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After I don't know how many years - probably 20 years, I bought an ink printer. Based on just 3 dye based colors plus one black tank - it is the simplest of all: the Epson Ecotank ET-1810. It's a pretty plastic creation, kind of with bare minimal plastic - so don't throw it around in any way. 
Why ?
As a plain printing machine for mixed jobs like documents and such. Not more, nor less. Perhaps even some photos for internal use - if they turn out well - why not. However, since the inks are made of dye - they will not last long in light. (I assume this will be the case, that they fade relatively quickly. Perhaps they last longer than the ones from Epson on 1999, which only lasted 6 months in bright light on the wall of Johannes) until you could barely see anything at all after a couple of years.
So - I really don't have high expectations on this printer. The good thing with it are the incredibly cheap inks - as they come with 70 ml each lasting for thousands of print jobs. If you ever have to buy new ones - they are dirty cheap.
So. A plain, easy printer - for ink print economy. I only paid 1500 SEK or 133 € including inks - so, i think it is worth go give this printer a try. If i ever feel attracted to go the more serious photo printer route... then it will be a pigment based printer with the highest quality - such as like the Epson P-900 which appears to do very well, and people report no clogging issues.
But until then, I am not flirting with that ink tech for photography any soon. (Again, I have no need of A2 or A3+ sized images for our home). The heat sublimation printer i bought recently - the Canon Selphy CP1500 - is good enough for what I use it for in terms of 10x15 cm photos.
70 ml in each bottle
Here shown below, the big 65 ml bottles that come with the Epson Ecotank ET-1810 printer. quite the difference compared to the older (ridiculous) little cartridges we used to buy for outrageous prices, more close to gold i often felt.
I never fell into that trap - and that's why i quickly abandoned the whole ink-shit scam in the past 22 years.
I think i still have a full set of ink cartridges left from my Epson P2000 printer i bought in Dec 2002 (which I barely used, because i was so ticked off from the high ink prices. That thing had like 8-10 inks, very small - and each cost already back then almost 200 KR / 20 Euro = 200 euro for a set of minimal ink.
The printer wasted huge amounts of ink when you shifted between photo matte, and photo black ink - and clogged easily, too. Far too easily.
Totally wasted money, for both ink and that 1100 € pigment based printer in 2002.
Back then, for the same money you could get endless amounts of RA-4 chemicals to develop thousands of color prints, with RA-4 paper included. I mean, the difference of what you got from pigment based printers vs Traditional photo material was just abnormal large. I felt by instinct very soon, that the ink business was a scam.
And never looked back.
20+ years later
So. Now i ended up with the entry model of those Epson Eco Tank printers *LOL* But as I said, it is just for basic printing, nothing advanced. At the same time with crucial differences; cheap (eye based) ink, huge tanks - and the installation of a "Printer Potty", preventing the next scam that is "by design" attached to call ink-jet based printers: the ink-pad overflow issue.
The Ink Pad overflow issue
I have heard that these Ecotank models (and others, too ?), actually can waste a lot of ink (which you don't see how much it does) - and that you later get an printing error, as the ink pads on the backside - which collects the spilled ink, gets overfull.
Apparently there are ways to replace these - in fact you can do it yourself with new ones - without having to send it in to crappy support by Epson. But - you also have to reset the print counter in order to give the printer a second and a third life (and so forth).
Here is a video about how you can solve this on permanent basis. (Ink pad service life - from Printer Potty)
It is actually highly interesting - I had no idea about the Ink pads, and how it affects the lifespan of the printer (by limiting it by a lot). That's what Epson and the other don't tell you when you buy ink printers *LOL*
A good guy - educational for the people, indeed. |
