ink consumption

[matti_koskinen]

What's the point of having individual cartridges? I got my Epson R1800 a week

ago. I printed appr. 65 A4 sized prints (mostly B&W with QTR) and few super-B

prints, until the matte black run out. Well, I changed it and then came the

surprise:

The change consumed about 25% of ink from all the eight carts, meaning that ink

equvivalent to two carts of ink was consumed. I wonder whats the point of

changing one ink cart, as you might as well change them all. Having low ink

level in some carts, means that after the change, it's going to be very soon to

change them as well, and other more full carts empties again to the level, where

they must be changed etc...

 

Have others noticed this kind of performance? I hadn't used glossy paper at all,

so no photo black and glop were used but now they are down to 75%.

 

Outrageous performance.

 

-matti

[beauh44]

Hi Matti, I don't own the Epson R1800 but I do have an old Epson 2200 and while changing a cartridge does use a little ink, it doesn't use anything close to 25%! That is crazy because one of the reasons to use individual cartridges is actually to *save* ink. For example, on my printer it really gulps down two of the six inks. (I think "Light Magenta and Light Cyan" so I buy a lot more of those than say the Yellow. You might try contacting Epson and asking them if this is normal behavior for your printer because losing a quarter of your ink each time you change a cartridge wouldn't be acceptable to me either. Good luck!

[conrad_hoffman]

My Canon i9900 will use a lot of photo cyan, photo magenta, and maybe yellow, depending on what i print. It sips tiny amounts of the other colors, unless I print something like business graphics. Thus, I save a large amount of money compared to something like my old HP Photosmart, which ate $34 tricolor cartridges for breakfast, wasting almost two thirds of the ink in the process.

[steven_clark]

Also keep in mind a good chunk of the first set of cratridges is used for the initial system charge. This means the "Full" of the first set of cartridges is a bit smaller than on subsequent ones. This might easily magnify the effects of a charging cycle on the screen. Another thing to keep in mind is that unused inks are going to clog in the print head so the printer runs the occasional cleaning cycle on it's own for example before printing after a significant idle time and on power on. That's probably where most of the ink went. If you're printing more than a few times a week it's often better to just leave the printer on.

[bill_tuthill]

If I recall correctly, Epson started offering individual cartridges

only after Canon did so. This is one reason that Canon printers

had lower operating costs according to Consumer Reports. And yes,

power-on and cleaning cycles consume a lot of ink in Epson models.

I doubt it would be as high as 25% -- perhaps Epson software is

misrepresenting ink levels, intentionally or not.

[matti_koskinen]

I changed the magenta and cyan carts now. The ink levels of the remaining inks didn't drop as dramatically as in the first time. Actually the drop was very small. Now remembering, the yellow ink which was about 50% full, didn't drop so badly in the first place. Only the inks that showed full, dropped this 25%. Second cart change made them drop perhaps only 1-2%, so it seems it was the first time only. Which is ok, but now I know and hopefully others too.

I have my printer constantly on, so the cleaning cycles happen very seldom. Actually I had had only one cleaning cycle, when the printer sat idle one day and the other day I started to print, it made cleaning cycle automatically.

Maybe the ink level indicators don't tell the whole truth, priming the head first time consumes surely ink, but that didn't show in the levels.

 

thanks for your replies

 

-matti

[JeffOwen]

My Canon i9950 has 8 tanks and you can select one of two groups or all to be cleaned. Sounds good but if only one ink colour needs to be flushed then at least four others are too. I find this very wasteful and like you very frustrating. The manufactures give the ability to test each of the coloured jets so why not the ability to clean each individually. I think it is very mean.

[steven_clark]

Could be a glitch in the drivers that when you replace a cartridge it stops covering up the ink that was used in the initial charge.

[isaul_vargas]

I know that the R1800 and R2400 use up 1/3 of total ink volume when you change from Photo Black to Matte Black, but it shouldn't use that much ink for a replacement.

[peten]

Try ssc service utility--more control over head cleaning etc.--GOOGLE IT.