink in it...and the damn printer will
not work at all until I replace the cartridge. I'm fairly certain
it's simply a software issue with relation to the ink cartridge
chip. But to lose that 10% is not right!

The damn thing costs more to refill with ink than to buy a new
printer! Now to lose even more usable ink due to their chip system
has me right bent! It just increased my cost for ink by just little
more than 5%...doesn't wound like much, but I just lost a possible
10 4x6 proofs out of a set of inks.

Maybe I should expect it...maybe I should just get of the fence and
buy the 4000 or i9900....

Sorry to vent, but I'm sick of throwing money down a toilet.....

where's that link to a good CIS system again?

sean

Click to expand...

seanmcr6 said:

ok, I know that the manufacturer's make their money off the ink,
not the printers...at least not at the low end. I can understand
that, but their practice of making things overly expensive for
consumers is driving me nuts.

I don't think separate ink cartridges saves us any money at
all...as all the users I've spoken to, from multiple manufacturers,
use ink at the saem rate. Of course they can engineer this into the
print driver anyway....so unless you are printing images that are
overtly cool or warm, you will suck up all your ink in the same
time frame anyway.

Case in point...my R200. I use this printer for 4x6 proofing and
CD/DVD printing right now.

I used up my black cartridge first, but the others were not far
behind. The Cyan's seemed to have more left, as I print mostly
portraits and they tend to be on the warm side.

When balck fell below 5%, I replaced it. The others were all above
the last tick mark in the Ink Level display. I know this display is
an estimate but here is where my frustration really began.

I continued to print as normal, as yellow tipped of 10%
warning....then when it hit 5% warning, my magenta and light
magenta hit 10%. I printed a few pages of B&W text and then my
light cyan hit 10% warning.

I stopped printing in color all together and only printed about 10
pages of text using balck ink only (and man, did it suck up a lot
of black ink for just text!)

So now I had:

Black - 85%
Cyan - Above 10%, no low ink warnings yet
Light Cyan - 10% warning
Magenta - 10% warning
Light magenta - 10% warning
Yellow - 5% warning.

So today I bought Yellow, L Mag, Mag, L Cyan. I figured I'd get
Cyan next week as I don't intend to print much this weekend.

I get home....open the printer, change the yellow and then press
the Ink button.

yellow now full....and MG, LMG, LCY all read 5% warning now..and
Cyan says 10% warning for the first time? What the hell? Ok, no
point trying to use up the little bit, so I change the MG, LMG and
LCY and then press the button. All show full...no wait, now it says
Cyan is completely out...cannot print. WTH? I'm quite upset now, I
went from above 10% to completely out, without printing anything,
not even a test page.

I pull out the Cyan cartridge and I can hear ink in it...far more
ink that in the yellow (bone dry) and the other 3 (which all sound
like they have a little left, but not as much as the Cyan.)

Bloody hell! I know there is ink in it...and the damn printer will
not work at all until I replace the cartridge. I'm fairly certain
it's simply a software issue with relation to the ink cartridge
chip. But to lose that 10% is not right!

The damn thing costs more to refill with ink than to buy a new
printer! Now to lose even more usable ink due to their chip system
has me right bent! It just increased my cost for ink by just little
more than 5%...doesn't wound like much, but I just lost a possible
10 4x6 proofs out of a set of inks.

Maybe I should expect it...maybe I should just get of the fence and
buy the 4000 or i9900....

Sorry to vent, but I'm sick of throwing money down a toilet.....

where's that link to a good CIS system again?

sean

Click to expand...

seanmcr6 said:

ok, I know that the manufacturer's make their money off the ink,
not the printers...at least not at the low end. I can understand
that, but their practice of making things overly expensive for
consumers is driving me nuts.

I don't think separate ink cartridges saves us any money at
all...as all the users I've spoken to, from multiple manufacturers,
use ink at the saem rate. Of course they can engineer this into the
print driver anyway....so unless you are printing images that are
overtly cool or warm, you will suck up all your ink in the same
time frame anyway.

Case in point...my R200. I use this printer for 4x6 proofing and
CD/DVD printing right now.

I used up my black cartridge first, but the others were not far
behind. The Cyan's seemed to have more left, as I print mostly
portraits and they tend to be on the warm side.

When balck fell below 5%, I replaced it. The others were all above
the last tick mark in the Ink Level display. I know this display is
an estimate but here is where my frustration really began.

I continued to print as normal, as yellow tipped of 10%
warning....then when it hit 5% warning, my magenta and light
magenta hit 10%. I printed a few pages of B&W text and then my
light cyan hit 10% warning.

I stopped printing in color all together and only printed about 10
pages of text using balck ink only (and man, did it suck up a lot
of black ink for just text!)

So now I had:

Black - 85%
Cyan - Above 10%, no low ink warnings yet
Light Cyan - 10% warning
Magenta - 10% warning
Light magenta - 10% warning
Yellow - 5% warning.

So today I bought Yellow, L Mag, Mag, L Cyan. I figured I'd get
Cyan next week as I don't intend to print much this weekend.

I get home....open the printer, change the yellow and then press
the Ink button.

yellow now full....and MG, LMG, LCY all read 5% warning now..and
Cyan says 10% warning for the first time? What the hell? Ok, no
point trying to use up the little bit, so I change the MG, LMG and
LCY and then press the button. All show full...no wait, now it says
Cyan is completely out...cannot print. WTH? I'm quite upset now, I
went from above 10% to completely out, without printing anything,
not even a test page.

I pull out the Cyan cartridge and I can hear ink in it...far more
ink that in the yellow (bone dry) and the other 3 (which all sound
like they have a little left, but not as much as the Cyan.)

Bloody hell! I know there is ink in it...and the damn printer will
not work at all until I replace the cartridge. I'm fairly certain
it's simply a software issue with relation to the ink cartridge
chip. But to lose that 10% is not right!

The damn thing costs more to refill with ink than to buy a new
printer! Now to lose even more usable ink due to their chip system
has me right bent! It just increased my cost for ink by just little
more than 5%...doesn't wound like much, but I just lost a possible
10 4x6 proofs out of a set of inks.

Maybe I should expect it...maybe I should just get of the fence and
buy the 4000 or i9900....

Sorry to vent, but I'm sick of throwing money down a toilet.....

where's that link to a good CIS system again?

sean

Click to expand...

seanmcr6 said:

What the hell....

anyone else have these issues?

sean

seanmcr6 said:

ok, I know that the manufacturer's make their money off the ink,
not the printers...at least not at the low end. I can understand
that, but their practice of making things overly expensive for
consumers is driving me nuts.

I don't think separate ink cartridges saves us any money at
all...as all the users I've spoken to, from multiple manufacturers,
use ink at the saem rate. Of course they can engineer this into the
print driver anyway....so unless you are printing images that are
overtly cool or warm, you will suck up all your ink in the same
time frame anyway.

Case in point...my R200. I use this printer for 4x6 proofing and
CD/DVD printing right now.

I used up my black cartridge first, but the others were not far
behind. The Cyan's seemed to have more left, as I print mostly
portraits and they tend to be on the warm side.

When balck fell below 5%, I replaced it. The others were all above
the last tick mark in the Ink Level display. I know this display is
an estimate but here is where my frustration really began.

I continued to print as normal, as yellow tipped of 10%
warning....then when it hit 5% warning, my magenta and light
magenta hit 10%. I printed a few pages of B&W text and then my
light cyan hit 10% warning.

I stopped printing in color all together and only printed about 10
pages of text using balck ink only (and man, did it suck up a lot
of black ink for just text!)

So now I had:

Black - 85%
Cyan - Above 10%, no low ink warnings yet
Light Cyan - 10% warning
Magenta - 10% warning
Light magenta - 10% warning
Yellow - 5% warning.

So today I bought Yellow, L Mag, Mag, L Cyan. I figured I'd get
Cyan next week as I don't intend to print much this weekend.

I get home....open the printer, change the yellow and then press
the Ink button.

yellow now full....and MG, LMG, LCY all read 5% warning now..and
Cyan says 10% warning for the first time? What the hell? Ok, no
point trying to use up the little bit, so I change the MG, LMG and
LCY and then press the button. All show full...no wait, now it says
Cyan is completely out...cannot print. WTH? I'm quite upset now, I
went from above 10% to completely out, without printing anything,
not even a test page.

I pull out the Cyan cartridge and I can hear ink in it...far more
ink that in the yellow (bone dry) and the other 3 (which all sound
like they have a little left, but not as much as the Cyan.)

Bloody hell! I know there is ink in it...and the damn printer will
not work at all until I replace the cartridge. I'm fairly certain
it's simply a software issue with relation to the ink cartridge
chip. But to lose that 10% is not right!

The damn thing costs more to refill with ink than to buy a new
printer! Now to lose even more usable ink due to their chip system
has me right bent! It just increased my cost for ink by just little
more than 5%...doesn't wound like much, but I just lost a possible
10 4x6 proofs out of a set of inks.

Maybe I should expect it...maybe I should just get of the fence and
buy the 4000 or i9900....

Sorry to vent, but I'm sick of throwing money down a toilet.....

where's that link to a good CIS system again?

sean

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

CJMax said:

Come on now, it's not that bad, at least for me. I have an Epson
R800. My costs for an 8"x10" print are $1.01 (paper and ink). It
has worked flawlessly from day one for me. My customers go,
"Oooh!" and "Aaah!" when they see their color portraits. I've
never had it so good.

My ink use experience is quite a bit different from yours. I use 2
cyan and magenta cartridges for every one of the other inks. As
for the "monitoring" device - I just keep on printing. I've gotten
about 9-8x10's more before I've chickened out and changed the
"empty" cartridge. I too wish that it were more accurate, but it's
not that difficult to learn to live with. The end results are
better printed images than I've seen elsewhere done by other
printers.

Not every printer is perfect. Yes, most ink monitoring systems
aren't perfect. I prefer to use them as a "guideline", not an
absolute. Lastly, if you had an opportunity to talk with someone
in the ink business as I've had about a year ago, you'd develop a
whole new respect for the problems and associated costs in
developing paper/ink combinations to suit the wants and needs of
the consuming public. It's not that easy. I won't get into any of
the details, but there are considerations such as drying time, how
one pigment/dye interacts with another, paper saturation/finish and
on and on and on. It's enough to give anyone a headache. There
are an almost overwhelming number of considerations. So, do I
complain about paying $1.01/8"x10" print? Not on your life. I can
remember the "good old days" - they were the "dark ages" by
comparison - been there, done that and don't want to go back.

Color me happy

CJ

seanmcr6 said:

ok, I know that the manufacturer's make their money off the ink,
not the printers...at least not at the low end. I can understand
that, but their practice of making things overly expensive for
consumers is driving me nuts.

I don't think separate ink cartridges saves us any money at
all...as all the users I've spoken to, from multiple manufacturers,
use ink at the saem rate. Of course they can engineer this into the
print driver anyway....so unless you are printing images that are
overtly cool or warm, you will suck up all your ink in the same
time frame anyway.

Case in point...my R200. I use this printer for 4x6 proofing and
CD/DVD printing right now.

I used up my black cartridge first, but the others were not far
behind. The Cyan's seemed to have more left, as I print mostly
portraits and they tend to be on the warm side.

When balck fell below 5%, I replaced it. The others were all above
the last tick mark in the Ink Level display. I know this display is
an estimate but here is where my frustration really began.

I continued to print as normal, as yellow tipped of 10%
warning....then when it hit 5% warning, my magenta and light
magenta hit 10%. I printed a few pages of B&W text and then my
light cyan hit 10% warning.

I stopped printing in color all together and only printed about 10
pages of text using balck ink only (and man, did it suck up a lot
of black ink for just text!)

So now I had:

Black - 85%
Cyan - Above 10%, no low ink warnings yet
Light Cyan - 10% warning
Magenta - 10% warning
Light magenta - 10% warning
Yellow - 5% warning.

So today I bought Yellow, L Mag, Mag, L Cyan. I figured I'd get
Cyan next week as I don't intend to print much this weekend.

I get home....open the printer, change the yellow and then press
the Ink button.

yellow now full....and MG, LMG, LCY all read 5% warning now..and
Cyan says 10% warning for the first time? What the hell? Ok, no
point trying to use up the little bit, so I change the MG, LMG and
LCY and then press the button. All show full...no wait, now it says
Cyan is completely out...cannot print. WTH? I'm quite upset now, I
went from above 10% to completely out, without printing anything,
not even a test page.

I pull out the Cyan cartridge and I can hear ink in it...far more
ink that in the yellow (bone dry) and the other 3 (which all sound
like they have a little left, but not as much as the Cyan.)

Bloody hell! I know there is ink in it...and the damn printer will
not work at all until I replace the cartridge. I'm fairly certain
it's simply a software issue with relation to the ink cartridge
chip. But to lose that 10% is not right!

The damn thing costs more to refill with ink than to buy a new
printer! Now to lose even more usable ink due to their chip system
has me right bent! It just increased my cost for ink by just little
more than 5%...doesn't wound like much, but I just lost a possible
10 4x6 proofs out of a set of inks.

Maybe I should expect it...maybe I should just get of the fence and
buy the 4000 or i9900....

Sorry to vent, but I'm sick of throwing money down a toilet.....

where's that link to a good CIS system again?

sean

Click to expand...

--
http://www.pbase.com/cjmax/galleries

'May the best you've ever seen
Be the worst you'll ever see...'
from A Scots Toast by Robert Burns

Click to expand...

CJMax said:

"chickened out and changed the "empty" cartridge."

Click to expand...

CJMax said:

Come on now, it's not that bad, at least for me. I have an Epson
R800. My costs for an 8"x10" print are $1.01 (paper and ink). It
has worked flawlessly from day one for me. My customers go,
"Oooh!" and "Aaah!" when they see their color portraits. I've
never had it so good.

My ink use experience is quite a bit different from yours. I use 2
cyan and magenta cartridges for every one of the other inks. As
for the "monitoring" device - I just keep on printing. I've gotten
about 9-8x10's more before I've chickened out and changed the
"empty" cartridge. I too wish that it were more accurate, but it's
not that difficult to learn to live with. The end results are
better printed images than I've seen elsewhere done by other
printers.

Not every printer is perfect. Yes, most ink monitoring systems
aren't perfect. I prefer to use them as a "guideline", not an
absolute. Lastly, if you had an opportunity to talk with someone
in the ink business as I've had about a year ago, you'd develop a
whole new respect for the problems and associated costs in
developing paper/ink combinations to suit the wants and needs of
the consuming public. It's not that easy. I won't get into any of
the details, but there are considerations such as drying time, how
one pigment/dye interacts with another, paper saturation/finish and
on and on and on. It's enough to give anyone a headache. There
are an almost overwhelming number of considerations. So, do I
complain about paying $1.01/8"x10" print? Not on your life. I can
remember the "good old days" - they were the "dark ages" by
comparison - been there, done that and don't want to go back.

Color me happy

CJ

seanmcr6 said:

ok, I know that the manufacturer's make their money off the ink,
not the printers...at least not at the low end. I can understand
that, but their practice of making things overly expensive for
consumers is driving me nuts.

I don't think separate ink cartridges saves us any money at
all...as all the users I've spoken to, from multiple manufacturers,
use ink at the saem rate. Of course they can engineer this into the
print driver anyway....so unless you are printing images that are
overtly cool or warm, you will suck up all your ink in the same
time frame anyway.

Case in point...my R200. I use this printer for 4x6 proofing and
CD/DVD printing right now.

I used up my black cartridge first, but the others were not far
behind. The Cyan's seemed to have more left, as I print mostly
portraits and they tend to be on the warm side.

When balck fell below 5%, I replaced it. The others were all above
the last tick mark in the Ink Level display. I know this display is
an estimate but here is where my frustration really began.

I continued to print as normal, as yellow tipped of 10%
warning....then when it hit 5% warning, my magenta and light
magenta hit 10%. I printed a few pages of B&W text and then my
light cyan hit 10% warning.

I stopped printing in color all together and only printed about 10
pages of text using balck ink only (and man, did it suck up a lot
of black ink for just text!)

So now I had:

Black - 85%
Cyan - Above 10%, no low ink warnings yet
Light Cyan - 10% warning
Magenta - 10% warning
Light magenta - 10% warning
Yellow - 5% warning.

So today I bought Yellow, L Mag, Mag, L Cyan. I figured I'd get
Cyan next week as I don't intend to print much this weekend.

I get home....open the printer, change the yellow and then press
the Ink button.

yellow now full....and MG, LMG, LCY all read 5% warning now..and
Cyan says 10% warning for the first time? What the hell? Ok, no
point trying to use up the little bit, so I change the MG, LMG and
LCY and then press the button. All show full...no wait, now it says
Cyan is completely out...cannot print. WTH? I'm quite upset now, I
went from above 10% to completely out, without printing anything,
not even a test page.

I pull out the Cyan cartridge and I can hear ink in it...far more
ink that in the yellow (bone dry) and the other 3 (which all sound
like they have a little left, but not as much as the Cyan.)

Bloody hell! I know there is ink in it...and the damn printer will
not work at all until I replace the cartridge. I'm fairly certain
it's simply a software issue with relation to the ink cartridge
chip. But to lose that 10% is not right!

The damn thing costs more to refill with ink than to buy a new
printer! Now to lose even more usable ink due to their chip system
has me right bent! It just increased my cost for ink by just little
more than 5%...doesn't wound like much, but I just lost a possible
10 4x6 proofs out of a set of inks.

Maybe I should expect it...maybe I should just get of the fence and
buy the 4000 or i9900....

Sorry to vent, but I'm sick of throwing money down a toilet.....

where's that link to a good CIS system again?

sean

Click to expand...

--
http://www.pbase.com/cjmax/galleries

'May the best you've ever seen
Be the worst you'll ever see...'
from A Scots Toast by Robert Burns

Click to expand...

CJMax said:

Sean,

Come on now, it's not that bad, at least for me. I have an Epson
R800. My costs for an 8"x10" print are $1.01 (paper and ink).

Click to expand...

seanmcr6 said:

ok, I know that the manufacturer's make their money off the ink,
not the printers...at least not at the low end. I can understand
that, but their practice of making things overly expensive for
consumers is driving me nuts.

I don't think separate ink cartridges saves us any money at
all...as all the users I've spoken to, from multiple manufacturers,
use ink at the saem rate. Of course they can engineer this into the
print driver anyway....so unless you are printing images that are
overtly cool or warm, you will suck up all your ink in the same
time frame anyway.

Click to expand...

seanmcr6 said:

Case in point...my R200. I use this printer for 4x6 proofing and
CD/DVD printing right now.

I used up my black cartridge first, but the others were not far
behind. The Cyan's seemed to have more left, as I print mostly
portraits and they tend to be on the warm side.

When balck fell below 5%, I replaced it. The others were all above
the last tick mark in the Ink Level display. I know this display is
an estimate but here is where my frustration really began.

I continued to print as normal, as yellow tipped of 10%
warning....then when it hit 5% warning, my magenta and light
magenta hit 10%. I printed a few pages of B&W text and then my
light cyan hit 10% warning.

I stopped printing in color all together and only printed about 10
pages of text using balck ink only (and man, did it suck up a lot
of black ink for just text!)

So now I had:

Black - 85%
Cyan - Above 10%, no low ink warnings yet
Light Cyan - 10% warning
Magenta - 10% warning
Light magenta - 10% warning
Yellow - 5% warning.

So today I bought Yellow, L Mag, Mag, L Cyan. I figured I'd get
Cyan next week as I don't intend to print much this weekend.

I get home....open the printer, change the yellow and then press
the Ink button.

yellow now full....and MG, LMG, LCY all read 5% warning now..and
Cyan says 10% warning for the first time? What the hell? Ok, no
point trying to use up the little bit, so I change the MG, LMG and
LCY and then press the button. All show full...no wait, now it says
Cyan is completely out...cannot print. WTH? I'm quite upset now, I
went from above 10% to completely out, without printing anything,
not even a test page.

I pull out the Cyan cartridge and I can hear ink in it...far more
ink that in the yellow (bone dry) and the other 3 (which all sound
like they have a little left, but not as much as the Cyan.)

Bloody hell! I know there is ink in it...and the damn printer will
not work at all until I replace the cartridge. I'm fairly certain
it's simply a software issue with relation to the ink cartridge
chip. But to lose that 10% is not right!

Click to expand...

seanmcr6 said:

The damn thing costs more to refill with ink than to buy a new
printer! Now to lose even more usable ink due to their chip system
has me right bent! It just increased my cost for ink by just little
more than 5%...doesn't wound like much, but I just lost a possible
10 4x6 proofs out of a set of inks.

Maybe I should expect it...maybe I should just get of the fence and
buy the 4000 or i9900....

Sorry to vent, but I'm sick of throwing money down a toilet.....

where's that link to a good CIS system again?

sean

Click to expand...

Iusefilm said:

CJMax said:

Sean,

Come on now, it's not that bad, at least for me. I have an Epson
R800. My costs for an 8"x10" print are $1.01 (paper and ink).

Click to expand...

My experience with the R800 is very close to yours, in terms of ink
use. Though, I would add the GlOp to the 2X Magenta, Cyan ink vs.
the remaining 1X Y, MBlk, PhBlk, R and B. My cost, here in Canada
was estimated at 2.50. but now I readjusted that figure with
EpPSGloss to be above 3.50.
Also, the actual cost of printer maintenance could be as high as,
35% of ink cost, but under normal conditions balanced out about up
to $17 per ink cart change. That is about %10 ink waste on removing
any of the inkcarts for whatever reasons.
For sometime now I considered to post my Un-Official review of this
printer, since I bought it to experiment with this technology
advancing into the ?2200 or the 13x19 format.
Judging the technical specs, the ?2200 will prove to be one of the
most expencive (per print) printer to sit on our desktop.
My "only" negative comments about this printer(R800) are the
missing 5760dpi optimised Epson paper profiles. Somebody at Epson
missed the boat!!! They, so far, have NEGLECTED to creat a Photo
RPM mode 5760dpi profiles for the printer that is SOLD as a 5670dpi
OPTIMISED printer.
The other is the PRIMITIVE Epson printer driver. The steps one need
to go through to get the printer processing the image just leaves
too many opportunity for the user to make a bad print. Why even
include all those FALSE controls in? They provide a demostretably
inferior print vs. the one is achived leaving the driver out of the
color management loop!

Tony K

Click to expand...

seanmcr6 said:

seeing as how I used to work with graphic software engineers that
wrote printer drivers, and my job was to provide them with
feature specifications...yes, I do know what I am talking about and
they can optimize their drivers to use up as much or as little ink
as they want given a certain set of conditions.

CJ, I have the R200, not the 800....and I'm in Canada, land of the
expensive consumables ;-) It cost me $150 for a set of 6 ink
cartridges...that's the best price I can find for Epson inks. Best
guess so far is that I'm going to get 45-50 8x10s before I need to
replace at least 2-3 cartridges. So it's costing me pretty close to
$3 for each print. Really good photo paper is almost $1 a sheet
(although I just found a really good source at .60 sheet)

This printer costs me close to $4 per print.

The prints are stunning! Even without the gloss optimizer option
I'm fairly impressed with the output from this $150 (cdn) printer!
The cost per print is too high though.

The ink cartridges is 16-18 ml...and a bad chip costing me 2 ml
equates to losing 12% of my printing capacity.

Yeah, I guess I'll have to get a chip resetter or something. I just
hate the fact that I need to do such a thing. It should work
right...right out of the box. I shouldn't need all this stuff.

sean

Click to expand...

Zalllon said:

With all that I've read and witnessed (peers at work) regarding the
Epson R series (except the 800), I'm glad I held out for the Canon
i960. I paid $150 and got a $50 mail in rebate on top of that, so
basically $100. This is my 5th printer, so I'm very concious about
ink costs. I'm one of those fuddy duddies that sticks to OEM inks.

I"ve seen some good deals on ink via eBay for Canon OEM, perhaps
you could try there for your R200?
--
Zalllon
Olympus C-8080WZ
Canon i960
http://gallery125884.fotopic.net/

Click to expand...