[Arjay Bee]

Used faithfully since new and produced many images sold at markets and from passport photos to A3+. Software synched well with Photoshop and I could just rely on it to do what I wanted.

A week ago it stopped recognizing genuine Epson Cyan cartridges bought directly from Epson Australia. A web search gave me a number of options to trouble shoot:
1. Turn printer off - wait - turn on again- Result - no good effect
2. Clean cartridge chip and or adjust and clean chip reader pins on printer carriage - Result - no good effect
3. Re-install original printer driver software - seemed good but then reverted to original issue. - Result - no good effect
4. Although no printing was possible in these procedures the ink monitoring software indicated steady declines in the other seven cartridges... Result - bad effect

Deeper reading indicates that there was a major Epson driver upgrade in the last couple of weeks and that ink cartridges with encoded chip dates prior to a certain date can not be recognized.

Possibly true - but seems very paranoid and cynical. Any one else have this issue in the last few days???

One comment was that reverting to earlier software will have no effect as the firmware is irrevocably changed no matter what software is installed on the computer side.

I am very angry and frustrated as I have client work waiting to print and the only recourse is to purchase a new printer. I have an investment of about $300 of print cartridges in the drawer and a useless $900 printer on the desk.

Do I go with Epson again or do I get a similar featured machine from a competitor? Either way I am out another $1000.

What are your thoughts? I need a dedicated photo ink jet printer -( no scanner, no laser no copier, no roll capability, no wireless, no networking needed)

Canon Pixma Pro100 looks like a contender - more feedback on this as well please as there seems to be similar issues with this printer as well.

[rawr]

What did Epson Australia say about your problem?

[vonBaloney]

#1: I don't think there was any driver upgrade. Can you find one? (Maybe for Windows 8? Otherwise, I don't think they are even supporting this model any longer other than selling ink.)

#2: I don't think there is any upgradeable firmware in that printer either -- all in the driver so if there was in fact a new one, just use the old one.

More likely, is your printer is just broken. It is not the most reliable model. I went through 3 of them in a short span (replaced twice under warranty) before getting one that lasted for more than a little while (first one a few months, second one never worked, third one ok). But still, it is an ink-burner, color shift can occur with changing inks, etc etc. I have heard of many problems with it not recognizing cartridges, etc, but they are long-standing and old problems. When it works the results are awesome, but we do have to wrestle with it. Our next printer will be in the true pro class like the 3880 as the R1900 is(was) the low-end pro model and just isn't as well-made or supported. We sampled some of the new Canons but weren't terribly impressed. I wish the labs made better prints. For very large prints we must use lab, but there is no question our home-prints on the R1900 for the sizes it will handle are superior.

[Miguel]

Get a new printer or outsource the work. While it's great that the R1900 met your needs well, its technical capabilities have been surpassed by newer printers, especially for black and white work or for printing on non-glossy paper.

M

[vonBaloney]

Get a new printer or outsource the work. While it's great that the R1900 met your needs well, its technical capabilities have been surpassed by newer printers, especially for black and white work or for printing on non-glossy paper.

Ehhh...agree that some other printers are more reliable, and the R1900 is not well-suited to B&W, but our matte prints on the thing are gorgeous. As well as our standard "semi-gloss" -- our default paper is Ilford gold fiber silk. We actually don't use any high-gloss papers on it, although the metallic papers are fairly glossy I guess.

Don't want to hijack the thread, but I am wondering about with the higher-end models like the 3880. The R1900 has a "gloss optimizer" layer that is used only on gloss and semi-gloss papers, which makes a nice even print since the glossy papers all have their own sheen plus it keeps the actual ink thickness on the paper even for white areas. Also it creates a clearly defined border if you've got white along the edges of a print with a border (instead of paper white "bleeding" into the print if you know what I mean.) In other words, it always prints *something* on the whole print area for glossy papers, even if it is just this basically clear layer. None of the other models have this layer that I know of -- unless I'm just mistaken -- are white areas of the print pure "paper white" (prints nothing there) on other higher-end models? (Those that use pigment ink.)

[philbaum]

Used faithfully since new and produced many images sold at markets and from passport photos to A3+. Software synched well with Photoshop and I could just rely on it to do what I wanted.

........

I am very angry and frustrated as I have client work waiting to print and the only recourse is to purchase a new printer. I have an investment of about $300 of print cartridges in the drawer and a useless $900 printer on the desk.

Do I go with Epson again or do I get a similar featured machine from a competitor? Either way I am out another $1000.

What are your thoughts? I need a dedicated photo ink jet printer -( no scanner, no laser no copier, no roll capability, no wireless, no networking needed)

Canon Pixma Pro100 looks like a contender - more feedback on this as well please as there seems to be similar issues with this printer as well.

Here's a thread on the dpreview site about a comparison between R3000, Canon pixma pro 1 and pro 10, don't know about pro 100.

Epson R3000 and Canon Pro 1 Printers: Printers and Printing Forum: Digital Photography Review

I like my R3000 and right now its discounted with rebate down to about $550 in the US. Australia has a different pricing structure. But in the above thread, its discussed about the advantages of going with a printer that has 3rd party reuseable carts and ink support. The R3000 has that, but support for other Canon printers is spotty apparently, don't have personal knowledge of that situation at the moment.

As my post in that thread attests, i use the roll feature a lot for canvas prints (small of course). Have yet to try a paper roll so can't speak to that. Canvas straightens easily, apparently paper takes more deliberate action.

good luck to you in sorting this out. i have a hard time believing that Epson would issue a firmware that effectively disabled older carts - seems like that would be a major blot on their reputation if true.

[reeftool]

I can't help much with the Epson but I have had good results through the years with Canon printers. I'm currently using the Pixma Pro 9000 Mark II which I believe is older version than the Pro 100 and lacks the wireless. The print quality is superb and has been in use for a few years now. It isn't very fast which is my only gripe. The ink is also reasonable although nobody's ink is cheap. If I was to replace my printer today, I would choose the Pro 100 because of the wireless capability. The price is the same.

[Arjay Bee]

What did Epson Australia say about your problem?

Only noticed after work hours Friday so that is a conversation I have yet to have - I am a little more philosophical now so they won't get the earful I was planning a couple of days ago.

More likely, is your printer is just broken. It is not the most reliable model ... The R1900 has a "gloss optimizer" layer that is used only on gloss and semi-gloss papers, which makes a nice even print since the glossy papers all have their own sheen plus it keeps the actual ink thickness on the paper even for white areas..

Hi VB: I was not aware that this was the case with this model - I was aware of the color shifts but as I said, this machine was quite reliable in the past and I have probably recouped the original capital outlay in print sales. Look for a collection of Printer inks on the Market Place in the near future..

I agree with you on the efficacy of the Gloss Optimizer. A lot of my work is producing ID photos - (A bit of a waste on an A3+ capable printer but it does pay for the cartridges) and I and the passport office have been very happy with the way the images look for this very specialised use. Reviews of the Pro-10 over the Pro-100 indicate that the pigment inks work much better for skin tones as the Pro-100 gives a more saturated look - would love to see some examples of both but I live along way away from real printer samples in retail outlets.

Get a new printer or outsource the work. While it's great that the R1900 met your needs well, its technical capabilities have been surpassed by newer printers, especially for black and white work or for printing on non-glossy paper.

Hi Miguel - yes I will be getting a new machine as I am unable to outsource. I have thought about doing that but I live in a remote part of Queensland and the nearest commercial printer is at least 900kms away and the parcel delivery is very slow to patchy at times - unreliable to say the least - a lot of my custom is by people wanting prints at short notice for various purposes and are unable to outsource themselves and I am the defacto print service. I will be looking forward to printing more B&W as the R1900 was rather good at printing unwanted sepias, cyanotypes and duotones in unpredictable ways instead of the lovely B&W images I was looking at on screen.

good luck to you in sorting this out. i have a hard time believing that Epson would issue a firmware that effectively disabled older carts - seems like that would be a major blot on their reputation if true.

Thanks for that Phil, - I have the same belief but bad code sometimes occurs - I did notice an update occurring as it appeared in my download notification file. Who knows if that was indeed the problem...?

Thank you all for your thoughts. Collectively a lot of wisdom and experience reflected in the considered responses I have received. Thank you for the time you have taken to give me very full answers.

[rawr]

You probably know of this site, but just in case ... they do some pretty decent printer reviews and they have looked into the Pixma Pro 10 and 100. They are also local, so all the prices etc they cite are AUD:

Printers - Photo Review

[Arjay Bee]

Thank you for the link Rawr. Made for very useful reading. Will let you know how "discussions" with Epson go tomorrow.

[grhazelton]

I used the Epson R 1800 for several years and was generally pleased with it. I recently bought a Canon Pixma Pro 100 and the print quality is at least the equal in color and in BW far superior to the R 1800.

Now the caveats.

The Pro 100 is a dye printer. While dye print permanency has improved I doubt it can equal that of pigment ink prints. Canon's statements about print life are based on using their papers and thus may not apply to quality papers from other makers.

While there are third party refill inks available there are no continuous ink systems, various vendors have stated that such are very unlikely due to the printer's design.

The waste ink pad problem, common apparently to all desk-top printers, can for the Epson R 1800 and perhaps for later Epson printers be easily overcome by an external ink tank and a software "fix." On my Epson it involved removing the right hand end cap and splicing in two lines to the tank, which I Velcroed to the back of the printer. On the Pro 100 it looks much more involved. I'm still contemplating the effort.

That said, the Pro 100 is currently available for $99.00 along with a pack of 50 sheets 13 x 19 Canon paper after a $300 rebate from Adorama and B & H. What's not to like about that?? Details of the rebate are spelled out on Adorama's site.

[Arjay Bee]

I used the Epson R 1800 for several years and was generally pleased with it. I recently bought a Canon Pixma Pro 100 and the print quality is at least the equal in color and in BW far superior to the R 1800.

Now the caveats.

The Pro 100 is a dye printer. While dye print permanency has improved I doubt it can equal that of pigment ink prints. Canon's statements about print life are based on using their papers and thus may not apply to quality papers from other makers.

While there are third party refill inks available there are no continuous ink systems, various vendors have stated that such are very unlikely due to the printer's design.

The waste ink pad problem, common apparently to all desk-top printers, can for the Epson R 1800 and perhaps for later Epson printers be easily overcome by an external ink tank and a software "fix." On my Epson it involved removing the right hand end cap and splicing in two lines to the tank, which I Velcroed to the back of the printer. On the Pro 100 it looks much more involved. I'm still contemplating the effort.

That said, the Pro 100 is currently available for $99.00 along with a pack of 50 sheets 13 x 19 Canon paper after a $300 rebate from Adorama and B & H. What's not to like about that?? Details of the rebate are spelled out on Adorama's site.

Well the nearest approved repairer stated that it would be uneconomical to attempt to fix.the Epson.
Will now be saving for a new printer and have purchased a small Canon to fill the breach in the mean time. Prices in Australia are 7 times the one you have quoted unfortunately.

Thank you all for your input.

[T Evergreen]

Grhazelton (or anyone else), regarding your use of the Pixma Pro 100, can you give a ballpark figure on how many prints one could expect from one set of Canon ink cartridges, printing color and/or b/w? Also, if you've tried any third-party inks, can you address how they compared to the Canon inks and what brand you used? I realize it depends on what you're printing and the size of the prints, but any comments in these areas would be appreciated. I've no experience in color printing, but for $99 after rebate that printer may be something to give printing a try.