Epson Surecolor SC-P6000 or HP DesignJet Z6

[YeahBatch]

Hello to everyone!

I plan to produce illustrated posters and sell them to my existing customers (extending business).
As I have no experience in poster printing, neither in large format printers, I'm not able to decide for one of these two 24" format printers, on my own.

In this forum, I have already got an information that HP printers use dyed inks, while Epson printers use pigment inks. That would be an advantage for Epson.
From one user, I also got an information that Epson is well-known for it's nozzle clogs, so that would be a con.

But, what are other advantages and disadvantages for SC-P6000 against DesignJet Z6? Both are about the same price and I can't find any realistic reviews on them

Which one has less ink consumption, which one would be more favorable for poster printing and which one could have less malfunctions? I guess that print quality is not so much different between these two, so, as I will not print photography, slight differences in print quality mean nothing in my case.

Unfortunately, Canon and other printer brands are not an option right now.

 

[Greyfall]

Another thing to consider is if and when you need maintenance where does it come from. We had an Epson machine and the only people epson would allow to work on it under warranty was someone directly form Epson and there was no one local so we were always down for days anytime something went wrong. We have since switched to an HP machine and there is a local company that will do warranty work on it.

 

[jfmeggitt]

Have the best of both worlds, and choose a Canon 2100S. These printers are fantastic. Pigment ink, Heads stay a lot cleaner and rarely clog. You can change a head yourself. Canon does have local companies that can work on them, and does allow it as well. And Canon is very customer friendly. Even if your printer is out of warranty, you can speak with their support and service group without having to pay them money

 

[WreckTangle]

Another thing to consider is if and when you need maintenance where does it come from. We had an Epson machine and the only people epson would allow to work on it under warranty was someone directly form Epson and there was no one local so we were always down for days anytime something went wrong. We have since switched to an HP machine and there is a local company that will do warranty work on it.

^^^^ This is a very good point.

In my experience we had problems with our epson that we used for proofing. Verse HP, I believe Epson might have a slight edge in print quality and color reproduction, although, I haven't had any recent experience with newer Epson machines.

One way to lessen wide format issues is to run the machine daily whether you have a production job or not. We have a small target sheet that I print in the morning. This keeps the ink freshly flowing, the printheads clog-free, and the ink feed pressure in the lines good.

Concerning the inks: Most HP printers use dyed inks for BLACK and pigment inks for the COLOR cartridges.

Concerning ink consumption: Hard to say, it really depends on what your printing and the quality of the file your client supplies. HP consumables are cheaper than Epson. I read a few years ago that HP inks were having fading issues while the Epson ink was not... not sure if this is still an issue.

I've run a lot of "posters" on HP machines and have no complaints with quality i.e., prints that require a wide color gamut range, 100% full color ink coverage, etc... One of the biggest suggestions I can make is to get better quality media, you'll have better and more consistent results.