One for the record books

[Printmaker]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

I just buried an old friend. One of my old Epson 9800s fried a board and was retired from service. I took a look at the last nozzle check page, did the cm conversion to miles, and found out that this printer ran an amazing 5 miles of paper - mostly 44 inch rolls - over its short 7 years.

 

This was my photo black 9800, so most of that was with Epson Premiums (Semimatte, Lustre and Gloss), Illford Gold Silk and Canson Baryta. Over those years, I had no jams or clogs that could not be fixed with a simple push of a button. All I did was just the most basic maintenance like changing the cleaning stations about every 18 months. Nothing special. In fact there were many times I was too busy for changing pumps and capping stations, so I'd give it the 3 finger salute and reset.

 

It probably ran 4 to 5 hours a day, 5 days a week with two 10 day holidays every year. In contrast, it's twin, my matte black Epson 9800 which runs canvas and watercolor paper, runs 7-8 hours a day often 6 days a week and is still going strong.

 

I replaced my old friend with a 9890 and, due to its speed, am moving my canvas work over to it. This lighter load might just make my matte black "watercolor" 9800 go a few more miles. I'm thinking it might be good for 10 miles of paper.

 

I'm curious, has anyone else seen this amount of service from their printer?

[Advertisement]

The Leica Q3 is available for pre-order at B&H Photo Video and Adorama

[Guest WPalank]

Haven't seen any thing like this but I think the trick with Epson Printers is to run them continuously. It is those of us that make a long run one day, take a week or two off, then run again, that have to do nozzle clean after nozzle clean. Again, all of my problems have cleared with the touch of a button, or two , or three ......