Damned Epson P600!

[Willie]

Start with two blacks on one ink delivery system that needs a changeover to go from glossy to matte ink. What idiot designed that system? Can't change with 20% of ink left in the matte cartridge - have to install a new cartridge.

Then, if any other ink is low(not giving the low signal, just 20% or so) it won't switch from glossy to matte ink.

To top it off, the printer and software does not tell you Which Ink needs to be changed. You look at the graphic showing ink levels and try to figure it out. Tech folks were no help here at all - "just change anything that looks low".

Who designed a printer that wastes every other color(per Epson tech folks) to switch from one black ink to another?

What brought this on was that I needed to print a lot of small 4x6 cards for handouts. Glossy ink was fine but way low, hardly showing on the graphic of ink tank levels. Would not switch to matte black. Every other color was fine with Yellow at about 25% full. Machine said 'not enough ink to switch'. So, I figured it was the glossy ink and decided to print glossy cards ahead of time. Did print 312 of them before the glossy ink ran out.

Changed the gloss ink cartridge. Matte cartridge showed about 25% left in it. Got the message "not enough ink to switch, change cartridge". Called Epson tech folks and got the direction there was not enough matte black to change over so put in a new ink cartridge in. Did it and it would still not change over. Called back and was told "change yellow as it is low" - even though the machine showed low but no 'time to change' message showing.

Finally, after changing two cartridges, one with 20% or a bit more ink in it and the other probably 10% left, it switches over from gloss black to matte black. Now, after the switch the matte black looks as if it has used almost 10% of the ink - just to prime the line.

Next time it is Canon or HP. The problems with Epson ink waste is not worth it. The frustration with their products is worse.

Won't even get into the problems with the Epson 4900 Boat Anchor sitting in the back room...

[Ken Lee]

They make their money on inks. It's a... business model.

[stawastawa]

And Cannon and HP don't have these problems?

aslo, can you switch back to the 'nearly empty' cartridges now that the ink is changed over to matt? =)

[jp]

For consumer printers, HP seems to be worse. Not sure about their high end stuff these days.

For non-photographic general purpose use, Epson's eco-tank options are excellent. I got super frustrated with brother and samsung color lasers being fussy or nasty, so I went to inkjet for color office printing.