Epson 4800 Performance and Cost Up-Date

By Mark Segal
Readers of this website will recall my previous two articles assessing the cost of printing with theEpson 4000andEpson 4800professional printers. In my February essay on the 4800, I demonstrated that the 4800 uses ink much more economically than its predecessor. I have now had an additional four months of experience with this printer, and my usage pattern since February 19th has been sufficiently different from that of the November to February 19th period that I can provide some quite unambiguous observations about the real causes of the printer "clogs" and cleaning cycles about which so many Epson printer owners complain in various web forums. A number of factors, such as inadequate humidity, using fine art papers, periods of non-use and the cleaning process itself, are cited as causal factors. After careful observation and collection/analysis of performance data on my 4800 from the period November 1 2005 to February 18 2006 and then February 19 to June 8, 2006, I have ...