Epson P600 for Prints?

[neil poulsen]

I'm interested in how well a P600 will work for prints? I checked the archives. Apparently it's not so good for digital negatives. But, that's not my interest.

Is the P600 the same technology as the P800, but for smaller widths? I see that they use the same ink sets. Do the P600 printers clog? Don' want nothin to do with cloggin'.

What would you recommend?

[Oren Grad]

They use similar technology, but not quite identical. Off the top of my head, these are the key differences:

P600 prints to a maximum of 13" side, the P800 to 17" wide.

P600 has a smaller droplet size (2 picoliter vs 3.5 picoliter) and supports a higher maximum resolution (5760x1440 dpi vs 2880x1440 dpi). The visual impact of this difference is exceedingly small - if you print with 720 ppi of actual information from the original file (as opposed to upressing to achieve 720 ppi), put your nose in the prints and have great eyesight, you might see a very subtle difference in the finest detail.

The P600 uses substantially smaller cartridges with a higher cost/ml of ink.

The P800 uses a replaceable maintenance tank for waste ink, the P600 just absorbs it somewhere. Time will tell, but based on the behavior of earlier generation Epsons this means a fair chance that the P600 will have a somewhat shorter service life.

I bought a P800 a while back to replace a 3880 that died. So far mine has been flawless in intermittent, light-to-medium duty use. Not a whiff of any clogging issues, even during the winter with very low relative humidity.

I would say that if you don't plan to print much, either would be a fine choice. If you do plan to print a lot, the P800 will likely be more economical over the full service life of the printer.

[neil poulsen]

Thanks Oren. Weird on the discard tank. neil

[Oren Grad]

There's at least one third-party external waste ink system you can get for the low-end Epsons, but it's not a good idea to install it while the printer is under warranty as it's likely to void the warranty.

Epson warns against using these. I forget their exact language, but IIRC the implication is that the printers are engineered for a certain service life, and if you use them past the point of their ink absorption capacity something else is likely to fail soon enough. I don't know if that's true, but Epson clearly intends that the user who wants a more robust device should buy further up the line.

EDIT: Here's one such product - there may be others:

http://www.printerpotty.com/

[neil poulsen]

I've been checking a little. As I understand it, the P600 is no different than the 2200 or 2400, etc. When the maintenance pad is full, it can be replaced. The local Epson service center priced this at $157.

As I recall, I had one of these printers, and it wasn't a particular problem.

[Oren Grad]

More on this, as the details are coming back to me - the Epson warning related among other things to resetting the internal counter in an effort to avoid servicing the printer when it stopped with a "needs service" warning because of the ink saturation threshold being exceeded. Still can't find the actual text, alas, as the Epson website was comprehensively rearranged recently.

I think the bottom line remains the same - print quality is excellent with both and either would be fine for low volumes, while the P800 may be less expensive and less hassle over the long run if one plans to print a lot.