Epson 3880 Ink Shelf Life

[wapiza]

Hello,

I am in the market for a new printer and have pretty much convinced myself on Epson 3880. Except I still have one nagging doubt on the huge ink cartridges. I know all about the lower cost per print, the lower cost/ml of ink vs say the 2880 etc etc. What concerns me is shelf life. The specificaiton says the shelf life is 6 months once the cartridge is open. I do not expect to do a huge amount of printing and so fully expect that I will still have ink in the cartridges after 6 months. Replacing them every six months will be hugely expensive. Of course I do not expect the ink will completely become useless after six months. Stil...

Sooo.. does anybody have any direct experience? Is shelf life really an issues?

Thanks for your input.

[ALSto]

I have this printer and do not do much printing. I have not run through one ink cartridge yet on any colour in 9 months and still prints properly. Printer is a in a cool area and I do turn it off when not in use for a few days.

Not sure when I will replace the cartridges but hopefully they won't mess up the plumbing. Maybe I should print Christmas cards now!

[Shadowman]

Aren't you supposed to remove cartridges when they will not be used for a long period of time? I know with most ink jet printers cleaning the nozzles is necessary even with frequent use. How expensive are these cartridges?

[Colin Southern]

Aren't you supposed to remove cartridges when they will not be used for a long period of time? I know with most ink jet printers cleaning the nozzles is necessary even with frequent use. How expensive are these cartridges?

I wouldn't. If they're installed then they're sealed to the ink lines ... if you remove them then things will start drying out, and that's when the problems start.

[Colin Southern]

Hello,

I am in the market for a new printer and have pretty much convinced myself on Epson 3880. Except I still have one nagging doubt on the huge ink cartridges. I know all about the lower cost per print, the lower cost/ml of ink vs say the 2880 etc etc. What concerns me is shelf life. The specificaiton says the shelf life is 6 months once the cartridge is open. I do not expect to do a huge amount of printing and so fully expect that I will still have ink in the cartridges after 6 months. Replacing them every six months will be hugely expensive. Of course I do not expect the ink will completely become useless after six months. Stil...

Sooo.. does anybody have any direct experience? Is shelf life really an issues?

Thanks for your input.

Hi Wapiza,

Sorry, I missed your initial post in this thread. I run an Epson 7800, and have carts that run well past their best by date with no problems. Not sure about the 3880, but the 7800 uses a lot of ink if one does a power clean (which is needed to flush blocked nozzles from time to time) - this can end up consuming more ink than actual prints.

For what it's worth, I've recently switched to Lyson inks; I'm having less issues with clogging, and the carts are about 1/3 the cost of genuine Epson carts ($800 to fill the printer with Lyson carts, over $2000 with Epson carts) (New Zeland dollars).