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Epson 11880 Thread

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Georg R. Baumann

Inactive
Greetings,

in the hope that one or the other here uses the same printer, can I suggest that we start using this thread for exchanging experiences on this amazing maschine? Just an idea...

I will set up mine by this monthy hopefully, I am waiting on feedback concerning leadtime, but it should not take that long.

So if you are using one at the moment, I am curious on the availability of 64" rolls at the moment? What papers, if any, are available?
 
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Mark Prins

New member
I was in Vancouver Canada last week (2008-06) and was in a Epson dealer/printshop where I was drooling over his 11880. This machine replaced two 9880’s he was running before. His comparison was a print that took two hours on the 9880 took 20 minutes on the 11880. I was allowed to poke through his stock and he had a goodly amount and variety of 64 inch paper and 44 inch (EM, Lustre, Ultrasmooth, Fibre etc. So for me I have found a Epson ink/paper supplier who keeps stock on hand at a good price. I was all over Vancouver looking for a supplier who kept stock on the shelf and this was the only one I could find.

OTOH my 9880 is developing head clogs daily this week during print runs, one print is fine and the next has a clog. I guess I will need to get a humidifier to see if that can solve the problems. My two cents.

Mark Prins
Inanda Images
 
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Anton Kirilenko

New member
Hi guys. Nice forum. This is my first post here.
I'm going to buy Epson Stylus Pro 11880 printer. I have read its reviews, it seems to be a good machine. Just interested: why TestFreaks gave this printer such poor score?
http://www.testfreaks.com/printers/epson-stylus-pro-11880/
Just only 4.6 out of 10. This score very disapointed me and I don't know what to do: to buy or not to buy? Please let me know your experience with this printer.
Thank you
 
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Mark Prins

New member
I am located in Whitehorse capital of the Yukon Territory in Canada. This is a dry area semi-arid at times, but we are also in the rain shadow of the coastal mountains. As for the head clogging issues, I shrug my shoulders and deal with it, I knew what I was getting into when I bought the machine. Over time I will sort it out, my learning curve with this new printer was a bit steep, much of my back archive of single frame images that I processed are useless, way over sharpened. Panoramas are fine since they are 12 images and larger. Anton, I went to test freaks site and didn't see any actual use of the printer, check out the sites that use the printer daily you might find a different review. Made it through today with no clogs, storming all day so I suspect relative humidity helped with the clogs. But trying to stitch a large hdr panorama kept crashing my main computer, back to registering blend planes and then to TuFuse. I am so close to getting this image to work.

Mark Prins
Inanda Images
Whitehorse Yukon
www.inandaimages.com
 
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Paul Caldwell

New member
9880 Head Clogs

The 9880 unfortunately didn't get all the technology that the 11880 got. The 11880 will allow for a single color cleaning, where as the 9880 still blows all the inks while trying to clear a clog. You get a smaller ink droplet size and the head is supposed to be made from a Ink resistant material. Supposedly this keeps ink from drying on the head and creating a clog. Speed is obviously faster, head is larger.

The 9880 got the head that is ink resistant and the smaller droplet size, but not the matte and photo black in the printer at the same time and most of the nozzle technology of the 11880 didn't come across.

My 9880 clogs about as often as my 7800 did. But the clogs are different. The 7800 once a clog was clear would run fine for that print run, only having issues when turned off for a period of time. The 9880 can made 3 great prints then on the 4th, yellow will totally clog (it tends to be only one color). This of course generates a worthless print. My particular 9880 also has a problem where colors will spill over, so when you run a nozzle check, you will have some of the yellow showing up in one of the black checks.

Epson's answers so far are to replace the yellow cart (which Epson paid for) and see if the problem persists. So far, I have not seen the issue in 3 weeks, but my print volume is way down.


Paul C

As for the 11880, I totally agree it's a wonderful printer, but the 15K U.S. price tag and 3K MA after the warranty expiration, makes it a tough nut. I have only needed wider than 44" a few times and jobbed that out. But I really had hoped that the 11880 technology would drop down to the new Epson's coming out, from what I have read on the new printers, it didn't.
 
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Georg R. Baumann

Inactive
@ Anton
http://www.josephholmes.com/news-epson11880.html

@ Mark
Beautiful spot you live at! Would love to see a photo of your Pano Print! :)

@ Paul
Yeah, steep price tag in deed. I got a deal from epson direct on 3 years warranty as well as installation and training, the normal retail of 3 years extended warranty (16 hours turn around time) was 1,400 Sterling. (WHOOA!) Got it for 699 instead, which I think to be more reasonable in deed.

The retail price of the 11880 here was/is 11,252,- plus VAT. But well, I do not pay this price. ;)

I also would have thought the 11880 technology to trickle down quicker.

----

Do you guys use RIP's or the standard epson driver? On what OS are you, I will be working on Mac OSX, any issues with that?
 
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Mark Prins

New member
Hi Georg;
I looked at purchasing the 9880 with the Colorbyte rip. In the end I decided against the RIP. I do use Qimage as a print engine, this is not a RIP but acts like one.

One of my first hdr’s is here http://www.inandaimages.com/MackenzieDelta/tuk+sunrise-sm.jpg.html?g2_imageViewsIndex=1

I spent part of our winter in the high arctic in the Mackenzie Delta Region and I shot a lot of HDR’s, the magic hour seemed to go on for ever. The light was spectacular and because of refraction? The moon and sunrises were magnified huge sky. The downside is there is little to no foreground, all fun. -38C with a 10 mph wind my face freezes faster then my camera.

http://www.inandaimages.com/MackenzieDelta/Mallik/2008-03-09/sunrise-2.jpg.html

There has been a whole learning curve trying to deal with my hdr data. These images were all processed with Photomatix plugin in PS. I was never happy with the results and I suspect my use of the plugin may have had something to do with that. The registration of the frames is off and the shadow floor is wrong. I am now using PTGUi to register the frames then to Tufuse to fuse the frames back to a single frame then back into PTGui to stitch the pano. I like Tufuse for how it handles noise.

http://www.inandaimages.com/MackenzieDelta/Mallik/2008-02-03/2008-02-03+Sunrise.jpg.html

That image was built with he photomatix plugin and doesn’t do justice to the light that was there and is the current pano I am working on. 6x5 (6 frames wide 5 frames deep for exposure). I have a bunch of work that I am much happier with but haven’t got around to posting yet, I seem to have more fun printing than putting things on the web.

On the price of the 11880, I was quoted 11K CDN FOB Vancouver BC Canada.

Mark Prins
www.inandaimages.com
 
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Georg R. Baumann

Inactive
Hi Mark,

can not really compare european and canadian prices, just converting it gives me a significantly lower price than the european average, then again, one can not really compare it this way.

Working with HDR is very interesting in deed.

Your pictures must come across very impressive on a large canvas I would guess!

Qimage works only on PC afaik, and well LOL, I am in the process to change over to Mac and see no need really to load windows anymore.
 
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Mark Prins

New member
Georg Baumann said:
Hi Mark,

can not really compare european and canadian prices, just converting it gives me a significantly lower price than the european average, then again, one can not really compare it this way.
Click to expand...

I am unsure if I was being quoted the used price of the printer on the floor there working or a new machine. The Loonie (CDN $) is strong currently and maybe that is why he quoted 5K lower than I could find any place else. I will ask him next time I order.

Mark
www.inandaimages.com
 
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Georg R. Baumann

Inactive
Hey Mark,

I had a lovely conversation with Jo Holmes last night, he is a most helpful chap in deed! I invited him to join OPF, hopefully he finds some time.
 
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David J. Eves

New member
Well I am definately in the market for a large high end wide format printer. I have so many questions. but after reading this thread I am not so sure I want the headaches associated with this large unit.

Paper ? I would only consider purchasing paper @ Red River paper. they have the best paper I have ever used. Their prices are right. they have roll paper in stock for canvas, paper and many other assorted media types.

44" wide is the largest paper size I can find 44" x 100'
 
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David J. Eves

New member
Whew, I have been drooling over these Epson printers all night long. I have read everything on their entire web site about these magnificent units. Sad to hear that the manufactures hype is not what the customer experiences, with frequent head or color clogs.

my first question is how do you mount images such as these 40 x 60 or 64 x ??
 
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David J. Eves

New member
and.............now I see that the GS6000 is about to debut any day !! 64" solvent printing !! $29K

go figure! As soon as you see something that is desireable, they come out with a new improved model (chuckle) ! I guess the only way to find out which is best is to buy them all !
 
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David J. Eves

New member
Seriously though, I am obsessed by now from reading everything I can find, and sorting through all that has been posted in many different places. Not to assume I mean that I have read everthing, but vast amounts.

I have figured out that this 11880 printer must cost about 2,000 to totally fill it once again with new ink !! WoWoW !! maybe a bit less but they say 0.25 cents per liter x 1000 litres x 8 = roughly 250 bux per color ??

whew I can buy a car for that ! (chuckle) !!

But, I have also found out that a 40 x 60 matt cutter can be had for 75 bux a month leasing
or computerized motorized version for 245 per month lease to own ! this is getting exciting !

well I want about 4 small printers just to print note-cards and post-cards !

I sure want that 11880 but ?? I do not see the need for 64" wide the 9880 will do it all.. I guess I am going to get one of each !!

11880
9880
_______

21760 with ink and paper included w / matt board & frames I figure 25k

Nice formula eh ?
 
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Georg R. Baumann

Inactive
Hehehehe!!

You're right on the ink, then again...

....it is an individual calculation,

We talk about 6.3 liters of ink in total accounting for, the rest is user interface.
 
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