Hi, Has anyone any advice to offer on choosing a continuous flow inkset fro Epson R2400 ? I am looking for a pigment inkset and I print colour only on fine art matte media.
Thanks.

The problem here appears to be that those who deal with fine art rarely use CIS (continuous ink(ing) systems). The cost of the original ink is relatively easily offloaded on the customers, and Epson's inks have well-known aging and colour accuracy attributes.

A CIS may technically use original Epson ink if you break open Epson ink containers, but that seems rather cumbersome and risky (e.g. tiny plastic parts where you might not want them).

If your use is primarily personal or for bulk, short-term use where predictable colour accuracy isn't very important, just Google it. This is big business.

Some suppliers also boast high ink quality and satisfied customers, and of course you can profile a printer with CIS too.

MIS (inksupply.com) is an old hat in the game and has a fairly wide variety of offerings, and claim high quality and high fade resistance. I cannot personally vouch for that, and I don't have personal knowledge of fine art photographers who use their products.

JKR

lots of people have said this before, but it's worth saying again -

The main reason for buying an Epson K3 printer is for the K3 inkset. It is now an industry standard for permanence, gamut, B/W neutrality, and everyone does profiles for it. If you are making prints for sale, then K3 is the assurance of quality your clients will prefer.

There might be some point to purchasing a CIS and filling it with Epson K3 ink from the large 220ml cartridges for the big printers. But more sensibly, if you want lower ink cost and bigger carts, trade in the 2400 and get a 3800 instead.

Best wishes

John

Another thought is that the machine was designed to work properly with the proprietary inks and putting another ink in it can and does cause problems not to mention voiding the warranty. I had an Epson 2200 and decided to use the Lyson cave print bulk system and very quickly, it started clogging up and eventually I was unable to completely clean the heads so they would work. Basically, I trashed a printer to save a few bucks on ink. Of course, it was because the ink carts were so small for that machine and I was always buying replacement carts.

Luck may be involved here. I have a 2100 and installed a Lyson CIS with the photochrome pigment inks just about 2 years ago. Apart from once when I let a line run dry it has worked flawlessly (and then it was just a hassle re-priming the cartridge). I print exclusively on Photo Rag 308 in colour with a custom profile and cannot now tell for the prints I reprinted when first installing the system whether a particular print was made on the original cartridges or the Lyson inks. Never managed to get it work particularly well with B&W though - but then never managed decent B&W with the Epson inks either.

Thanks for all your help. I think I will just stick with the ink carts for the time being.
JKR

The safest way to reduce ink cost per print is to buy a bigger printer, i.e. an Epson 3800 or even 7800, even if most of your prints will be no bigger than 13x19". This basically cuts your ink cost in half, and you can figure out how soon this will pay off for you depending on how many prints you make.
Third-party continuous flow ink systems are a crap-shoot. The actual mechanical design varies from okay to dubious; one I used for Piezography BW inks on an Epson 1280 was atrocious and required constant fiddling to keep the tubing from fouling the moving print head. Third party inks from no-name sources are likely to yield poor quality, while name-brand sources like MIS and Lyson won't save that much money once you factor in the cost of the set-up. My two attempts at using third party inks on Epson printers both ended in fatal head clogs.

i agree. if by reducing the cost of your inks is going to help u make more sales.
u lost allready.

i use to sell 3 type of printing service cheep, moderate, and expensive.
the cheep or selling based on have the lowest price is a shure road to hell, headaces and early failer of your equipment.

my prices are moderate to expensive now. cheep is gone and every thing else that comes with it.

4 x 6 prints 60 cents 5 x 7 prints $1.1 each 8 x 10 prints $3

anything larger is $12 to $20 per square foot.

Ed

Ed

I've been using InkRepublic R2400 CIS for a while and really like it! especially the external fitler and spongeless cartridge design. ink flow is great, no air bubbles in tubes. The pigment ink from them is also very high quality.
http://www.inkrepublic.com/ProductDetail.asp?item=R2400
there are some CIS reviews online for your reference.
http://www.inkrepublic.com/reviews.asp

Pictires for some photographer, Belen Hedderich's R2400 CIS
http://www.pbase.com/belenh/second_system&page=all

I also saw some people actually use the ink in 200ml Epson K3 cartridge and load to InkRepublic's R2400 CIS. They all claimed they save tons and love the quality.

hope this helps.

I have an Epson 1160 and an Epson 880 both on CIS systems, both running flawlessly for SEVEN YEARS.

While not fine-art printers, their output sells, hangs on my walls and looks great.

I'm still debating converting my 4800 to CIS. The monochrome inks are a prime candidate.