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Epson f2000 ink

17K views 32 replies 18 participants last post by  gatorGRAFIX 
#1 ·
Does anyone know if there is any ink other than the epson brand that can posssibly be used with this machine

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#5 ·
It's not a simple as just switching inks. Each ink set would need to have completely different and updated color profile. Not only that but nobody has "cracked" the F2000 ink chip yet afaik so there is no aftermarket carts that will work yet. You also have to be sure that the viscosity is the same as it could cause print-head failures. If you are pricing your jobs properly there should be no reason to worry about the nickels getting in the way of the dollars!
 
#7 ·
Ah HAH!
So, now you've turned over the Industry's "Dirty Little Secret"
What I discovered when doing my due diligence before purchasing a SPECTRA 3000 last week, is that consumables especially ink, is the "Golden Goose" for the equipment manufacturers. Epson's price per Liter for ink when you do the math is $380.00 / Liter!!! Anajet's White ink cost per Liter: $305.00, CMYK $264.00 / Liter, As opposed to Spectradtg @ $150.00 / Liter and they're not giving it away at no profit. This is similar to the tactic Kodak used to take to have you commit to their film contract; they'd "Give" you a brandy new film processor and in return you purchased all your film and chemistry from them. Good for you, although, since their film prices were "competitive", they were definitely higher than say agfa, etc... Brilliant for Kodak because they knew you were properly processing their film.
Anyway, I don't know if you can buy a refill kit for Epson Cartridges, what I would recommend if you can't would be to experiment with less white first down, increasing the dwell time, if possible before your second pass for CMYK to allow for the physics of oxidation to dry the white, thus giving it a greater degree of ink holdout and LESS IS MORE! by that I mean, run less white ink and at 720x720 and then run the CMYK also at 720x720 at 100% if that matches your proof print (in my case it's a print off my HP envy on HP Everday Gloss or Kodak Dull Coated Paper) then you're done. If not, then you can use that as a visual basis for comparatives and try increasing the ink to say 125% and so on...
Let me know if that works for you,
Happy Spray n Bake (And I helped)
john e.
 
#9 · (Edited)
I look at it this way. I just gave an a$$ wagon full of money (at least to me) for a BIG brand name Epson DTG and if they tell me to ONLY use their ink for the longevity of the machine then by goodness that is what I am going to do.

IMO, It's just not worth trying to save a couple of bucks on ink to me for the risk that you take. Epson undoubtably formulated their ink for their machine. Makes sense to me.

This isn't a $165 Epson XP800 printer either.

Example: I had two XP800's. Before that I also had other Epson ink jet printers.

Well, I wasn't going to pay the high ink prices (friggin' criminals, right?) so I bought some third party ink carts with hacked chips in them. It worked great on a couple of the older Epson printers but when I got to the XP800 that was the end of my "good luck".

The printer even told me that third party ink would void the warranty on it but I didn't care because it all worked great before on my other Epson printers.

Well, I guess I was just lucky before because the aftermarket ink screwed the printer up bad. 50 cagillion head cleanings later, no luck.

So brainiac me bought another one and after about a month's time I screwed that one up too.

I really don't think that it's just not worth the risk. You guys do what you want too, I'm sticking to Epson ink at least while I have a factory warranty and there is nothing out there yet that is tried and true.
 
#10 ·
The Epson white ink usage is outrageous. 5 months of servicing and cleaning and a few test sample tee shirts and I've already gone through 4 white ink cartridges. It's disgusting. I swear to God, if I ever see a refillable white cartridge on Alibaba I'm going to sing it from the rafters on this forum because Epson are bang out of order charging so much for white ink which simply does not last. (I should add, I have absolutely no complaints about the other colours, they've held up very well).
 
#12 ·
That is correct, the 2 that came with the printer (and they're not "starter" cartridges) and 2 more which are now down to 1/4 full each. I know that if I was printing large numbers of dark tees the white ink would last longer but I'm not and the printer is gulping ink every time I do the cleaning cycle (weekly) and tube cleaning (monthly). It's a joke.
 
#13 ·
Actually the ink cartridges that are included with the printer are the smaller 250 ml size. The size everyone usually purchases after are the 600 ml size. Buying 2 more white ink cartridges in almost a 1/2 year's time is not a large amount. If you are not doing white ink printing you can substitute the white ink cartridges with cleaning cartridges. They are very inexpensive.

_
 
#14 · (Edited)
I print all day every week day and sometimes weekends, (90% dark garments), and go through 2 x 600ml white carts every 2-3weeks depending on the designs I'm printing.

Average cost of the ink works out to around 15% per job, but that's not factoring in 330ml from each white cart getting wasted every month, plus and another 400ml per month wasted from those ridiculous unnecessary auto cleans.

If I was to factor that ink wastage in, the ink cost per job would be double and around 30% which is really high imo. Then when you factor in the cost of the garments, pretreat, time, and all your other overheads there really isn't much meat left on the bone as profit.

I don't think the F2000 suits high volume production because the more you use this printer, the more ink it unnecessarily wastes. Which makes using the printer for high volume production unfeasible. When I say high volume I mean multiple jobs of 20 - 50 units and not many one-ofs.

Now I wouldn't refer to my retail prices as 'cheap' and many will say, (even I've said it), that you need to factor the wastage costs into the end price, but because the F2000 wastes sooo much ink, and given how expensive the ink is, you would cost yourself out of the market if you were to do so.

Bear in mind I'm also using a RIP which saves a lot of white ink, I'd hate to see these figures using Garment Creator. In my opinion, after a year of ownership, the F2000 suits a business that offers DTG but it isn't their core profit maker e.g. screen printers, embroiderers, signage etc. It's something that sits in a corner and you turn it on and print a few shirts when you need to which covers the cost of the monthly flush. I don't think the F2000 suits a DTG only business who plans on using it as their sole printer/s.

Epson have built a printer that really only 'feathers their own nest' in terms of ink sales. They never designed this printer to make the owners bundles of profit, only themselves. The F2000 will put food on the table and pay your mortgage, but until the ink price comes down, and owners have the ability to turn off that stupid auto clean function, it won't make you tonnes of $$$. And I'm not holding my breath waiting for Epson to lower ink prices, or give owners the ability to stop it wasting so much ink.
 
#19 ·
I print all day every week day and sometimes weekends, (90% dark garments), and go through 2 x 600ml white carts every 2-3weeks depending on the designs I'm printing.

Average cost of the ink works out to around 15% per job, but that's not factoring in 330ml from each white cart getting wasted every month, plus and another 400ml per month wasted from those ridiculous unnecessary auto cleans.

If I was to factor that ink wastage in, the ink cost per job would be double and around 30% which is really high imo. Then when you factor in the cost of the garments, pretreat, time, and all your other overheads there really isn't much meat left on the bone as profit.

I don't think the F2000 suits high volume production because the more you use this printer, the more ink it unnecessarily wastes. Which makes using the printer for high volume production unfeasible. When I say high volume I mean multiple jobs of 20 - 50 units and not many one-ofs.

Now I wouldn't refer to my retail prices as 'cheap' and many will say, (even I've said it), that you need to factor the wastage costs into the end price, but because the F2000 wastes sooo much ink, and given how expensive the ink is, you would cost yourself out of the market if you were to do so.

Bear in mind I'm also using a RIP which saves a lot of white ink, I'd hate to see these figures using Garment Creator. In my opinion, after a year of ownership, the F2000 suits a business that offers DTG but it isn't their core profit maker e.g. screen printers, embroiderers, signage etc. It's something that sits in a corner and you turn it on and print a few shirts when you need to which covers the cost of the monthly flush. I don't think the F2000 suits a DTG only business who plans on using it as their sole printer/s.

Epson have built a printer that really only 'feathers their own nest' in terms of ink sales. They never designed this printer to make the owners bundles of profit, only themselves. The F2000 will put food on the table and pay your mortgage, but until the ink price comes down, and owners have the ability to turn off that stupid auto clean function, it won't make you tonnes of $$$. And I'm not holding my breath waiting for Epson to lower ink prices, or give owners the ability to stop it wasting so much ink.
I think you are exactly right. We are a fairly large screen-printer and it supports our DTG costs right now. We can now do jobs that we used to turn down due to low quantity or ability to print. For us, its a good add-on ( though we need to print more with it ), but if we had to survive on it alone, we'd be hurting.
 
#15 ·
I guess my complaint isn't the cleaning and maintenance. I know that the white ink is thick and tubes and heads need to be kept clog-free. My beef is the ridiculous price of the white ink compared to its potential tee shirt output especially with light use. And, no, the cartridges that came with my printer were not the smaller 250ml, in fact I've never even seen those. So, this means I've gone through 2 liters of white ink. I would not have a problem with this if the white ink was priced reasonably but it's not...it's priced higher than fine cognac which makes it an expensive cleaning solution.
 
#16 · (Edited)
The F2000 white ink is actually quite thin in terms of viscosity compared to other DTG inks. That's why you can fire up the printer after leaving it idle for extended periods with very little shut down procedure/maintenance. It has that quality/design in it's favour.

Epson won't lower the price of their F2000 ink carts. Epson will see to it that no-one dare uses other brands of ink in their carts. The F2000 serves it's purpose in the DTG market and if you're a now-and-again printer it should serve you well. :) Just keep it idle and you're good to go when you need it. There's some $$$ in that.

The way Epson can improve the F2000 with the next gen' is give the owner more choice and input. Choice! Give the owner more control. And a bulk ink system/price...
 
#28 ·
hello
because i have problems with my white ink, although the cartridges are full, the software shows me that are empty and need replacing, so I bought chips compatible $ 10 / piece on AliExpress, I turned off the printer, I removed the original cartridges, we removed the chips original and put them on the compatible and works perfectly shows me that level of full cartridge.
Now I just need to find compatible ink, one from DUPONT not go because it is viscous, I understood that in a few months from ARMOR would launch the ink for this printer.
Do you have any information? or else you tested this printer ink F2000

The Image Armor™ F-SERIES inks are a drop in replacement for the popular F2000 DTG printers on the market. Put more money in your pocket with considerable cost savings on inks. There has never been a better way to improve your F2000 direct to garment print shop than with the F-Series™ DTG inks.
 
#29 ·
Not sure if you guys realize this or not but, when you get the yellow alert icon in the F2000 LCD on the white ink carts along with the low ink warning, the carts aren't completely empty yet, just low.

When your white carts do run completely empty (or what ever cart) the F2000 will tell you. Insert the new carts are resume printing. Even if it stops in the middle of a t-shirt print it will pick up right back where it left off.

When my F2000 tells me that my ink carts are empty, they really are empty.

I WOULD NOT recommend any kind of third party ink being used in an F2000 until it is OUT of warranty.
 
#30 ·
Hi guys, thanks for the great info on this thread. We have a sign shop and we wrap lots of race cars. We are thinking of buying an F2000 so we can offer shirts as well. A lot of these guys want 15-20 shirts so screen print is not really an option. So with the cost of the Epson ink, what ink cost do you estimate to have in a single black t shirt? Something like a smaller logo on front, and a standard full back print?
 
#33 ·
No more on average than any other DTG I would say. When you factor in the costs of set up and breakdown with screen printing when doing multi color jobs (short runs which is what the DTG specializes in) I think you'd be surprised to see that the two mediums aren't that far apart. I know, I do both.
 
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