The saga of my printer or my Epson Rant

 I purchased my P-5000 printer October 31, 2017 (perhaps Holloween was a sign for trouble) and for almost 3 year it was surprisingly well behaved. Compared to my last Epson a 4900, it was reasonably clog free or at least, it cleared the clogs without too much work even though the printer often had a month or longer down time when I traveled to R.I. in the summer. Still I ran tests thru it almost daily and printed when I could. 

Even St. Lucy could not protect me from the Epson Curse

About 6 months ago the printer during cleaning cycles would throw an error code 1433, which required a restart. After some inquiry it turned out to be a faulty print head positioning sensor and its a major repair, not as major as a new head but close to it. The problem was increasing as time passed and a few months ago I thought, well I'll just get another one, only to find they were on deep back order everywhere. It seemed that Epson was just not making them. This really complicated my situation, my studio is too small for a 24" printer, I print an equal amount of sheet and roll paper, I like the 17" format making 17x24 prints, and I has a complete set of replacement ink for it, valued at nearly $1,000. (its interesting that my ink inventory was like legacy lenses that keep you from switching from one camera system to another) This past week it just clogged, would not allow for a cleaning cycle to complete and the old error code 1433 kept forcing restarts. By chance I checked first B & H (backordered) and then did a google search and found one at Samy's Camera on the West coast, they said they just got a shipment. On a hunch I contacted Jim Doyle at Shades of Paper my usual go to guy and Jim very patiently talked me off the ledge, first we discussed the economics of repairing the failed sensor and then he tells me he had one and just one left after filling a bunch of backorders. I placed and order and its supposed to be freight shipped to me on Monday.

the former home of my old printer

So the moral of this story? First, my dear friend Aimee remarked that her refrigerator costs about what this printer does and if our refrigerators or washing machines only lasted as a long as what epson calls their "professional" printers, we would all riot. Three to five years it seems is all they last and for a $1350 printer (that is after the $400 rebate) this to me seems a scandal. We have al bought into this new way of thinking about technology/gear that it's only a short term relationship like computers and that just seems so wrong but its sadly the only game in town for those of us working digitally. I've spent a lot of my professional career digitally on the bleeding edge of technology, Olympus dye sub printer that fade after a year, early ink jet printers with 4 inks that had terrible color spaces and of course early on, really shitty paper choices. Compare that to buying a Beseler 45 enlarger and using it for literally a lifetime or a Hasselblad Superwide that could be rebuilt almost forever and suddenly the Nikon D100 6 mp camera that we purchased for almost a $1,000 seems crazy. We have hooked our wagon to this crazy deal and now all we can do is smile and make the most of the ride.

My old printer on its last ride to the electronic recycler.