Epson 3800 Refurbs Printers - Ink Charging Problem

If you are having problems setting up a refurbished Epson 3800 printer, read the following about the experience I had.

Upon opening the printer and putting all the inks in, and powering the printer up, the normal ink charging cycles did not start (I've set up a few of these printers brand new). The front of the 3800 will say that the printer has 100% of ink (all the ink bars will be full). When you charge a new Epson Stylus 3800, it leaves you with about 70% in the cartridges (the remainder mostly goes in the lines between the cartridges and the printer head.

Epson tests all the refurbished 3800's before they send them out, so they already charged the lines (think of this a gift of about $100 of ink).

The first print you should do once you open the printer is a nozzle check. If they are all full and there is 8 different colors of them (see above image) then you have passed the first test. You should change black inks on the front of the Epson 3800 at this point. If you were on Photo Black, switch it to Matte Black Ink, or vice-versa. Now run the nozzle check again. If it looks good, you should be good to go.

I had to do 2 power cleans (one on both black settings) before the nozzles all began firing. It took one last one and it has worked perfectly since. Any questions or need help? Contact me or leave a comment below.

--Michael

Refurbished Epson 3800 Deal!

Although the Epson store ran out of refurbished 3800 17" Printers ( Part Number: C635011UCM-N ) there are still a few websites offering them (and at a better price). I wish I would have known before I bought a new one in December, but I think at this price I will buy another.

They still have the one year warranty & a full set of starter inks, however, they do not qualify for any of Epson's rebates. You can still save about $200 even without the rebate, however.

Check it out at Atlex.com  (http://www.atlex.com/cgi-bin/commerce.cgi?preadd=action&key=C635011UCM-N)

I will post the other great deal I found on Epson printers tomorrow -- Stay Tuned!

--Michael

Why don't you take my fine art paper?

My Epson 3800 will not print on any type of fine art material that must be loaded through the separate fine art paper selector. That two dollar piece of flimsy plastic that Epson decided to include for me to slide onto the back of my printer is not really living up to the dreams I had for it. I made one successful 8.5x11 print on it after a mere 15 attempts to load from the back. No kidding, at least 15. Now I have been unsuccessful to load any bigger sheets into the back. I have been able to run it through the straight through path (designed for boards), but this isn't the easiest thing to do either.

Bottom line, 3800 is no fine art cranking machine and will be a hindrance to your workflow if you plan on mass printing on anything other than photo paper. Off to call Epson...

Epson 3800 Review

I received my 3800 today, they seem to be wait listed at most places still. Anyway, it does not seem to be anything special. It is significantly smaller than the 4800 or the Canon ipf5000, the 3800 clearly comes across as a desktop printer. This would be great if I only had a small studio. The 3800 doesn't seem to like my sheets of fine art paper, especially if they are not perfectly flat. This is very inconvenient, sometimes I've had to try to load a sheet multiple times to no success. With it only taking sheets, this would be a huge hurtle to overcome for your work flow. This was clearly not designed to be a production or high-volume printer. The prints, however, look absolutely stunning. They even surpass the 9800 when viewed under a loupe. More about color and other issues later.