Inkjet cost per print rundowns?

Hello all,

I recently bought an all-in-one Epson printer to replace our old HP printer as a way to quickly output half-decent prints on the spot for cards, calendars, etc for family or small sale items as well as everyday printing with auto-duplexing. While testing out Red River Paper samples it became painfully obvious that the little bit of ink in each tank runs out really fast (only about 28 8x10's). To say the least, $120 for a set of inks is an insane price - almost the price of the printer itself!

Notwithstanding the claim of 800 pages of text per high capacity tank, does anyone out there know of a reliable source of cost per print for picture printing from the major manufacturers? I plan to print calendars and A7 greeting cards mainly as well as everyday usage from this machine (that's why duplexing is a must). Is this typical of an inkjet printer?

To make the ink costs anywhere near affordable, there are inkjet tank systems out there. Knowing that this will void the warranty and these systems have been around for a while, any advice on this? Is there a tank system that is better than another?

Thanks,

Kevin

Kevin,
Have a look on dpreview.com. This sort of thing gets discussed all the time on the printers forum.

Kevin, Epson sells High Capacity cartridges that cost a bit more but have a higher yield. Unfortunately they're hard to find unless you go to the Epson site (and pay retail). I have the R380 for exactly the same thing you do. I find that using Ultra Glossy Epson paper uses less ink, but you have to always want glossy. Also, don't try third party inks... they're cheaper and look quite decent, but clog way faster for some reason. And cleaning your printheads with the Epson utility eats ink for breakfast. So to keep warranty, try the High Capacity inks once and see how they fare. Otherwise, do exactly what Paul Wegemann stated and do research on dpreview. Another huge resource for all this ink stuff is http://forums.steves-digicams.com/forums/ . I've spent hours on there and have learned a ton about my last three Epsons (like resetting the ink-use counter without sending it to Epson).

To calculate cost, you'll need to pick your paper, print settings, and then run the tests and figure the cost. Wish there was a more concrete answer, but ink usage depends on settings and paper type (not to mention the amount of color in the image) and regular vs High Capacity cartridges. The reason for that is because the regular capacity carts are purposely designed to leave 10-15% ink in them when the Ink Out warning fires off. This is a protection layer by Epson because the very worst thing you can do to an Epson print head is let it run dry. There are third-party utilities that let you squeeze out the rest, but you have to be REAL careful not to run dry. The High Capacity carts are designed to deliver more ink out of the cartridge while still protecting dry-out. You think Epson would just make that their standard cartridge!

Anyway, not an answer to your question, but hopefully some good info. Do check those two websites.

First off, no major manufacturer wants to show their printing price on a consumer printer. Epson doesn't list what the ink volume is in my R1800 cartridges and this is a major factor in determining the cost of operation. The status monitor applications don't provide enough detail to determine how much ink is actually being used. On the other hand, the major manufacturers seem to be more open to providing this information on the professional level printers, even providing information on how many milliliters of ink were used on a print.

I would think that most digital photo printers apply similar amounts of ink per square inch of print in a photo. With that in mind, I would look at cost per mL as the primary factor in determining the operating costs. The research I've done indicates that all of the 13" wide printers appear to have similar cost per mL of ink. The consumer -> pro letter size printers have some variability with the tri-color cartridge models usually being most expensive to operate because much of the color ink is thrown out when one color is empty. The 17" printers seem to offer the best balance between ink cost/mL and cost of the printer and versatility of the printer. After feeding close to $1000 into my R1800 over 3.5 years, I know my next printer will be a 17" printer (with which the same ink usage would have only cost around $600).

Thanks for the info - I did buy the high-cap tanks from Epson and have posted this Q on dpreview. Of course the search was down (usually is when I'm on). A couple of people have already mentioned inkjetfly.com and the Bigfoot system working well. I do wonder how close to Epson those 3rd party inks really are. Clogged nozzles is a worst-case scenario, but also what about paper fastness or fade resistance. But if I'm paying the same amount in ink as the printer, it's a wash in the end to try them out. If I clog a print head, just CG it and buy another with a full set of inks already in

I do wonder if anyone here has used a tank system with success. Anyone???

Kevin

There is now a choice. Kodak has three models of all-in-one printers that take VERY cheap ink. I'm talking $14.67 for color and less than ten bucks for black. These are photo quality pigment inks. You can make a 4x6 print for 10 cents, including the Kodak paper! I ended up buying two of them, one for me and one for son at college. The prints are great, especially considering the printer (both 5100 and 5300) are selling for less than a hundred bucks at Walmart. I got 5 free full sized ink cartridges in the printers I bought. While not a pro printer by any means, they are good enough that I'm making 8x10s on the thing that I send to magazines that want a print along with the CD. The editors said the prints were perfectly acceptable.


Kent in SD

I didn't expect Kodak to be in the running, but they have a decent option. Thanks for the tip!

Kevin