2017-06-14 by jon@...
re: "
But... the question I posed originally remains: what are people actually doing? What are some options for those of us who want to print 17" wide using a monochrome inkset (Paul's or Jon's)?"
Just get a free 4900. It's a 17" printer built to a much higher standard then the 3880.
Epson inks do not perform well in Epson 4900, 7900 and 9900 printers. One clogged channel and these printers are of no use to a pro shop and may private users who print with OEM inks. They are opting to replace them with a new SureColor (which unfortunately uses the same exact print heads). But nearly every State in the Union prevents the discard of digital equipment. So they sit in corners or are put on palettes in preparation for responsible di$po$al. So many of our customers are picking them up for free. Cone Editions has several 4900, 7900 and 9900 printers we got for free and fully recovered with PiezoFlush. We will pick up another in 10 days. We actually teach workshops on printers we got for free. We even donated a 4900 to Maine Media College to their Historical Alt-Process Center that we fully recovered with PiezoFlush.
PiezoDN requires just 6 working ink channels.
Piezography K7 matte only or Piezography Pro matte only requires just 7 working channels.
Piezography P2 matte and glossy requires just 8 working channels.
Piezography Pro gloss only requires just 8 working channels.
Piezography Pro matte and glossy requires just 9 working channels, although we also have a version for 10 working ink channels.
They are bigger than the 3880 - but they feed paper well and Piezography inks perform better than OEM due to particle size, better filtration, and we use acrylic rather than polyester for the encapsulation material around each pigment particle. So you can get a lot of life out of someone else's abandoned color printer. Any unused channels you just keep in PiezoFlush to preserve them in case you lose a working channel.
That's what we are doing currently. That's what many of our customers are doing.
NO use paying for a new printer when so many free ones are available. Search on Craigslist. Look for fresh printer cadavers of no more than 3 months sitting and you may be able to recover the clogged channels with PiezoFlush. But try and get one where you can nozzle check it and confirm you have enough ink channels to run the Piezography system of your choice. We provide tools for remapping Piezography Curves to match your available ink channels.
best,
Jon Cone
Piezography