Epson R200 - Excessive ink use?

[msfox]

I recently picked up an Epson R200. I really like the printer for both photo prints and printing on DVDs.

My problem is that everytime I print graphics, which a 4x6 photo or a design on a DVD, the ink levels in the printer monitor go down noticably. I have only printed about 5 4x6 photos and maybe 5 DVDs, and about 10 pages of black text, and only one of the DVDs had a full photo covering the entire surface, the rest were mostly text with a small graphic. With this small amount of printing, my tanks show that there is only about 70% of the ink remaining. At this rate, I will be getting very little yield from about $75 worth of cartidges.

I spoke to Epson tech support, and the only thing the guy told me was that I should make sure that I don't use the "Best Photo" setting, which I don't, because he said that settings uses "alot" of ink.

Anyway, I was wondering what others experiences were. I thought I read somewhere that the ink cost for this printer should be about 25 cents per 4x6 print, in which case one set of cartridges should be able to print hundreds of 4x6 photos.

Thanks,

Mike

[Gregg]

Hi,

In the beinning the ink decreases faster, then slows down. I'm using my R200 to print on discs only and I usually print ~250 discs with a load of ink. I hope this helps.

Enjoy!

[msfox]

Thanks Gregg for the reply! That sounds a little better. Do your discs typically have a full background image, or just text?

Mike

[Umbearto]

The system uses quite a bit of ink to charge the system from dry with the first set of carts; you'll get better mileage from the next set. The Epson is far from the cheapest inkjet to operate, and if you plan to do lots of printing you may want to look at aftermarket sources of ink.

[Skith]

Be advised that if you do switch ink sources, be sure to be consistant with what you get. Switching between manufacturers can cause clogging. The different formulations (is that the right word?) used by each manufacturer may not mix well with eachother, and clog the print heads.

If only one source is used, there should not be any problem.

This has been reported in many publications, from "PC World", to "Photoshop User Magazine" - the official Adobe photoshop magazine (free with a subsription to NAPP membership) www.photoshopuser.com

Have fun with your printer!

[Poppa_Meth]

It's an ink hog plain and simple. Epson made it like that on purpose. It's true that the first set goes faster to fill the heads. But even afterwards every time you replace a cartridge the counters for the other carts will drop by about 1/10 of the scale despite not actually using any ink from them. The only way to get all the ink out of a cart is to use a third party software to stop the ink counter, and it can cause damage to your printer depending on what funcitons you use. Also if you use generic carts the printer will start cleaning itself more often from what I've seen. When I used generics it would clean the heads almost every time I printed instead of just every week or so. I must also say that not long after getting my R300 I have started having problems with the print heads, a common occurance with epsons evidently. All in all I'll never buy another epson. I just wish cannon would release their disc printers stateside.

[US Guy]

I have been looking into the CIFS for the R200. One of the kits comes with ink (cost about $100US) and should last you a lot longer.

While we are discussing this, I am also wondering if any one has tried using pigment ink system with the R200.

Any comments would be greatly appreciated.