Anyone running a Canon iPF5100?

[DefiantSon]

How's it hangin guys. Is anybody here running or have run the Canon iPF5100 for their shop or at home even? I'm looking to possibly picking one up for both text and graphic print but I'm not sure if the materials I want to run through it would work or not. If anybody could answer these questions I would really appreciate it.

How durable are prints as in do they fade in sunlight fast/are they scratch resistant at all?

Can PMS colors be somewhat accurately produced with the available color gamut?

Does having two print heads seem to produce higher throughput speeds?

How often due the print heads clog or have to be replaced?

How often do you have to replace the ink/do certain inks get used up faster?

I'd like to hear real world experience before I hear Canon's sales pitch.

Thanks to any help in advance.

 

[Johu]

Hi DF,
I have an extensive experience with both Epson and Canon printers. iPF5100 is a good machine although I am wondering why they stick with x100 series in the smaller format since the bigger machines are evolved to X400 in the mean while. The scratch resistance as well as fading depends not just on the machine and ink but also on the materials. To my experience scratch resistance is good on the material I have experience with. Also I have clients who have held a poster outside with no physical protection for a month (that particular summer it was raining/sun/raining practically the whole month but there where no visible fading in the image.
The 5100 has quite large gamut (it has R,G and B as extra colors). Having said that it is smaller than let say Epson X900 series or even the newer siblings X400 series, but it is still big. Especially on the blue side where it extends further than Epson, which is why a lot of nature photographers like the machine.

Canon has a massive amount of nozzles/colour so their speed advantage over the epson is purely due to brute force. For the kind of jobs that I am used to deal with Canon is maybe 10-20% faster and does not suffer ink clogging as much as Epson, again having said that when you start experiencing with head problems on a canon machine you usually need to replce the print heads (yes on canon they are user replaceable) and they must be considered as a consumable. The life time of a print head largely depends on the usage and the kind of jobs you do. I have had heads that lasted for more than 40.000 A4 size of typical magazine proofs (mostly picture oriented pages, since there is no use to color accurately proof BW text pages) and I have had life time of about 10.000 A4 similar kind of pages but in a lot longer time period. So it is not just how much but how often. The more you print all the time the more pages you will get out of a print head. They can be replaced separatly and mostly this is the case. The price is hefty but on the other hand Canon consumes less ink. Based on my calculation the cost of ownership is about the same during few years time period. Also the print heads (even replaced) are under warranty for one year unless you print a massive amounts, since they have also a usage calculator. But so far I have never seen any one exceeding the warranty amount in one year.

Ink repplacing totally depends on the image/usage so I can not really help you there except for again stating that Canon uses less inks than Epson. As with Epson for some reason Light Magenta (Photo Magenta in Canon) seems to be the one with most usage, Light Cyan (again photo Cyan) and Yellow coming in close.

I hope that I was able to give you some help.

 

[DefiantSon]

Johu,

Thank you so much for all your help. I do have a few more questions though that hopefully you can further help me on.

How much do the print heads cost? What is the amount of prints to exceed the warranty in one year? I plan on using the printer 5-6 days a week for the entire time I own the printer. I will be producing multiple jobs a day so I wonder if I will easily exceed the warranty amount.

Was that 40.000 as in forty thousand prints lol? I just want to be sure.

Do you know if the ipf5100 can be controlled with a RIP software such as Wasatch Softrip or Onyx Rip? I read that this printer has a max print length of 59 feet, most of the panoramic prints I like to do are on average 62 feet. Could I bypass the max print length with a Rip?

Thank you again for all your help.

 

[Johu]

Hi DS,
I don't know the going rate for print heads in US but if you google PF-03 I think you will get the street price. The price in Europe is around >400€ / head. So they really are not cheap. But I think with your usage you should get really the most out of them.

Going back to the 40.000 (as in 40k) the added cost / A4 copy at the time was about 1000€ (heads were more expensive back then) so it was 2,5 € cents/A4 so it really was not a big thing. The 40k took just over a year so the heads were not under warranty anymore so I did not even bother checking whether the amount was exceeded. But really say you use the machine in average 5.5 days a week that would end roughly beeing 280days/year. This means that (assuming that you could get 40k out of the heads) you would need to print more than 142 A4 sheets/day this would total about nine square meters so about 100 square feet. Which would be about one of those 62feet long full width panoramic images/day. This calculation was just out of top my head, so some rounding up was done

To be honest I usually use something about 20-25k in my calculation as the life cycle for a pair of heads. I rather want to be on the safe side.

My experiences are with ORIS rip for the Canon, but there are others that work as well. What I like about ORIS rip is the fact that it uses the original Canon dithering which usually makes it a lot more productive than rips that have re-invented the wheel. Also the color management is in a very high level as it uses very clever iterative calculation. I have never printed anything as long as 62 feet, so I can not say for sure if this can be done, but it can also depend on your PC (Oris only works in windows) as at least older 32-bit windows versions (XP) has a limit of 2 Gig files inside windows folder. If you do high resolution printing 2 gig is not much.

Hope this helps

 

[JustinB]

I've got a Canon ipf8000s and a Mimaki 60" printer.

My 2 cents: The canon is more user friendly (it's like the interface was designed by a mom) and the mimaki interface was designed by an engineer.

Canon ink is MAD expensive compared to my Mimaki ink. I had to switch to aftermarket ink on my Canon to get the price under control. Canon wants like $.40 per ml for ink, and with heavy coverage you'll use .75 - 1 ml per sq foot. Aftermarket ink was around $.10 per sq ft.

My Mimaki ink is around $.15 per ml (factory ink)

On the photo paper and fabric I use, the canon is very susceptible to scratching. We could scratch and "kink" the image just from moving it off the printer. Laminating was the only way to get durability from the canon, but now we have to deal with curling because of the laminate.

Vinyl for my Canon is around $1.21 per sq ft and Canvas is around $1.00 per sq ft. Vinyl for my Mimaki is around $.20 per sq ft. Canvas can be had for around $.31 per sq ft.

The Mimaki is solvent, so it is extremely durable, but it stinks while it prints. We have to vent the fumes so people don't get headaches throughout the day.

The canon runs like a big version of a desktop inkjet printer.

I had to replace my Canon print heads every other year or so ($800-1000 for the pair)

Mimaki print heads last up to 7 years or more (don't know the cost yet, don't want to!)

I felt like with my Canon I could really only do about 10% of the wide format work out there because the output isn't durable. With my Mimaki I feel like can do about 90% of the work out there. (no flatbed work)

Canon printer: around $5k
Mimaki printer with built in cutter for cutting out stickers and vinyl lettering: around $15k

I've been very happy with my canon printer for the last 4 years, but it has some major limitations, and I got to the point where I couldn't live with them anymore, so I upgraded to solvent. I looked at the HP Latex, but it required lots more electricity, made lots more heat, and for my applications (banner work mostly) it didn't give a better product. Nothing wrong with it, we were almost swayed to do it, but it just didn't seem like as good a fit as the Mimaki.

Good luck!
Justin

 

[Smith]

Thanks to all for these helpful post. Really it's very interesting and informative post.

 

[DefiantSon]

JustinB,

Thank you so much for your input on this. I am curious though as to why material/ink costs so much more than the Mimaki? Is it because the Mimaki is able to print on material without special top coating or because the solvent ink is able to adhere better to the substrate? Also what brand of aftermarket ink do you prefer for your Canon?

Thanks again for your help.

 

[JustinB]

I believe the answer to your either/or question (top coating vs adherence) is: yes.

I've been purchasing my canon ink from inkjetcarts.us but Van Son is now selling aftermarket Canon ink, so you have a few reputable choices.

 

[tekphoto]

Does anyone know anything about a printhead chip resetter? Can it also be used to reset the error message that comes up when it asks you to replace the expensive print heads? Will it reset it to factory settings prolonging the life of the print head?
Here's a link on ebay: http://www.ebay.com/itm/For-CANON-IP...EAAOSwd3dXF19L

 

[Johu]

This reset device will only reset the has to its initial state. It will not reset any defect the head may have. As stated in the specs it may actually break your printer if a broken head is reset and then put back to the printer.