Buy a cheap broken Epson 4900, hack it and have a great film printer!

[ffokazak]

Just sharing what worked for us with the Epson 4900.

I have been fixing these things Epson Inkjets for years... Who hasn't on this board right? We've had the 3000, 4000, 4800, 4880, 1520, and then I saw a 4900 with clogged print heads for 200$. {Canadian, so thats like 140$ USD  )

I had plans of unclogging the heads and then flipping the machine, if it could print all 11 heads perfectly. Even used these 4900's are still pricey. I have brought back the 4800 and 4000 from full 100% clogged with only ammonia, and about 3 days. So what could be different with the 4900 right?  Well this beast has some head issues. It was a common problem for the heads in the 4900 to jam permanently.  Read any photo printing forum, and there is a ton of them. Epson even had a recall if I remember  correctly.

This is perfect for the screen printers, And Ill share what we did that has been working for a while.

I tried to clear all the nozzles. It worked with about half of the colours, but there were some that were never clear. Black + Matte black in particular were shot.

There were some that were perfect, like Light Light black.  I had the idea of cutting open the paper on the cartridges, and swapping the bags. Use a screwdriver to pry open the cartridges, and there is a bag that you just drop in and swap. Clip back the covers and reinsert the cartridges. Now you have a head that can print photo black.

I use accurip, and I just select the individual cartridges I want to use, and it prints only with those colours.

I now have printer that in my opinion, is the most reliable epson Ive ever used. The 4800 drive me nuts, it almost had a mind of its own. Trying to get new OS X operating systems to communicate with decade + old printers is something I can do with out.  Plus the cost of the ink is amazing. I have a backup 1430 and those tiny cartridges do not last long thats for sure... Ive gone through one cartridge of black in about 5 rolls of 17" film on the 4900.

Anyways, forgive me if this has been covered before, but I just wanted to share with you guys in case anyone sees an cheap clogged 4900.

Cheers!

[jsheridan]

The 4900 is about the worst printer they ever made , stay as far away from it as you can. 

To get it to work right for film output is a mess, just ask JBLUE as he's tweeked the heck outa his and it's still a pile of horseshit.

Stick with a  4880  for film is you're still using inkjet.

[blue moon]

I like the idea of finding a defective printer, but as you said, 4900 has issues. It sounds like the 4800 is not working well with OSX, so for those folks 4880 might be a better choice. We have a couple of 4800s and are pretty happy with them on the Windows computers.

At $150 it is a steal and a phenomenal film printing machine as long as it lasts, which can easily be years!

pierre

[ffokazak]

Yeah that would be the biggest factor for me, is the compatibility of OS X . I could never get the older ones to work consistently. Always battling the damn things. Printing half films, needing to reinstall the drivers, stuff like that. Seems like weekly I was inventing new curse words working with those things. Maybe windows if different? We don't use any windows computers, except for our laser cutter so I'm not sure.

The 4900 is / has been flawless for us for the last 6 months, not sure the problems the other fellow was faced with. Films are super dark, the roll printing features work perfectly and besides the heads that are already clogged, the ones we use are flawless even after sitting for long weekends etc.

To each his own I guess, I personally think for a couple hundred bucks this printer is great.

[blue moon]

To each his own I guess, I personally think for a couple hundred bucks this printer is great.

agreed!!!

pierre

[beanie357]

Only issues we have had is getting working aftermarket refillable carts.
Found a set from Jesus that works.
Does 30-40 films a day, everyday.

[TCT]

This is funny, because I just finished cursing my 4900. I am a sucker for a deal, so I just so happened to have a 4800 that was perfect in my basement. Brought it up and it is literally sitting on top of the 4900. The 4900 cut faster, but the 4800 prints faster. I have 3 heads on the 4800 printing black and I had 6 heads printing black!

The 4900 had a issue where it would not read that a cartridge was in. I would have to remove and insert the cartridge 5-10 times and it would read it for 1 film! I damn near went office space on that mofo!