Epson R1900... or Epson P800

[im_mcguire]

Ok so here is the deal.  I have a Epson 1900 Kicking around the shop that Ive used for color proofs for years.  The thing is, it no longer prints color that great.  I was considering turning that into an all black printer and getting accurip.

But would I be better off just getting the Epson P800 with accurip, and make my swap over easier, and have the option to print 17" wide?

Right now I have been using my 24" wide Epson 7880 printing all inks at 100%, and not getting a true opaque black, and I can tell in my films they are not dark enough, but it works for 95% of my spot color work.

Not sure which way to go...  Any input would be appreciated!!

[mimosatexas]

having just switched over to a 4800 with single channel accuink, I would suggest going that route with your 7880 unless you absolutely need it for other printing (posters etc). My films are ridiculously black...

[im_mcguire]

having just switched over to a 4800 with single channel accuink, I would suggest going that route with your 7880 unless you absolutely need it for other printing (posters etc). My films are ridiculously black...

Yeah, the 7880 is for my family's offset print side of the business. I am trying to get away from that at the moment. There is a 4880 on craigslist now I might look into. Can I ask what it took to get it over to the accuink? I'm still new at this.

[mimosatexas]

I literally JUST setup my 4800, and honestly it ended up being easier than I thought with some research and some help from Pierre on a small, odd issue.  Basically, buy refillable carts and a chip resetter.  Fill all 8 of them with a mixture of windex and iso alcohol, run a bunch of power cleanings and flushes until everything is nice and clear, then you just insert the single accuink cart and run some test prints through accurip. 

Of course, there could be substantial issues with the printer that aren't immediately obvious, but mine was literally not printing ANYTHING on nozzle checks and had crusted ink in random places, and I barely had to do anything technical to get it to pretty much 100%.  The carts, cleaning fluid, and accuink set me back less than $300 (not counting accurip of course), and the whole process took maybe 2 or 3 hours and one night for the cleaning fluid to breakup whatever clogs were in the lines and nozzles.

[mimosatexas]

I'll elaborate and link you to some pdf's and videos that I found helpful as well. Should have some time tonight.

[im_mcguire]

Thank you very much @mimosatexas!!!

[blue moon]

having just switched over to a 4800 with single channel accuink, I would suggest going that route with your 7880 unless you absolutely need it for other printing (posters etc). My films are ridiculously black...

Yeah, the 7880 is for my family's offset print side of the business. I am trying to get away from that at the moment. There is a 4880 on craigslist now I might look into. Can I ask what it took to get it over to the accuink? I'm still new at this.

here's what it takes:
buy Accuink. Remove old black cartridge and insert Accuink cartridge.
DONE!

you will have to run the black prints of some sort until the Accuink gets all the way through the hoses, but just print a big black square and keep reprinting it until the ink changes color (Accuink is darker).

pierre

[blue moon]

mimo had few other things to sort out, but if your printer is working, all you need to do is put the new cartridge in. If you are going to be using it for film output only, it does not matter if some of your heads are clogged. Our main 4800 has only Yellow channel working properly so that's the one we use to print. We do have to switch the chips in order to get the cartridge working with the printer, but that takes 15 seconds. . .

pierre

[im_mcguire]

Hey Blue Moon quick question for you, or anyone else out there...

On my 7880 could I replace one of the blacks with a chromaline cart, and still use the 7880 as a proofing printer as well as a film output printer?

[blue moon]

Hey Blue Moon quick question for you, or anyone else out there...

On my 7880 could I replace one of the blacks with a chromaline cart, and still use the 7880 as a proofing printer as well as a film output printer?

you could do that, but would need to calibrate the printer so it delivers the correct results with the new ink. Accuink is much darker and denser than regular black ink so it will not blend as well. Running color calibration should fix that.

for proofing we use a color laser, it is just a lot less headache. We paid $500 for a Toshiba 2830C (was originally $14K, we did have to spend few hundred to bring it up on consumables though) which will print, copy, scan, store and fax. This thing will scan 60 pages per minute, store files on the hard drive (all our forms are on it and if anybody needs something they just go there and print 100 pieces of dryer checklists for example. We also have a new employee package on it so when hiring, we press a couple of buttons and a full set of all the forms comes out.). It prints 28 pages per minute in full color, will print duplex, shrink, blow up and sort pages any way you want them. I have a preset where I can scan documents and it goes on a confidential folder on the server (so employees can't read it). It is our main printer, the consumables are rated for 25,000 pages unlike the consumer level toners which are usually 4-8,000 and so on. . .
here's somebody selling them on the net for $750. 'no idea who they are, it was the first hit when I googled it:

http://www.thecopierstore.net/product/toshiba-e-studio-2830c

pierre