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In Europe, the refurbed 3880's (I bought one) came with a nearly empty set of ink carts. I had to buy a full set of new carts within a month or so getting the printer. There are no 3880 refurbs left in Europe or I would have bought one in the UK to replace my ghastly Canon Pixma Pro-1. I will have to wait until refurb P800's are available. At least in Europe we can use refillable carts in the P800, whereas US users can't, as the printers are locked. 

 

Wilson

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I bought my P800 for under $900, including a decent set of 64ml cartridges. A full ink set would come close to $500 before considering the cost of a full service with print head replacement. I'd rather get a new printer than go through all that, let alone every year. My local college would be pleased, however, with my annual printer donation.... and I could take the charitable tax deduction.

 

I know plenty of folks who use Cone inks.... b/w and color... on Epson machines. I stick to the stock cartridges. But I love what IP does in lieu of the Epson driver.

 

Jeff

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Hardware prices are rather higher on this side of the Atlantic. A p800 is around £900 in the UK. I just wish I had never bought the Canon Pixma Pro-1 and had paid the modest amount extra at the time to buy another 3880. 

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Don't know about there, but here there are numerous opportunities for Epson rebates as well as dealer discounts. One would be foolish to pay retail. It's similar to razors and blades... companies lose money on the 'machine' but gouge you on the supplies (inks/blades). That's why I like the 80ml cartridges...not as economical as the 200 ml ones on the monster machines, but lots better than the puny and costlier 22ml cartridges.

 

The P800 is a sweeter machine than the 3800/3880 series, although all 3 are relatively reliable.

 

Jeff

Edited by Jeff S
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Jeff that is the discount price. Full price for a P800 is £1100. The 23ml carts are the problem with the Canon Pixma Pro plus endless head cleaning every time you turn it on. It takes close to 10 minutes to start up against about one minute for 3880. Each time it wants one or other of its 12 carts replacing. They are £24 each for 23ml against £42 for the 80ml 3880 carts, which seem to last forever. I put the Pixma on eBay but had no takers. The word must have gotten out on those heaps of garbage. 

 

Wilson

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Jeff that is the discount price. Full price for a P800 is £1100. The 23ml carts are the problem with the Canon Pixma Pro plus endless head cleaning every time you turn it on. It takes close to 10 minutes to start up against about one minute for 3880. Each time it wants one or other of its 12 carts replacing. They are £24 each for 23ml against £42 for the 80ml 3880 carts, which seem to last forever. I put the Pixma on eBay but had no takers. The word must have gotten out on those heaps of garbage. 

 

Wilson

 

Calumet are selling the P800 for £999 at the moment. The price of the ink cartridges has gone up to £49 each. I recently bought a full set for £324 but the price has now risen to £430 for a full set. As the printer establishes itself its normal for the price to fall a little .The hike in the ink cartridge prices is probably down to the poor exchange rate for Sterling to Dollar following the Brexit vote.

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I buy all my ink in France, from Toner24.fr, although it is couriered from Germany on a next day service. They are still selling 3880 carts as of today at €50.86 and I nearly always have a discount voucher code I can use with them (they send me a discount code at least twice a month). The P800 carts are €50.96. 

 

Wilson

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Typically in the US, 3800/3880 inks have risen by close to $10 per cartridge, while the P800 inks are about $5 less ($55), meaning $5 more than the 3880 inks were before the P800 release.

 

And surely the all new ink set was created in large part to further encourage people to buy new printers to sell the new inks.

 

It's always been about the inks...

 

Jeff

Edited by Jeff S
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Had the same issue on my R3000 cleaned the heads with a swab and alcohol and also used Cotten swabs to clean print head tray. I then used a4 card drenched in alcohol and run it through and that did the trick. The main thing to keep an R3000 clean is to turn it on every day if poss and move the print heads this stops ink clogging and the tracks clean.

Edited by Ted Lemon
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Had the same issue on my R3000 cleaned the heads with a swab and alcohol and also used Cotten swabs to clean print head tray. I then used a4 card drenched in alcohol and run it through and that did the trick. The main thing to keep an R3000 clean is to turn it on every day if poss and move the print heads this stops ink clogging and the tracks clean.

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Typically in the US, 3800/3880 inks have risen by close to $10 per cartridge, while the P800 inks are about $5 less ($55), meaning $5 more than the 3880 inks were before the P800 release.

And surely the all new ink set was created in large part to further encourage people to buy new printers to sell the new inks.

It's always been about the inks...

Jeff

I used to sell printers for a living and we made 1% on the hardware and 18% on the ink plus 30% on postage. It's about the ink and shipping. Also the manufacturers ability to keep producing drivers for OS's through the product lifecycle.

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Epson has been a lot better with software updates for older products than Canon is. When Canon were the only people making USB powered LED scanners, I, my wife and my daughter all had Canon LIDE scanners of various types. Canon failed to update the software for el Capitan let alone Sierra, so all three scanners are dead and will not communicated at all with our Macs. After the disaster with the Pixma Pro piece of c**p, that will be the last time I buy any Canon products. I also had one of their portable A4 battery printers, which failed one single day out of warranty, like apparently many others. Was there any ex-gratia offer to repair at a discounted price - of course not. I was very tempted to haul Canon UK into court under the EU's implied 6 year warranty for electronic items costing over £100, just to be bloody minded and make them spend money on lawyers but it was too difficult, as I would have been at my French house at the time. Yet another thing we will lose after Brexit. 

 

Wilson

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Epson has been a lot better with software updates for older products than Canon is. When Canon were the only people making USB powered LED scanners, I, my wife and my daughter all had Canon LIDE scanners of various types. Canon failed to update the software for el Capitan let alone Sierra, 

Wilson

 

Epson has supplied an updated driver for the R3000 on Sierre 10.12 - very nice of them I think. And even my wireless connection to the R3000 works which it did not on el Capitan. 

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I used to sell printers for a living and we made 1% on the hardware and 18% on the ink plus 30% on postage. It's about the ink and shipping. Also the manufacturers ability to keep producing drivers for OS's through the product lifecycle.

.

 

And I wouldn't be surprised if, after deep discounts, the printers become loss leaders for the manufacturers to move the inks.

 

Jeff

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.

 

And I wouldn't be surprised if, after deep discounts, the printers become loss leaders for the manufacturers to move the inks.

 

Jeff

 

Bulk orders achieved discounts that took the price well below list (to us) as long as the customer (mostly financial services) bought a years supply of ink per printer, the budget for ink was departmental and the budget for hardware held centrally. We interfaced centrally so their budgets looked fine, departmental consumables budgets are not focussed on in the same way! 

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.

 

And I wouldn't be surprised if, after deep discounts, the printers become loss leaders for the manufacturers to move the inks.

 

Jeff

 

Especially in the USA, where locked printers that cannot use third party carts are permitted. Locking a printer to OEM carts only is verboten in Europe. 

 

 

Wilson

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Especially in the USA, where locked printers that cannot use third party carts are permitted. Locking a printer to OEM carts only is verboten in Europe.

 

 

Wilson

Jon Cone, however, has typically found a way around Epson's safeguards. His replacement inks are more economical, but require more work.... for him and for customers.

 

Jeff

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Jon Cone, however, has typically found a way around Epson's safeguards. His replacement inks are more economical, but require more work.... for him and for customers.

 

Jeff

 

When I spoke to Dana a few months ago, she said they still had not solved the problem with the P800 for the USA but were selling replacement carts in Europe. I was interested, as I would leave a P800, should I buy one for the UK, over the summer when I am in France, with Jon Cone carts and Piezoflush in them. I use Jon Cone's 3880 carts for leaving the printer over the winter in France, with Piezoflush in them. After sorting the black blobs with Magic Bullet, it has worked very well. I had horrible problems when I used to leave an HP B9180 in France over the winter. Every spring, I had to replace one or more print heads, as they had irretrievably blocked. 

 

Wilson

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For those in the USA who have not yet bought a P800, the solution is to import one from Japan or Europe (using a 110-220V transformer). There are parts of Japan that are 100V and 50Hz and parts that are 220V and 60Hz, just to make life more complicated, as a result you often find Japanese market electronic equipment is multi-voltage/multi frequency (e.g. Krell Audio equipment). The Japanese/Asian/European P800's are not locked for third party carts. 

 

Wilson

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