A2 printer

[Wojtulek]

I need a A2 printer, anything good and affordable on the marked ?

 

[NAwlins Contrarian]

I need a A2 printer, anything good and affordable on the marked ?

Depending on your exact needs and preferences, the Canon Pro-1000, Epson P800, and Epson P5000 all arguably qualify as good A2 photo printers. Affordable is very relative.

 

[Wojtulek]

I mean cost of the printer itself and price of ink cartridges.

 

[William Carson]

I mean cost of the printer itself and price of ink cartridges.

I think that the big magilla is the ink cost. It is -at first glance- a way complicated area but it can be simplified by looking at a few videos put out by a fellow that really digs under the surface of how Epson and Canon printers function. The Epson does not force cleaning cycles while the Canon does. Those forced automatic cleaning cycles that prevents the possibility of clogging (Canon) over a years time will really add up in ink cost. To avoid that cost the user must prevent clogging by regular use of the printer (every two or three days), you will save lots of cash. Epson will do that. But, if you are inattentive and do not printout every few days, the results will be the printer will clog. You lose. The ink cost of the Canon printer by these automatic cycles -IMO- are significant. I have been looking into what printer to purchase and because of this issue, am forced into the Epson brand. Otherwise, I would definitely purchase the Canon -

 

[Wojtulek]

Thank you for your input. I am not going to print that much so I think it will be cheaper to print at the lab. I allready have an A3 printer so maybe I stich .

Thank you for your response, I will wait for compatible cartridges to became more common.

 

[Ken60]

I think it depends on what you want to print. If its all panoramas , then the roll feature of the Epson is a deal maker. However if you find wasting ink every time you want to swap from gloss to mat.... then Canon.

These are all old arguments and worn out though real...... perhaps you enjoy the Canon build quality, the advantages of a 16bit print driver and a dedicated blue for those long sky gradients. The advantage of 11 colours and a gloss optomiser. The chance to buy the printer for £700 ish against the dearer Epson.

I found the horrors of more regular pizza wheel marks , the chances of the black ink switch clogging and the higher price for less inks and only an 8bit driver, drove me towards the lesser priced Canon. Not to mention the gloss optomiser missing from the P800.

Now I face a £430 a pop to change the ink cartridges, £100 or so for a roll of paper ... and the fun of de curling 25" sheets ......... Red River papers are not available here.

Remember it takes a few tests to get to the final print, and labs charge for every print. With postage every try costs £35 for a big print , thus 10 costs half the price of the printer ........ so even if you sold it on you have the blast of making it all yourself.

Before you jump , remember it's like a high maintenance girlfriend , it's going to cost you dear , but it's great fun.

 

[Wojtulek]

Thank you for evaluation.

Can you estimate how many A2 prints can be printet by a set of cartridges ?

 

[Howard Moftich]

The 'usual' consumption is around 1.1-1.25mL per square foot

 

[Ken60]

That is an easy technical question , if your a perfect person, working a perfect system in a prefect way.

If however you are as adept at error as I am . then reduce this mechanical calculation by a proportion directly related to your fallibility. Truly, with sticking to as few paper brands and types as possible, having bespoke profiles built for your system -for each paper you use , then error is reduced . I won't mention screen profiles as you should be past that.

As an indication of cost per print Epson have an AP on Google PLay called " Print Cost Calculator" where you feed in your data and it tries to suggest a price based on local consumable prices.

As to how much ink is consumed, that depends on the print and its makeup, but I just printed a average full colour A3 and Canon Pro 1000 reports 2.2ml ink used ... it can even break this down into how much out of each of the 12 cartridges ! So ink is about £40 for 80ml ( I found a better price but this is average) ...so let's say .50 pence per ml , giving that A3 2.2ml x .5p = £1.10 for ink. Depending on how sexy your paper stock is lets average an A3 at £3. So total; price for an A3 is £4.10

At The Print Space an A3 Giclee print will cost you £13.30 with tax plus delivery .... and you might need to do two to get it perfect, plus the delays for post.

See where I am heading , you can do it start to finish at home and spend a couple of hours , with test prints you might manage £6 to £8 for your final display print. Sending it out to a similar quality will be more like a week or two, and cost in excess of £30.

This margin between £6 to £8 and more than £30 = £22 + per final print, allows for quite a bit of loss in all the stuff folk whinge about. Of course you would have to cost in the printer, but that lasts for a few years and has a residual value.

Honestly , find a good price for ink and the biggest cost paper, and live with it !

 

[Wojtulek]

There are only few sellers of Canon pro 1000 compatible ink cartridges. I live in Denmark, can you guys tell where to buy them ?

 

[panos_m]

Canon Pro 1000 reports 2.2ml ink used ...

This is the reported ink that ends on the paper. You have to take into account also the ink used for maintenance. To be safe I would double that figure.

 

[Ken60]

Double ?

I think that is perhaps a pessimistic view, either that or you are not using your printer often enough.

Perhaps go listen to Toolmans comments about the clock that runs between prints, and how if you don't use it , it will waste ink. This however is keeping the printer clog free. Perhaps if you use the Pro 1000 more your ratio for ink on paper would become more reasonable.

Again I mention that the cost of paper, Fine Art A2 can cost £5 top £8 per sheet for the heavyweight Hahnemuhle ............ so Ink cost is not your biggest issue at £2 for a similar size.


Gear ... what I need to get the job done , after all you don't see mechanics listing their brand of spanner as a qualification .

 

[panos_m]

Double ?

I think that is perhaps a pessimistic view, either that or you are not using your printer often enough.

I have printed in two years 2,200 (two thousand and two hundred) square feet of paper and my measured ink consumption is a little better than 50/50.

--
Panagiotis

 

[APenza]

Those Canon cleaning cycles do use quite a bit of ink. I do a nozzle check every two or three days if I’m not using the printer. It uses a tiny amount of ink and keeps the printer from going into that damn cleaning cycle. It can be found in the menu under ‘test print’.

Would be nice if there were a way to do this automatically with roll paper once every couple of days while I’m away on vacation or just happen to forget to do the nozzle check.

 

[William Carson]

Those Canon cleaning cycles do use quite a bit of ink. I do a nozzle check every two or three days if I’m not using the printer. It uses a tiny amount of ink and keeps the printer from going into that damn cleaning cycle. It can be found in the menu under ‘test print’.

Would be nice if there were a way to do this automatically with roll paper once every couple of days while I’m away on vacation or just happen to forget to do the nozzle check.

Actually, there is a way to printout on a user controlled timed schedule which is from the application, 'QImage' . You mentioned that you are doing a nozzle check print that cancels the cleaning cycle. There has been a question as to whether a cleaning cycle can be avoided by any means. Does printing a nozzle check stop the next 60 hr cleaning cycle?

 

[APenza]

Those Canon cleaning cycles do use quite a bit of ink. I do a nozzle check every two or three days if I’m not using the printer. It uses a tiny amount of ink and keeps the printer from going into that damn cleaning cycle. It can be found in the menu under ‘test print’.

Would be nice if there were a way to do this automatically with roll paper once every couple of days while I’m away on vacation or just happen to forget to do the nozzle check.

Actually, there is a way to printout on a user controlled timed schedule which is from the application, 'QImage' . You mentioned that you are doing a nozzle check print that cancels the cleaning cycle. There has been a question as to whether a cleaning cycle can be avoided by any means. Does printing a nozzle check stop the next 60 hr cleaning cycle?

The nozzle check was suggested by a tech from Canon service when I called about a different problem and then mentioned, or should I say complained about the cleaning cycle using so much ink. He never told me about the 60 hr time out but just said to do a nozzle check “every couple of days “ when not using the printer. The nozzle check is most likely the least amount of ink to use in keeping the heads from clogging and avoiding that cleaning cycle. It worked.

 

[panos_m]

Those Canon cleaning cycles do use quite a bit of ink. I do a nozzle check every two or three days if I’m not using the printer. It uses a tiny amount of ink and keeps the printer from going into that damn cleaning cycle. It can be found in the menu under ‘test print’.

Would be nice if there were a way to do this automatically with roll paper once every couple of days while I’m away on vacation or just happen to forget to do the nozzle check.

Actually, there is a way to printout on a user controlled timed schedule which is from the application, 'QImage' . You mentioned that you are doing a nozzle check print that cancels the cleaning cycle. There has been a question as to whether a cleaning cycle can be avoided by any means. Does printing a nozzle check stop the next 60 hr cleaning cycle?

The nozzle check was suggested by a tech from Canon service when I called about a different problem and then mentioned, or should I say complained about the cleaning cycle using so much ink. He never told me about the 60 hr time out but just said to do a nozzle check “every couple of days “ when not using the printer. The nozzle check is most likely the least amount of ink to use in keeping the heads from clogging and avoiding that cleaning cycle. It worked.

PRO-1000 doesn't behave like this. You cannot avoid auto cleaning by printing a nozzle check pattern. The auto cleaning algorithm is complex. For example even if you print continuously the printer will stop sometime to perform it's cleaning routines.

 

[Wojtulek]

Thank you all for your comments. I can see that using an A2 printer is far more complicated then I realised. I think I`ll wait until it is more userfriendly and economical.

 

[APenza]

Those Canon cleaning cycles do use quite a bit of ink. I do a nozzle check every two or three days if I’m not using the printer. It uses a tiny amount of ink and keeps the printer from going into that damn cleaning cycle. It can be found in the menu under ‘test print’.

Would be nice if there were a way to do this automatically with roll paper once every couple of days while I’m away on vacation or just happen to forget to do the nozzle check.

Actually, there is a way to printout on a user controlled timed schedule which is from the application, 'QImage' . You mentioned that you are doing a nozzle check print that cancels the cleaning cycle. There has been a question as to whether a cleaning cycle can be avoided by any means. Does printing a nozzle check stop the next 60 hr cleaning cycle?

The nozzle check was suggested by a tech from Canon service when I called about a different problem and then mentioned, or should I say complained about the cleaning cycle using so much ink. He never told me about the 60 hr time out but just said to do a nozzle check “every couple of days “ when not using the printer. The nozzle check is most likely the least amount of ink to use in keeping the heads from clogging and avoiding that cleaning cycle. It worked.

PRO-1000 doesn't behave like this. You cannot avoid auto cleaning by printing a nozzle check pattern. The auto cleaning algorithm is complex. For example even if you print continuously the printer will stop sometime to perform it's cleaning routines.

I should have mentioned that my printer is an IPF 6300. Not sure I would want to buy the PRO 1000 as I only print a few times a month and some months do not print at all. I would be spending more on ink during cleaning cycles than I would be on prints. Thanks for the info.

 

[William Carson]

Those Canon cleaning cycles do use quite a bit of ink. I do a nozzle check every two or three days if I’m not using the printer. It uses a tiny amount of ink and keeps the printer from going into that damn cleaning cycle. It can be found in the menu under ‘test print’.

Would be nice if there were a way to do this automatically with roll paper once every couple of days while I’m away on vacation or just happen to forget to do the nozzle check.

The nozzle check was suggested by a tech from Canon service when I called about a different problem and then mentioned, or should I say complained about the cleaning cycle using so much ink. He never told me about the 60 hr time out but just said to do a nozzle check “every couple of days “ when not using the printer. The nozzle check is most likely the least amount of ink to use in keeping the heads from clogging and avoiding that cleaning cycle. It worked.

PRO-1000 doesn't behave like this. You cannot avoid auto cleaning by printing a nozzle check pattern. The auto cleaning algorithm is complex. For example even if you print continuously the printer will stop sometime to perform it's cleaning routines.

The Canon printers, pro 10, pro 1000, Pro 1 have the automatic -non user avoidable- cleaning cycle. This is from the latest -a few days ago- discussion on the live stream video from Jose Rodriguez's tool man site. https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/62065964

The depth of his discussion and knowledge leaves me no doubt. It is a large commitment to purchase a printer and I have been going back and forth between Epson and Canon. I prefer the Canon however, unless I am printing commercially, and selling enough to justify a forced 60 hr cleaning cycle (which is apparently more ink than I at first thought it would be), I am forced to go with an Epson. With the Epson printer, it is important to not be forgetful to print out something every two days or so or you will risk clogging. Easy but important.