Hello everyone!

I am considering an HP z3100 printer. I am not sure whether I will need the 44" or can get by with the 24". I am looking for a source of media costs to determine feasibitlity for my application. Any information appreciated.

My application is some fine art types, but mainly I need the media costs to determine if the printer is low enough in operating costs to print school posters created from various sports-type Event Photography. Note that for posters I can use less expensive paper, but can I get by with less ink and lower rez?

How do you z3100 users use your printers for profit? Any problems? Do you wish you had an Epson? Do all Epson owners wish they had the z?

A Bonus Question: Do any of you laminate your prints? If so, do you use the liquid coatings, hot lam, or cold lam?

1) Ink costs from the Z3100 printers will run about $1.20 per square foot; as far as I can tell, quality settings don't affect this very much, having more to do with the number of passes and printing time. This is a reasonable cost for fine art printing, but pretty pricey for posters.

2) If you can afford the higher price and find the room for the 44" version, then go for it. The bigger printer can use 24" rolls without difficulty.

3) Smaller prints I matte and frame behind glass; large panoramics get too heavy this way, so I have them laminated onto wooden boards by a service bureau. This produces a tough surface that can be wiped off with a damp cloth.

$1.20 per square foot.
Does everyone else agree? (100% coverage)
I like the 44" -- question is do I have room for it.
Lamination, anyone?

I get very different figures. I've run 1949 square feet of material through my printer so far and used 2369 ml. of ink and gloss enhancer. The majority of my prints have been at the highest resolution with HP Professional Satin paper, which uses a lot of ink. My overall average has been 1.22 ml/sq. ft. The Professional Satin prints average 1.41 ml/sq. ft for photos with full coverage gloss enhancer. My lowest ink usage was for HP Heavyweight Coated paper, which is really not that heavy, and used 76 ml/sq.ft without gloss enhancer at normal resolution (I get banding when printing solids at the lower resolution). HP's ink, from their website (not the cheapest source) is $0.58/ml, so my ink cost ranges from $0.44 to $0.75/sq. ft.

YMMV,
Ron H.

My ink costs are running considerably lower. Assuming twin-packs from Amazon, my prints are working out to about $0.55 / sf. It was lower, but I'm using a lot more ink since the last firmware upgrade. Take all this with a large grain of salt, I've only had my Z for about a month and haven't done all that much printing. Also, the type of paper will make a difference, as the Z lays down heavier ink loads on some papers.

Cliff

Yes, my ink costs are comparable to yours.

Fred

Is there a typo in there? You state above 1.22-1.41 ml/sq.ft; then you state another paper requires 60x more ink at 76ml/sq.ft?????

(Did you mean .76ml/sq.ft?)

Please clarify, thanks

Ummmm . . . look really closely, just to the left of the 76. See the tiny, tiny little decimal point there? Hmmmm, me either. Whoops! This should have been written as .76 ml/sq. ft. Sorry for the confusion.
-Ron H.
PS: Compared to my Epson printers, which do not give me as much feedback, these square foot ink costs seem extremely parsimonious. No complaints about ink usage (although I would have liked to see larger cart sizes, nonetheless).

FWIW & what I learned...

(I am still investigating, and I do not yet have a z3100)

I contacted Colorbyte yesterday. They claim that their RIP for the z3100 is 97% finished, and that the RIP will be available before EOY, 2007.

The rep also said that they were having to write a more involved RIP for the z in order to use all the built-in calibration features -- implying that the z-RIP might just be a really interesting product! They price their RIP based (sic) on the size/price of the printer -- so be prepared those of you having the 44" model.

I am glad I made this call, because prior to that I called HP -- NOW I can see why so many of you might be having difficulties with the z3100! Apparently, HP has a bunch of guys who are trained on ALL printers HP makes, they all have the same resources available to them, but there do not appear to be available "Experts" who know the z3100 specifically. Disappointing!

For example, the HP guy had some real trouble knowing anything about the advanced color profiling option! I would trust any of the z3100 reviewers before I would trust the HP guys.

Comments?