Are there any fully pigment ink tank printers?

OldNikonman · Oct 13, 2023

Apologies if this has been asked before.

Some years ago I had two Epson 7880's for my hobby work/pleasure, one set up for gloss, one for matt black. I used Imageprint RIP with eye1 pro and after a year calibrating very good third party inks from Digitalink with refillable carts I had a fun time producing really high standard prints. I do understand print technology as I did a printing apprenticeship when I was an amoeba which helped me to obtain the quality I wanted.

Having retired now and sold my kit a long time ago I feel the urge to start again as I have more time. However I am completely out of touch with the current technology.

My preference is to avoid Epson's expensive and plastic devouring carts as I know I can get equivalent results to Epson inks with carefully profiled 'mainstream' third party inks - the ones which are correctly manufactured without printhead damaging lumps and compositionally balanced. This led me to read Keith Cooper's review of the ET-8550 which was very helpful as the ET idea is new to me but a welcome advancement.

My problem is that I intend to print my photography on mainly matt art papers, no good for the dye system I see...

So after much digging I found that some hardy individuals have fully loaded their 8550's with pigment ink, one company Farbenwerk even market a set of pigment replacements.

Therefore I have two questions:

1. If anybody out there has run pigments in an 8550 how did it go?

2. Are there any other printers from other manufacturers which use a fully pigment based tank system with a 17" wide feed?

I gather Epson has finally squashed the third party CISS systems from working in the P700 and 900 so they are out, so too is the P5000 as I won't use it every week.

Thank you for any advice I may receive, sorry for the long post...

Best wishes

Andrew

OldNikonman · Oct 18, 2023

Ok thank you, this is interesting...

I always create my own profiles, and didn't know of the VFA setting. I will take a look.

many thanks

OldNikonman · Oct 18, 2023

sorry wilberforce_1, I forgot to add that it's because I run so many profiling patterns and test prints on different papers that I use so much ink and worry about cost now I'm retired.

I am always looking for the best I can achieve. That's why it took me a full year to profile my 7880's and 4880. I found that each machine, with the same model print head, gave slightly different results. I've no idea why, but the resulting colour spaces were different.

Best wishes

OldNikonman · Oct 18, 2023

This is great information NAwlins Contrarian thank you.

I am now even more confused about my next printer since your figures make it seem that dye may be preferable to pigment when I also take the contrast quality into account. Canson Rag Photographique 210 has always been a favourite of mine anyway so I'm delighted to see how it performs on dye. The cost of an ET-8550 is obviously preferable to a P5300 too - it's a shame we can't try before we buy!

OldNikonman · Oct 18, 2023

This is very useful thank you; I take your point about using the correct papers.

I am sorely tempted by the generally good reception of the ET-8550 on specific papers.

I wonder if Epson would send me a sample so I can set my densitometer to work...

rpnfan · Aug 26, 2024

NAwlins Contrarian said:
IME how well Epson Claria dye inks perform on matte paper differs substantially among different matte papers.

(1) Canon Pro Premium Matte PM-101 - 645k CCU - L* min = 9 (contains OBAs)

Thanks for the tests and recommendation. What media setting do you use on the 8550 for this Canon paper?

NAwlins Contrarian · Aug 26, 2024

rpnfan said:
rpnfan said:

IME how well Epson Claria dye inks perform on matte paper differs substantially among different matte papers.

(1) Canon Pro Premium Matte PM-101 - 645k CCU - L* min = 9 (contains OBAs)

Click to expand...

Thanks for the tests and recommendation. What media setting do you use on the 8550 for this Canon paper?

You're welcome. To be clear, that's for Canon Pro Premium Matte PM-101 in my old Epson R280, which uses the 'standard photo' Claria inkset (CcMmYK) instead of in the ET-8550, which uses a somewhat different mix of Claria ET inks (CMYKG). But in my old Epson, the media setting I use is for the better grade of Epson matte paper. I figure it's probably the closest I am going to get. I know some of the newer Epsons allow new / custom media types; if the ET-8550 is one of them, then maybe some tweaks could improve it.

Joe Moche · Aug 26, 2024

OldNikonman said:
So after much digging I found that some hardy individuals have fully loaded their 8550's with pigment ink, one company Farbenwerk even market a set of pigment replacements.

Therefore I have two questions:

1. If anybody out there has run pigments in an 8550 how did it go?

I've owned an 8550 for a little over a year and have never liked the results with art papers. I was recently confonted with a choice: Buy a new set of inks for my aging Epson 3880 at roughly $700, or get a second 8550 and run it with Precision Colors pigment inks. I opted for the second choice.

It took several cleaning cycles (including 2 deep clean cycles) to get a perfect nozzle check once the inks were installed and all of the start-up tasks were completed. So far, I've been pleased by the results. I usually use Red River Aurora Natural or Aurora White, and Precision Colors offers profiles for both. I've also run some gloss paper through and I'd say I prefer the look of dye inks on gloss. I run a nozzle check about once a week if I've not used the printer and I've not run into any clogs or other issues.
I'm surprised that not more users here are reporting their experience with pigment inks in the 8550. As others have suggested, you might want to check Jose Rodriguez's YouTube page (jtoolman) for more 8550 tips and tests.

rpnfan · Sep 23, 2024

Thanks a lot. Very interesting. I did some testing on my 8550 with several matte papers and found that some papers give better results (deeper black) with the Velvet Fine Art paper setting, while other matte papers will then show the black glossy and be better used with the premium matte paper setting. The papers I used are old stock (EFI and Tecco) and not available anymore, so my results will not be of much help for others. But just to note that one needs to test which media settings will work best on your specific matte paper. The Tecco paper gave great results, while the EFI paper had a much lower density and brilliance. I was surprised about how large the gamut difference can be between two matte photo papers.

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Are there any fully pigment ink tank printers?

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