[MaineNative]

For about 10 years, I had an Epson 3800 and had nozzles constantly plug. Eventually it died and I bought the Epson SureColor P800 and I have probably only done 1 cleaning cycle in 3 years! Much better nozzle performance.

I definitely use printer profiles. Early on I would buy 8x10 sample packs of different papers and do a test print with the profile and put them in a sample book. Certain papers have red or blue tints, so by printing a test sheet you can see how the paper/profiles combinations affect the same test photo when it is printed. Now I am down to just 3-4 papers I use depending on what I am printing.

For large prints like 16”x20”, I always buy a pack of 4x6 or 8.5x11 of the identical paper and print on the small size to check color and brightness before I do the large sheet.

I also have a friend who I do prints for. He pays me about half of what the photo lab would charge him, so that keeps the printer going and helps subsidize my ink and paper cost.

[biz-engineer]

Thanks all for the great feedbacks.

Would removing print head and wrapping it in foil work to prevent clogging when the printer isn't used for long time, and avoiding ink wasting cleaning cycles?

---------- Post added 09-04-21 at 18:58 ----------

Print on a regular basis.

One question I've never been able to answer is: would the printer still perform cleaning cycles if actual prints are being made during the theoretical cleaning intervals?
At first, I thought, if the automatic cleaning cycle is done every 72 hours (when no printing occur) and I space my print production by 72 hours, then no cleaning should occur, hence no ink wasted for cleaning.
But..... I've read somewhere (Canon Pro or EPSON Pro printer models), that the printer would still perform a cleaning cycle every 72 hours even if an actual print was produced, i.e cleaning events aren't postpones by making or not making prints.
I didn't find a way to check if that's true or not.

[stevejo]

I tend to keep my printer for just general purpose printing. On the rare occasions when I do a photo print it is always just a small post card print. Anything larger invariably produces a near perfect print until about an inch from the end when it screws up. Much cheaper in the long run to send off for a print from an online printer. If I remember right, my hp was cheaper than a full set of hp cartridges, so only use 3rd party ones now.

[TonyW]

Thanks all for the great feedbacks.

Would removing print head and wrapping it in foil work to prevent clogging when the printer isn't used for long time, and avoiding ink wasting cleaning cycles?

I suspect it may help prevent clogging but do nothing for the cleaning cycles. Even if it helps clogging issues removing a printhead (Canon and maybe HP only) it is likely to trigger new cycles once print head replaced, so may in fact increase ink usage?

One question I've never been able to answer is: would the printer still perform cleaning cycles if actual prints are being made during the theoretical cleaning intervals?
At first, I thought, if the automatic cleaning cycle is done every 72 hours (when no printing occur) and I space my print production by 72 hours, then no cleaning should occur, hence no ink wasted for cleaning.
But..... I've read somewhere (Canon Pro or EPSON Pro printer models), that the printer would still perform a cleaning cycle every 72 hours even if an actual print was produced, i.e cleaning events aren't postpones by making or not making prints.
I didn't find a way to check if that's true or not.

I believe your last paragraph to be correct. Cleaning and purging will occur regardless of the last print session. AFAIK these printers have a set of internal timers that trigger cleaning/purging cycles at the manufacturers required times. Canon for instance has/had a better reputation for lack of clogging than Epson (pro printers). The reason being that Canon triggered more cycles than Epson.

So really there is little that can be done to stop these mnfctr. cleaning cycles. But printing a nozzle check weekly should keep the printheads moistened enough to reduce the chance of clogging and prevent having to run another cleaning cycle in between the printers required.

[MaineNative]

The Epson pro printers have a permanent print head that can’t be removed and instead have removable reservoirs/ink cartridges. So with the Epson you can’t remove the print head. It does get parked on a rubber pad to keep it from drying out. My Epson SCP800 automatically powers down and parks the heads unlike the 3800 which didn’t automatically go to sleep.

One of my old HP printers had removable print heads built in the cartridge and that printer had a nifty little clamp that went over the nozzles when you switched from photo in to regular ink.

The Espson SCP800 printer will do a short cleaning cycle on power-up but that ink is nothing compared to the full manual nozzle cleaning, which was required with my old printer.

[biz-engineer]

Interesting stuff. Beside the acclaimed Canon and Epson printers, I've met a professional who is using an HP Z series printer. After having done some research , the HP offering looks interesting. HP uses thermal heads, like Canon. HP Z9 heads can be easily changed by user, like on the Canon Pro models. The HP have 5 removable heads, costing around $100 each to replace in case one is clogged and can't be unclogged, which is a lot cheaper than replacing a Canon head (~$500). HP 300ml ink tanks cost per ml is about the same as Canon pro cartridges, ~$0.5/ml. So the HP Z9+ looks like a better option to me.

[TonyW]

Yes, HP printers very good. I owned the HP B1980 until it finally died and even new print heads would not revive- shame HP lost interest in this semi pro level printer type.

Let us know what you think once you have purchased and installed and made your first prints

Sorta depends on why you're printing the pictures. If it's a commercial venture, selling prints & whatnot, I reckon that's part of the cost of doing business. If it's just personal desire to see what your pictures look like on paper, to give to friends, etc. I'd say, get a good color laser printer and forget about ion-deposition, inkjet, dye-sublimation and all those things that involve liquids.

[biz-engineer]

I'd say, get a good color laser printer and forget about ion-deposition, inkjet, dye-sublimation and all those things that involve liquids.

Until now, I used several labs / online, nothing beat the low cost C-prints (Fuji Crystal Archive DPII papers), the paper quality is decent but sometimes colors are a bit off, lack punch, the surface gets very easily scratched, and with uncontrolled color cast for black & white prints (sometimes slightly blue, sometime slightly magenta, or with a bit of yellow), I just have to pretend the toning was intentional . For premium prints however, labs charge between 3x and 4x the cost of ink+paper, and if I'd buy my own large format printer with pro ink tanks and paper rolls, the printer would be paid back after making 200 premium prints, I'd be virtually unlimited for the brand/type of paper I want to use, with no need to wait 10 days to receive prints from labs after uploading files.

---------- Post added 12-04-21 at 21:16 ----------

..Better so would be a large format photo printer owned by a local photo club / community for sharing costs over many members interested in making their own premium prints, yet at a reduced price.

[biz-engineer]

Unless printing 24h/day, cleaning ink on Canon Pro series seems to cost approximately $30 per month. It looks like buying an inkjet printer is like buying a monthly subscription of mobile network access, internet access, the principle of inkjet printers is that the flow of ink from tanks to nozzles should never stop, as a way to prevent nozzle clogging.

[Larrymc]

Thanks all for the great feedbacks.

Would removing print head and wrapping it in foil work to prevent clogging when the printer isn't used for long time, and avoiding ink wasting cleaning cycles?[COLOR="Silver"]

You would probably have to purge all of the residual ink from the print head if that is possible. If not the ink will dry inside the print head over time.

[biz-engineer]

You would probably have to purge all of the residual ink from the print head if that is possible. If not the ink will dry inside the print head over time.

I think you're right. Those systems require some regular, yet small flow of ink to keep nozzles clear. I thought about buying two set of ink cartridges: one OEM ink set and one non OEM set (cheaper ink), so that I could use the cheaper ink to maintain regular cleaning events, and swap to OEM ink before printing a batch of photos. Anyway, these machines are designed for high volume use, and not for low volumes printing.

[TonyW]

I think you're right. Those systems require some regular, yet small flow of ink to keep nozzles clear. I thought about buying two set of ink cartridges: one OEM ink set and one non OEM set (cheaper ink), so that I could use the cheaper ink to maintain regular cleaning events, and swap to OEM ink before printing a batch of photos. Anyway, these machines are designed for high volume use, and not for low volumes printing.

The problem with that method is that you would not be able to gauge when the cheap ink had actually flushed the OEM ink from the print head and you were using the cheap stuff for cleaning!


Additionally when you wanted to be sure of using OEM ink for a print run that needed to be archival you would need to flush out the cheap ink until you were sure no cheap ink remained. You may even notice a change over that could possibly ruin a print mid stream - good quality paper is expensive!

TBH if you are looking to purchase a pro printer you will need to make a decision to use either OEM or cheap ink, best practice is not to mix. You also need to be aware that cleaning cycles could use 30% of your ink cartridge for cleaning and account for that in your costings.

[Larrymc]

Unless printing 24h/day, cleaning ink on Canon Pro series seems to cost approximately $30 per month. It looks like buying an inkjet printer is like buying a monthly subscription of mobile network access, internet access, the principle of inkjet printers is that the flow of ink from tanks to nozzles should never stop, as a way to prevent nozzle clogging.

No actually keeping most inkjet printers functioning merely requires a weekly purge. If you use refillable cartridges and after market inks its relatively inexpensive to run an inkjet printer buying and using OEM ink cartridges gets outrageously expensive. I have found that once a week use of all the ink channels will usually keep them free of clogs. I use Qimage Ultimate as my printing program and it can be set to periodically run a purge job that uses a small amount of ink to keep the print head unclogged. Only problem is that if your printer uses a dedicated pigment black ink for black only printing it tends to clog easily but pigment black in is not normally used to print images.

I have basically "disabled" pigment in printing by telling the printer I'm using glossy photo paper so the printer becomes a dedicated photo printer. I have turned off the ink monitor nag and check my ink levels weekly and refill them as needed.

[madbrain]

There's a gentleman on youtube named Jose Rodriguez who has a series of videos that address this.
In my own case, I have a Canon Pro-100 and I follow his recommendations about refilling the ink cartridges.
It saves a lot of money and it's not even that messy after the first time.
I use Precision Color ink which is available in Canada and the USA. The only Canon ink I use is the yellow
because it doesn't blend well with the PC yellow. I understand that that will clot and make globs, etc.
The videos are worth checking out.

I use the same printer and the same ink. I use PC ink even for the yellow. Any OEM Canon cartridge can be flushed and dried. Jose Rodriguez shows you how to do this.
You need Windex to completely clear the remnants of Canon yellow ink.

---------- Post added 04-14-21 at 06:29 PM ----------

You would probably have to purge all of the residual ink from the print head if that is possible. If not the ink will dry inside the print head over time.

Yes, it's possible, and I have done so on the removable printhead for my Canon Pro-100. You can use a cleaning liquid, or even water. But you need to wait for it to dry afterwards.