Floyd L. Davidson
Eric Stevens <eric.stevens@sum.co.nz>wrote:

Eric Stevens
On Tue, 03 Dec 2013 19:29:18 -0900, floyd@apaflo.com (Floyd L. Davidson) wrote:

Eric Stevens <eric.stevens@sum.co.nz>wrote:

On Tue, 03 Dec 2013 19:47:52 -0500, PeterN <peter.newnospam@verizon.net>wrote:

So it seems that the 4900 is the same as the other printers: some ink is used to give the printer it's initial charge.

Nope. The 4900 comes with more ink than the others. For me this is EOD.

EOD or not, you have missed the point. There is no argument that the 4900 has bigger cartridges. I was trying to say that as in the 2800 and 38xx, some of the initial load of ink goes into filling (also known as priming or charging) the system. You never get a full load of ink out of the initial cartridges.

Peter hasn't missed the point, but he isn't getting it across to you.

Of course there is a significant amount of ink used to simply charge the system when it is new. And of course all printers come with a set of ink cartridges.

The point is that most printers come with a special set of ink carts that have only about twice as much ink as is required to charge the system. After it is initialized the cartridges will be about half empty. That might be only 40 or 50 ml for some printers that normally use 220ml carts!

That hasn't been my experience with Epson. AFAIK the initial cartridges have a full load which is depleted by the need to charge the system.

Floyd L. Davidson
I just checked the BHPhoto.com webpage, where they list "In The Box" specifics (which sometimes aren't very specific). This of course is what ships from Epson, and any given place where a printer can be purchased might add on a full set of regular ink cartridges in addition to what Epson packs in the box.

The Epson R3000 comes with a full set of 25.9ml type 157 carts. The Epson R2880 comes with a full set of type 96 carts, but the size was not specified. All of the large format printers are listed as having a "starter set", and no size was listed for the Epson 7900 or 9900. The 7890, 9890 and 1188 all come with 9 each 110ml carts.

The 3880 and 4900 both come with 11 80ml carts.

What Peter is trying to tell you (and I have not verified that this is true) is that to his understanding the Epson 4900 brand new is supplied with a set of full sized 200ml carts, and after the system in initialized the first time it has something greater than 150ml of ink per cart. That is a total of 11 carts, with 1650ml of useable ink that would normally cost you about $825.

Eric Stevens
THat's my understanding also. It's what is implied by the brochure etc. It's also what I believe happens with the 28xx and the 38xx, except that they have smaller cartridges than the 4900.

Floyd L. Davidson
And of course since the cartridges are small the effect is not same.

Note that the Espon 4880 came with 8 each 110ml carts, and half of that was used to charge the system. The extra ink was worth about $200.

Eric Stevens
I will go away and try and sort this out, but not tonight.

What you get with an Epson 2880, that uses 11.4ml carts, is a pitance that has no significance at all.

Floyd L. Davidson
See the difference?