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JSR
12-10-2010, 05:54 PM
I was looking into possibly switching to Ricoh printers until I saw the price of the ink. For Epson printers, we pay £50+VAT for 125ml of ink.

From what I can tell, ink for the A4 Ricoh is £40+VAT for 29ml. And ink for the A3 Ricoh is £60+VAT for 60ml.

That's £1.38/ml for Ricoh A4 or £1.00/ml for Ricoh A3, compared to 40p/ml for ink in an Epson printer.

Given that you're paying between 2.5 and 3.5 times the price of the ink if you go Ricoh, why would anyone go Ricoh? Is there no way to get a sensible ink price for these printers?

TransferGraeme
12-10-2010, 07:00 PM
This has been the source of a number of discussions, not only here on the forum, but also when talking to a range of customers. We have tried to establish an absolute answer to the question of ink costs per sheet using various printers, and many people have tried to come up with definitive figures. Unfortunately as far as I can see, and having discussed this with senior technical people at Sawgrass, two printers of the same model, with the same ArTainium ink system using the same settings to print the same images can produce variations of at least 10 and possibly as much as 15% - so any ink consumption figures are, quite frankly, at best intelligent guesses and at worst pretty much useless! Once you factor in the different ink consumption for different images and the fact that some printers seem to be comparatively more economical on certain types of images than others then you will appreciate that I tend to be pretty vague when asked for advice on print costs per sheet - but the best estimate I can give, based on the figures supplied by Sawgrass and checked as far as possible by customers who do printing on a fairly large scale, is that for most Epson printers with bulk ArTainium systems the print costs will over the life of a printer will average around 25-28p per A4 sheet, whereas for the Ricohs the average will be around 35p. These figures take into account the ink "wasted" with head cleans etc, but for low volume/intermittent users the figures may be more skewed in favour of the Ricohs as the amount of head cleans etc needed by Epsons and bulk systems tends to be greater when printers are used less frequently.

As I hope I have made clear in the above this is a very inexact "science" and I cannot vouch for the absolute accuracy of the figures and I am sure that someone will come up with figures that disagree with these - all I can say is that from the sources available to me they represent the best advice I can give, and if I am presented with concrete evidence which contradicts or varies these figures I will be happy to come back and correct or revise anything I have written above.

bms
12-10-2010, 10:36 PM
Great post Graeme.

Someone on the forum mentioned that they've printed around 1000 mugs with the first set of Ricoh cartridges that came with their GXe3300 so the ink does go quite some way. The costings certainly aren't 2.5-3.0 times the cost of the Epsons, but they will be more expensive. If anyone has had to do several head cleans to get the Epson printer working after a period of 'rest' then you'll know how much ink is consumed doing this. Interestly though the Ricoh's also have a head cleaning and nozzle check feature so they're not immune to the need for this maintenance periodically.

As the Ricohs have only been supported for just over a year, compared to what is more like eternity for the Epson printers, then there's alot more information on costs for the Epsons compared to the Ricoh. What no-one really knows for sure (yet) is whether the Ricohs are going to need more maintenance as they age using sublimation inks so, until we have 2 or 3 years of experience under our belts, we won't know how the lifetime running costs of the Ricoh printers compare to the Epson.

JSR
13-10-2010, 12:38 AM
Thanks for the info, guys.


but the best estimate I can give, based on the figures supplied by Sawgrass and checked as far as possible by customers who do printing on a fairly large scale, is that for most Epson printers with bulk ArTainium systems the print costs will over the life of a printer will average around 25-28p per A4 sheet, whereas for the Ricohs the average will be around 35p.
Back when I bought my R1800, two of us on a photography forum did some ink tracking tests to see how much prints cost. Neither of us were heavy users and our figures took into account headcleans. We ran calculation spreadsheets, logging what kind of prints we did and how many of each print, and then added on the cost of an ink cartridge each time one was changed. Our spreadsheets then did a "per ml" costing, and calculated that up to various different sizes of photos so that we could tell roughly how much a photo would cost to print.

The average figures we came to were that an A4 print used approximately 1ml of ink. 1ml of Epson Artanium for a low user is 40p, reducing to 32p for a heavy user buying in 500ml quantities. From this, the figure of 25-28p you quote is, while a little optimistic, within the right ballpark so I'd say that's about right.

If the Ricoh's cost roughly the same price for the print, yet the ink costs are three times the price, that suggests that it's using just a third as much ink to print the same image.

Also, you've used the phrase "for the Ricohs the average will be around 35p", yet the A4 Ricoh costs 40% more per ml of ink than the A3. That surely suggests that the A4 is 40% more expensive to run than the A3 because both printers must use the same amount of the same ink to produce the same result, I would have thought.


Someone on the forum mentioned that they've printed around 1000 mugs with the first set of Ricoh cartridges that came with their GXe3300 so the ink does go quite some way.
If we use that as a working figure, then that does roughly suggest that the Ricoh uses approximately 1/3ml for an A4 sheet while the Epson uses 1ml. Seems bizarre, but it does agree with Graeme's estimate.

As you've both said, it is early days for the Ricohs and we have no real figures but it seems very difficult to believe that a Ricoh uses 1/3 of the ink of an Epson to produce the same quality of print.

bms
13-10-2010, 09:02 AM
BMS wrote:
Someone on the forum mentioned that they've printed around 1000 mugs with the first set of Ricoh cartridges that came with their GXe3300 so the ink does go quite some way.
If we use that as a working figure, then that does roughly suggest that the Ricoh uses approximately 1/3ml for an A4 sheet while the Epson uses 1ml. Seems bizarre, but it does agree with Graeme's estimate.


But bear in mind there was no information about how much ink was put down on each mug transfer - I don't know how much ink coverage there was on average. Could have been 10%, could have been 40% or more.

TransferGraeme
13-10-2010, 10:38 AM
Also JSR, you have to bear in mind that if you were using cartridges in your testing the printer is actually less efficient as a proportion (sometimes as much as 10%) of the the ink in the cartridges is wasted, and also if I remember correctly that printer does an automatic head clean (and thus wastes some more ink) every time you change a single cartridge.

The Ricoh also have a very useful facility whereby you can head clean a single colour which reduces wastage.

All fractions I know ,and mostly completely incalculable, which only adds to the difficulty of getting accurate "per sheet" figures.

JSR
13-10-2010, 01:24 PM
But bear in mind there was no information about how much ink was put down on each mug transfer - I don't know how much ink coverage there was on average. Could have been 10%, could have been 40% or more.
That's a good point. The "1ml/A4" test we did on the R1800 mostly involved photos. If the mugs done in the Ricoh text were largely text or simple designs, then less ink may have been used.


Also JSR, you have to bear in mind that if you were using cartridges in your testing the printer is actually less efficient as a proportion (sometimes as much as 10%) of the the ink in the cartridges is wasted, and also if I remember correctly that printer does an automatic head clean (and thus wastes some more ink) every time you change a single cartridge.

The Ricoh also have a very useful facility whereby you can head clean a single colour which reduces wastage.

All fractions I know ,and mostly completely incalculable, which only adds to the difficulty of getting accurate "per sheet" figures.
That's another good thought. The tests we did were with cartridges, which have an inherent "charging" cycle whenever they're replaced. In theory, a printer with CISS shouldn't have the same degree of wasteage but I suspect it probably does. There would be fractions difference between the R1800 and a six or four ink printer simply because there were more cartridges to replace on the R1800, so the charging occurred more frequently than it would on a printer with less cartridges.

What's needed is some kind of independent test, but I don't see that happening any time soon. All we're left with then is the apparent inconsistency in paying more per ml - which, at the very least, doesn't paint the Ricohs in a good light whether or not the end result leans in one direction or the other.

Perhaps it's time Sawgrass manufactured (or commissioned) their own printer - one designed to be the very best at working with their ink - and then it wouldn't seem so confusing.

TransferGraeme
13-10-2010, 02:14 PM
To be honest I think the simple truth is that the volume of printers that the "sublimation trade" would take would be so small as compared to the volume of a "standard" model that it would not be worth a major printer manufacturer - which in any case would probably have to be either Epson or Ricoh as they, as far as I am aware, are the only manufacturers using the essential piezo technology - tooling up for a specific printer - and the popular wisdom is that printer manufacturers actually don't make any money from printers but make all their money from cartridges anyway - so they would have very little incentive to do so. Add to this the complexity of setting up a servicing/warranty system and frankly although I agree it would be great to have a printer "designed for the job" I really don't think it's a viable option.

JSR
13-10-2010, 04:54 PM
To be honest I think the simple truth is that the volume of printers that the "sublimation trade" would take would be so small as compared to the volume of a "standard" model that it would not be worth a major printer manufacturer - which in any case would probably have to be either Epson or Ricoh as they, as far as I am aware, are the only manufacturers using the essential piezo technology - tooling up for a specific printer - and the popular wisdom is that printer manufacturers actually don't make any money from printers but make all their money from cartridges anyway - so they would have very little incentive to do so. Add to this the complexity of setting up a servicing/warranty system and frankly although I agree it would be great to have a printer "designed for the job" I really don't think it's a viable option.
I find it difficult to believe that Sawgrass don't make enough profit from the ink that they couldn't commission one of these companies to produce a dedicated printer fit for the task of Sawgrass' inks. They could use the same printhead in A4 and 13" printers to save costs.

Servicing/warranty would be less of an issue because it'd be a printer designed for the ink, rather than us trying to force a third-party ink through a printer that wasn't designed for it. This would reduce the likelihood of problems.

It seems bizarre that we're still at the stage of being held to ransom by a printer manufacturer's revolving door policy of printers. The printer manufacturer makes their printers suitable for their inks, and they discontinue models as they develop their inks. Sublimation inks from Sawgrass rarely, if ever, change. Having to throw out the baby with the bathwater (buying a new CISS/chip system) every time Epson decide to discontinue a printer and then wait 4-6 months for Sawgrass to come up with a profile which barely does the job just seems like the tail wagging the dog.


in any case would probably have to be either Epson or Ricoh as they, as far as I am aware, are the only manufacturers using the essential piezo technology
Out of interest, do you know who makes the printhead for Brother's inkjet range? As I understand it, Brother inkjet printers use piezo technology, too - but you wouldn't know it from the lack of interest in the sublimation arena.

I seem to recall, during the time of the Sawgrass vs TOG case, that someone posted the original patent (it might have been this, I think: http://www.freepatentsonline.com/5488907.html). The patent makes no mention of piezo printers and, indeed, makes several mentions of "bubblejet" printers and the need for dye-sublimation ink to resist the thermal reaction of the printhead while still remaining active at the heat press temperature of 400F.

I mention this because, had this line of development been pursued, we wouldn't be restricted to just using one manufacturer's printers. As it stands today, if Epson decide to close up shop - we're all stuffed.