B8850 any good?

[Jaol]

I´m considering buying a Hp A3 pigment printer for it´s stable inks. Reading this and other forums makes me uncertain that´s a good idea. Many people seem to have real trouble with the 9180. But I can´t find much complant about the B8850. Do you think they got it right with this later and more simple printer?
By the way, do some one know what differs in the calbration between the printers.

Jaol

[dutyhog]

I´m considering buying a Hp A3 pigment printer for it´s stable inks ... I can´t find much complant about the B8850. Do you think they got it right with this later and more simple printer?
Jaol

Maybe they have, although it is a bit too early to know. I've only had my 8850 since August, but have made about 100 prints, mostly on A4, but some on A3+. I've used all sorts of papers (HP, Hahn, Somerset, Epson, Fuji, W H Smith, gloss, semi, matt) in the special media tray. They've been doing reasonably well in local club competitions - matte better than semigloss. Most are colour, but about 1/3 are monochrome (using from all inks). Within the limits of calibration accuracy, and screen/paper gamuts I get what I see as Proof Colours in CS3 Photoshop. It only goes wrong if I press the wrong button, eg forget to set to the right tray. I've not had to change ink, recalibrate, reload software or anything. I've left it for up to 4 weeks without printing, but it comes on once a day for its maintenance.

Gordon

[Shweta]

HP photoshop B8850 printer is good to buy. These printers offers superb quality and features.

[dutyhog]

"HP photoshop B8850 printer is good to buy. These printers offers superb quality and features."

You can't buy them now - HP discontinued them long ago. I've now had my B8850 for 4 1/2 years and it's still going. I still believe that, being simpler, they are more reliable than the B9180.

The printing heads read well, and I have the printer switched off, but connected, so that it does its daily test. It was easy to use from the start (although it mysteriously clunks and whirrs an awful lot) and the third piece of paper I printed with it was an A3+ photo that, framed, sold well at a charity auction. Some prints have been on walls for years (a few without glass) with no sign of fading.

I originally thought that it would be worthwhile if it kept going for 4 years and made about 50 decent prints a year. In fact I've made more like 130 photo prints a year, mainly for local club competitions and external exhibitions. Only about 25 have done well internationally, but a lot have been OK in our small club.

Including non-photogrpaphic pages, it's put through about 1700 sheets of paper, mostly from the special media tray, and a mix of A3+, A3 and A4. I've stopped buying the Vivera ink, and over a period I've replace all but one of the cartridges with refillable ones (re)filled with Farbenwerke inks. I've only re-calibrated it a couple of times, and I'll do it again once it's completely using the 3rd party inks.

I've tried dozen of sample papers. Most manufacturers' profiles are OK. I guess a similar one if they don't provide one. I do use a "correction" curve for mono on most papers to make then a bit cooler (ie minus yellow or plus blue). At present I use:
matt - smooth white Pinnacle Matt, smooth less-whitened Epson Heavyweight, textured lots of samples (and boxes of Harman Matt FB, Permajet Parchment)
satin - Pinnacle satin & HP Advanced Satin Matt
gloss - Harman/Hahnemuhle Baryta gloss FB Al, Hahn Photo Rag Baryta.

Now I hope it keeps going at least until I've used up most of the first lot of 100ml ink bottles from Farbenwerke. Then when it expires I suppose I'll be forced to return to Epson, with all that black ink swapping and head clogging.

Gordon

[Murray Foote]

When you get to that point, I think you'll find that head clogging is something of the distant past, especially if you run something through, even a head test, every month or so. Ink swapping is still there but recent printers use much less ink than they used to.

[Vincent]

I run a text page with multiple colour words through the Epson Pro 3800 printer when it is not in use for printing photos. Recent models do not use up as much ink when swapping from Matte to Photo Black, but it is still a waste of good ink. Both my B9180 printers have packed up, one sprang a leak from the Black cartridge a sprayed a fine film of black ink over the printers interior which caused the carriage to cease up. The other was an early prototype and that just fell apart. It breaks my heart to throw them both on the rubbish tip.

[bez]

I suppose I'll be forced to return to Epson, with all that black ink swapping and head clogging.
Gordon

A black ink swap with the K3 printers uses about 2ml one way and 1.5ml the other.
I can't remember when I last needed to clean the head of the 6 year-old 3800 - at least two years I would guess.

[dutyhog]

A black ink swap with the K3 printers uses about 2ml one way and 1.5ml the other.
I can't remember when I last needed to clean the head of the 6 year-old 3800 - at least two years I would guess.

Thanks for the good news that clogging may not matter now. And that 2ml or less ink is wasted per swap - that's just 40p at the price I paid last for ink.

Gordon