Advice on purchase of used Epson 9600

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Tommy P

Tommy P

MGF, Master Grumble Framer
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Nov 16, 2003
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Mid North Indiana
This is somewhat related to Kirstie's post " Adding Printing Services to the Frame Shop"


I need some fairly quick advice. I have found a used 9600 wide format printer. Not sure how old but is owned by an imaging company. They say it has been a workhorse and makes beautiful prints, Have upgraded to new unit. I really don't know much other than that at this time. Will get more info and look at eventually.

My initial question is the asking price. They want $1200. I'll of course offer less but what about there $1200? Sounds reasonable if everything is copasetic.

Thoughts or advice very much appreciated. I'm looking into, like Kirstie, of getting into this.

Thanks
Tom

p.s. Okay, here is the owners post.


Well cared for Epson 44 inch printer. Has always been a reliable workhorse. Comes with inks and ready to print. Our business has upgraded to a new printer and we have no room for the Epson. Printer can be demonstrated in action. Serious inquiries only please. Please reply to this posting. Thanks
 
Price-wise it seems like an ok deal. It really depends on how much the machine has been used. That printer has "required maintenance" and will stop working until the maintenance is done. Finding somebody to do the maintenance is not easy. Also the cost of inks for that machine is slowly climbing. I suspect that will not end and the price for that printer will continue to go up.
 
The price does sound good. See if they can printout I think it is the test page, this will tell you how much it has been used and I thing it will also tell you the required maintance that is needed.

I have a 9600 and it is a good work horse. I have not see the price of Ink clinbing (we are an Epson dealer).
 
Just talked to the guy. His company is highly regarded and he was very nice and informative on the phone. Printer is seven years old. Says it has about $500 worth of ink in it now. Will gladly show me how to work it and demonstrate. Has up graded to some really neat Canon.

What is this "required maintenance" you all talk about?
 
The only drawback is that the driver for it won't work on newer computers. Epson did not upgrade the driver to work on my new MacPro. You will need an older system. Not sure what is happening with a Windows based system.
I had one and it definitely was a workhorse and never had a problem with it. I had to keep my older G4 plugged in to run it till I sold it.
The price is good.
Go for it. You'll love it.
 
DanGray said:
I have a 9600 and it is a good work horse. I have not see the price of Ink clinbing (we are an Epson dealer).
Click to expand...

I'm paying $89 for 220's and about six months ago $10 less. It could have been a supplier price increase though. None the less I suspect as these machines fall out of use I expect the price to increase on the inks. I think the 9600/7600s are nearing the end of their life cycles.

Tommy. The printer moniters things like motor life, head unit life, and head passes. At specific counts the printer quits printing and requires you do maintance. You can get this information by:

1. Press the [SelecType] button on the control panel to enter the panel setting
menu.
2. Press the [Paper Feed Δ] to display “TEST PRINT
MENU”.
3. Press the [SelecType] button to enter the item menu select status and then
press the [Paper Feed Δ] again to display [STATUS
CHECK].
4. Select the item by pressing the [SelecType] button again.
5. Press the [Enter] button to execute status sheet printing.

On the page that prints out you will see a symbol for each item. It will look like E[*** ]F. I'm not sure what they mean but I think of them like a gas guage meaning empty or full. That will show you the ink levels and help you determine how much ink is in the carts. You also want to pay close attentiont CR Motor, PF Motor, Head, and Cleaner. I believe the first required mantance will be the cleaner.

Why do you care? Epson's service on machines are questionable at best. If the printer is close to a required maintance you may first find out who can do the required mantance and how much it will cost before you purchase the printer. If your almost at that point and you have to ship the printer off to get the mantance then you may be as well off to pass on this printer opting for a newer one.

Don't buy a printer (or not) based on this post. I only offer this up from personal experiance I have had with my printer.

Good luck.
 
Thanks for the great advice everyone. Seller says he will also give me a Mac G4 with loaded Photoshop 7 to get me up and running.( Framah says that would be good?) The Mac needs a monitor he says but I have a spare 15" flat screen. I assume, since I have no Mac experience, that a monitor is a monitor and will work. Also a roll of 36" x 100' paper.

I'm going to see it Wednesday. I'm looking to get started in this endeavor on a budget and hopefully this pans out!

Gulp, I have no idea how to do this stuff. But you can't sit still and do only what your comfortable with! I'll learn.

Tom
 
Tommy P said:
Thanks for the great advice everyone. Seller says he will also give me a Mac G4 with loaded Photoshop 7 to get me up and running.( Framah says that would be good?) The Mac needs a monitor he says but I have a spare 15" flat screen. I assume, since I have no Mac experience, that a monitor is a monitor and will work. Also a roll of 36" x 100' paper.

I'm going to see it Wednesday. I'm looking to get started in this endeavor on a budget and hopefully this pans out!

Gulp, I have no idea how to do this stuff. But you can't sit still and do only what your comfortable with! I'll learn.

Tom
Click to expand...

That's not bad but you can't upgrade to the latest photoshop with that and I don't think the computer will support an upgrade anyhow. Bear in mind a printer may need to be serviced at that age and usage. I just threw my printer out after 5 years but I had upgraded twice. I don't even think I could have had it serviced by anyone.
 
Basically what I want out of this system.....

1. To duplicate customers various size images. Mostly just photo reprints, no retouching needed. Eventually able (with learning how) to retouch some blemishes if asked to. I use Digital Custom for all our serious restoration work and do not plan on doing this kind of work.

2. My wife is a watercolor artist and plan on using to make quality prints of her work in any size she creates.

3. Able to work with some of our current photographers in providing print services that they currently have to send out to a lab with a three to four day turnaround. We currently only have the option of printing done by Staples or Walgreens in our small town. The only local printer, and they were not that good, closed two months ago.

I'm sure with time I would do other things but the above is the basics. And the basics is what I am currently looking for.

I will do a test page, as some have advised, and try to determine the remaining longevity of the printer.
 
That's a lot of printer for what you describe but it's a good price.

I hope it works out well for you. Digital graphics and photography is a great add on to a shop. I have had some good luck convincing photographers to use me as a one stop fullfillment service. A sports photographer sells a 16x20 to 2 colleges at the end of that sport's season. He drops a disk off and I hand him framed posters two days later. I'm doing 19 for him this month alone. Another is an ariel photographer who pretty well sells all his stuff framed these days. I print, I frame, he picks it up. It tends to be easy repetitive work.

Be carefull offering to sell smaller prints though. You may adopt a minimum of say $5 per print to discourage photographers from wanting 100 4x5's. That printer is just too expensive to opperate to be doing those little prints.

Finally check out a program called Qimage to print from. That will simplify the printing process and does a better job than Photoshop.

Good luck.
 
Thanks Jay

I've seen this QImage program mentioned before on the G. And I think I saw where it is a free download? Do you think the Mac G4 that he is including can be utilized with this program?? Or would it require something newer?

Thanks
 
I recently bought an Epson 2400. I've used the 2200 in college many years back, so I thought this would be a great thing to have at my shop. I outsource my printing to an online printer who is very fast, professional, and helpful (and cheap), so I figured for smaller stuff, I can use this printer and for the larger prints, keep using that printshop. I've already lost a lot of money on this printer (ink cost) and was very frustrated losing a bunch of ink to do nozzle checks and every time you insert a new ink, it does a cleaning where you lose a bunch more of ALL of the inks.

After all is said and done, I will likely just use the online guy as I did before and save a lot more money that way (does anyone want an Epson 2400?).

Good luck with your printer, hope it will be a better experience then mine.
 
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