Pigmant inks and head clogs: not GAS, but indigestion

[DanK]

I have been mulling over moving up from my Pixma Pro 100. It prints gorgeous prints, but it has two disadvantages. One is size: it's limited to 13 x 19 (A3 +, I believe). Every time I get used to printing at one size, I want something bigger. The second is that it uses dye-based inks, and while the OEM inks for this printer are unusually durable for dye inks, they don't come close to matching pigments, and I would want to use pigment inks down the road if I start to sell prints, rather than giving them away as I do now.

This was just a glint in my eye until recently, something I figured I would deal with down the road. However, because of a couple of factors, I can go two steps up, to the the Canon prograf Pro 1000, for more than 60% off if I buy it before the end of October. It's an expensive printer, so that is a big discount.

That printer uses pigment inks. I'm posting here to see if anyone has relevant experience with head clogs. One of the great things about my current printer is that it is simply impossible to clog the head. I've left the printer idle for half a year with no problems. Clearly, that is more of a risk with any pigment printer, but how big a risk is it with current technology? I suspect that there will continue to be times when I don't print for a month or two.

[Manfred M]

Dan - pigment inks have been used for fine art prints for a very long time. I did some research on printers and had discussions with people who do a lot of this type of work. One of my contacts spends about 3 - 5 hours printing every day.

1. Modern pigment ink based printers do not clog any more than dye based printers do. These pigment based printers have been designed to handle pigment based inks. The worst performing ink jet printers I ever owned were two different Canon Bubble Jet printers; both used dye-based inks and were clogging all the time.

2. Stories of clogging printers (of any kind) have been greatly exaggerated. So far as I can tell there was some truth to the stories but there is a bit of a caveat here and it. Production printers that were designed for high volume use did not always do well in environments where they were not used regularly.

The Epson 4900 was problematic unless it was used virtually every day. It's smaller siblings, both the Epson 3800 and 3880 virtually never clogged. It is the only one that stands out as being one I would not buy.

My printer use was similar to yours and I only had one nozzle clog in the 7 years I owned a 3880. In retrospect, I suspect that the clog was likely an early sign of impending print head failure rather than something else happening. So far the Epson P800 is working like a charm and I am about to really ramp up my printing again after having been away from it for three weeks.

[DanK]

Manfred,

thanks. This is helpful. however, I think your experience is more positive than many. There are a lot of reports of clogging on the web. I googled "epson clogged head" without the quotes and got 177,000 hits. Many of these are old, of course, so they don't speak to your point about improvements in technology. Still, I don't think we are free and clear. Googling "Epson P800" clogged head, with the quotation marks, got me almost 11,000 hits. The generally very positive review of the prograf 100 on Luminous Landscape starts a paragraph on the printer's clog management features with this: "All pigment inkjet printers develop nozzle clogs." It stands to reason, given that there are solids suspended in the ink.

The large majority of the reports I have read have involved Epson printers (mostly older models), but that doesn't really say much, as I suspect the large majority of pigment printers are Epsons. I suspect that is why there are more reports of clogged heads on Epsons. E.g., searching "prograf 1000" clogged head gets only 513 hits, but this is a new and relatively uncommon printer.

leaving that aside, I have been hunting for reviews comparing the Epson P800 with the Canon Prograf 1000. there aren't many, but they all conclude that the differences are mostly bells and whistles and that the images are nearly indistinguishable, although with slightly deeper blacks on the Canon.

The other difference, based on scattered and perhaps unrepresentative reports, is that the people who have posted about customer service seem to rate Epson's service less well.

I don't think I can recall anyone on this site discussing first hand experience with any of the Canon pigment printers.

Dan

[Manfred M]

Dan - part of the reason of Epson versus Canon printers is that my understanding is that Epson sells considerably more photo printers than Canon does. The photo store I deal with suggested that ~75% - 80% of their photo printer sales are Epson models, predominantly the P600 and P800. I don't know how that compares with other stores. Both Epson and Canon "pro" photo printers used pigment based inks.

Any ink that dries out, regardless of whether they are pigment or dye based, will cause clogs. That was certainly my experience with dye printers.

[russellsnr]

Hi, Just my 2 pence worth. I do not print for sale just for myself. I had an Epson R300 glog and in the bin, R1400 Glog and in the bin, R1900 glog and??? the R1900 I used Epson pigment ink. I bought a cheap Canon ix 6850 and in nearly two years (touch wood) never a smell of a glog. I don't print every day but I do use Qimage and ran the un-glog option every three days on all of these printers yet the Epson still had the glog problem I also tried to un-glog with Windex on the R1900 and it worked a couple times but became a PITA. If I buy another printer it will be Canon. Russ.

[george013]

With clog you mean dried ink in the printer head?
I've a HP OfficeJet printer, such a All-in-one. I hardly print colors that's why most of the money I spent on the ink is replacing old ink. It does have a detachable printer head I can clean in warm water. And then let the printerhead being cleaned by the printer. Costs a lot of ink.
The fact that I clean the head in warm water tells me also something about the ink being waterproof.

George

[Shadowman]

Dan,

Check out Jose Rodriguez's YouTube channel if you want some good back and forth on the pros and cons of pigment based printers. Keep in mind that some of his comments might get your warranty voided as he's a big advocate of CIS.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRaI-5oyoNk


Also, B & H does a webinar ever so often which can be informative, I find that a visual demonstration provides a better understanding of issues printing from home can generate. Personally, I get the warning from my Epson P5000 that my system needs a strong cleaning even though I print at least 3 or 4 images per week, the thing is not every cartridge is used for each print but I do believe each cartridge gets charged a bit when the printer is initiated.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxxqN_5mNo0&t=628s

[DanK]

Thanks, folks. Yes, to be clear, I mean dried ink clogging the head. I'm not looking for general advice about printing; I have been printing a long time and usually can produce what I want. Specifically, what I am looking for is:

1. To what extent have the newest printers (specifically, the Epson P800 and Canon Prograf 1000) reduced the problem of clogging? What is the probability that I'll run into this?
2. What can be done to reduce this problem? One obvious thing is printing frequently, but how frequently?
3. Which of the two is better in this respect?

With respect to #1, I can't find any trustworthy data. People who have had good experiences are less likely to post than people who have had bad experiences. It's clear that the problem hasn't been eliminated, but I can't discern how much it has been reduced or what probability of disaster awaits.

With respect to #2, the only answer I can find is 'more is better than less', but it presumably depends on variables such as humidity and temperature.

With respect to #3, based on features other than the probability of clogging, my reading of reviews suggests that if one doesn't want to use paper in rolls, the Canon is a slightly better printer, but I can't find anything I trust so far that compares the probability of clogs. There are so many more Epsons than Canons, as Manfred pointed out, that the frequency of complaints online doesn't indicate the underlying difference in rates. Moreover, the prograf 1000 is relatively new. I have read posts that purport to explain why thermal heads (Canon) are less prone to clogs than piezoelectric (Epson), but I am not sure I believe them.

I think I slightly misspoke when I said that none of my Canon dye-based printers have ever clogged, even after long periods of inactivity. What I should have written, to be more precise, is that none of them ever needed any attention from me. There were a few times when the printer's self-cleaning cycle went on for a time that seemed longer than normal, although I didn't time it, and perhaps that was cleaning a clog. But I have never received a warning from one of these printers, have never had to anything to clean the heads, and never had a print that showed signs of a clog. This is true of multi-purpose printers (I have had three, one a replacement that failed mechanically after half a dozen years or more) and dedicated photo printers (I have had two, the first a Pixma Pro 9000 II and now a Pro-100 that came bundled with my 5DIII some years ago).