Description

Epson SureColor S80600

The Epson SureColor S80600 is a digital, eco-solvent printer that guarantees less wasted inks and a reduction of paint odors during operation. The Epson SureColor S80600 is the highest-end model of the SureColor SC-S printer series released back in January 2016, and it has been shaking up the print service industry ever since.

The Epson SureColor S80600 comes with many proprietary technologies, like its precision media feeding system, that puts it above the competition and prolongs its relevance even compared against the more intelligent printers of 2020. Thanks to its dual-array PrecisionCore TFP print head, which can vary the size of ink droplets to suit a job’s demands, the Epson SureColor S80600 can produce stunning graphics on a broad range of materials. It can print at a consistent 1440 x 1440 dpi, which doesn’t sound as surprising in the age of costlier 2880 x 1440 dpi printers, but in 2016, it was four times the gold standard for the print industry, which is still 300 dpi today.

With Epson’s SureColor S80600’s European launch, which included its RIP substrate support system and proprietary solvent ink, the brand rose to the top of European printer sales charts, going from a measly 9% in 2015 to a record-breaking 28.4% in Q4 of 2016.

Epson SureColor S80600 Printer Specs

In typical fashion, all Epson SureColor S80600 printer parts are all 100% proprietary Epson technology. There are no components of the Epson SureColor S80600 that you can buy from a third-party repair shop, even if you have a complete part number, except for maybe its ink.

The Epson SureColor S80600 printer specs result from the company’s single-minded commitment to perfect their eco-friendly solvent ink philosophy. They’re some of the best you can find for the price.

8-Color Printing

For many eco-solvent printers, 4-color printing is the name of the game. It allows the print head to apply different cyan, magenta, yellow, and black gradations in various parts of your media to speed up printing and maintain color accuracy. Many technicians still operate using this color mode, but UV-cure printers like the Mimaki UCJV300-160 are adding 7-color mode printing, which improves print quality and ink drying times.

Not to be outdone, the Epson SureColor S80600 printer has 8-color nozzles, and it had a 2015 launch, a full two years before the Mimaki UCJV300-160. Aside from CMYK colors, its high-performance dual array PrecisionCore TFP print head also carries white or metallic silver, red, and orange cartridges, guaranteeing higher image quality and shorter turnaround times.

The Epson SureColor S80600 printer can apply these eight colors in different concentrations to more areas of your media, which will improve color depth, sq. ft/hr print speeds, and accuracy.

To fully utilize this feature, your technicians might need some additional training, especially if they’ve been printing in the CMYK color space for years or they’re new to using white or metallic silver on projects.

Epson 80600 Print Dimensions

Because it’s a versatile printer, Epson SureColor s80600’s precision media feeding system can handle materials at a single roll-to-roll processing configuration. It gives the Epson SureColor S80600 printer outstanding photographic print quality, durability, and media compatibility. It also has excellent production capacity combined with its dynamic print head design and the Epson precision dot technology.

The two headline features of the Epson S80600 specs sheet is its high-performance dual array PrecisionCore TFP print and new precision media feeding rollers that cut the turnaround of jobs in half. You can print a logo on 12-inch-wide media to see its minimum printing capacity or go up to 64 inches to see how much the printer can take.

The Epson SureColor S80600 printer features newly developed cut settings. The digital interface gives you a lot of freedom to cut your media to the size you like and get the right image quality with the printer’s Epson precision dot technology. However, its cut-sheet size has a minimum of 17 inches x 22 inches and a maximum width of 63.6 inches.

Epson SureColor S80600 Printer Speed

The Epson SureColor S80600 has one of the fastest print speeds among all eco-solvent sign printers. It achieves a staggering 1,020 sq. ft/hr when printing a draft, which is undoubtedly thanks to its PrecisionCore TFP print head. After finishing your design and adding in more colors, like white or metallic silver, you can get speeds of up to 300 sq. ft/hr to 340 sq. ft/hr when printing a banner, and when you’re printing on vinyl, you can get a whopping 195 sq. ft/hr to 210 sq. ft/hr.

The SureColor S80600 printer features newly-developed Epson print settings on top of its already top-tier base printing technology–the production and quality settings. The quality setting is a little heavier on the ink and features less sq. ft/hr, but promises outstanding photographic print quality, durability, and a finer droplet size compared to most photographic sign printers available. The numbers mentioned above were with the production setting, which takes advantage of its new precision media feeding technology.

When using the quality setting, turnaround times are longer by almost a third. Banner printing will be at 195 sq. ft/hr, while vinyl is about 140 sq. ft/hr at higher image quality.

Print Weight

A versatile printer, Epson SureColor S80600 models have a maximum media thickness of 1 mm. You can input paper as thin as 45 grams per square meter.

The input roll media weight is 95 pounds. The S80600 has two rollers that can automatically wind out or wind in your media using its automatic tension bar.

Epson SureColor S80600 Printer Ink

The SureColor S80600 features newly-developed Epson Ultrachrome GS3 Red inks, which Epson exclusively produces and sells. You can use it with the other members of the SC-S printer family as long as you’re refilling Epson ink cartridges. You can use this ink in dual 9-color configurations that you can put inside two PrecisionCore TFP print heads, enhancing quality, durability, and media compatibility.

These newly developed Epson UltraChrome GS3 tints are available in a broad color gamut, featuring the standard cyan, magenta, yellow, and black, with the additional light cyan, light magenta, light black, orange, red, or white. The list price for every Epson UltraChrome GS3 9 color solvent ink, including its later derivatives, is just under $200, no matter where you’re filling your shopping cart.

Every Epson Ultrachrome GS3 9 color solvent ink cartridge has a Gold GREENGUARD certification, meaning they are eco-friendly and suitable for use indoors without compromising image quality and durability. Unlike UV-cure inks, a color solvent ink, including the GS3 line, doesn’t go under strong UV-LED lamps after application, so they don’t evaporate into the atmosphere. They have markedly weaker odors, so your operators, technicians, and customers can be content in a smaller office space with more photographic sign printers available to utilize space.

Also, an Epson Ultrachrome GS3 ink print will dry much quicker than its eco-solvent competitors. One of the main hurdles that prevent business owners from buying eco-solvent printers is drying times that exceed 24 hours. Every color in the Epson Ultrachrome GS3 ink line can dry in less than 6 hours, which opens your media to more artistic or protective additions, like making another pass with an ink jet head, or adding lamination to enhance and protect a project’s image quality.

Architects, engineers, and designers love Ultrachrome GS3 ink cartridges because it helps them earn a LEED Green Building Rating on their construction projects without compromising aesthetics.

GS3 ink cartridges and prints emit low levels of emissions over time, and there are no recorded allergies to them in either humans or animals, which makes them great for hospitals, school buildings, and nursing homes. Aside from meeting California’s 01350 criteria, GS3 inks also meet VOC A+ class standards.

Epson SureColor S80600 Printer Resolution

The printer, Epson SureColor S80600, features newly developed print sizes at a default resolution of 1440 x 1440 dpi. You can print at a variety of different resolutions to suit your media.

The S80600 quality settings contain the most number of passes and the highest workable resolutions for many media types in the print industry. For example, if you’re printing a banner with the quality setting on, the printer will make eight passes of 720 x 720 dpi color on every centimeter of its surface, which will slow down the printer to a speed of 12.5 square meters per hour.

Power and Operation

For a single-fan printer, Epson SureColor S80600’s dual PrecisionCore TFP print heads operate at a cooler temperature than its UV-cure competitors. When idle, the printer stands at 50°F, and with heavy printing jobs, it can reach up to 95°F. You should always keep it at 40% to 60% relative humidity while it’s active and 5% to 85% when putting it away for long-term storage.

The printer operates very silently, rarely reaching above 59 decibels, which meets the ISO 7779:2010 standards. For each print head, the SureColor S80600 requires 100 watts or less.

Seen by the market as a low electrical requirements printer, Epson SureColor S80600 models get by with only a single plug from an AC 200-240 v power source on the wall to power its productive and photographic sign making functions. You can use all its expanded inks for outstanding photographic prints without breaking the bank for your power bill.

Because it’s a low power consumption printer, Epson SureColor S80600 units have a maximum rated consumption of 650 watts from an AC 200-240 V plug, and with the heaters off, it will consume 30 watts or less. You can put it into sleep mode when you leave the office, and it will pull 3.5 watts per hour from an AC 200-240 V outlet if you leave it plugged in overnight.

Physical Dimensions and Certifications

For a printer with more than one print head, the SureColor S80600 is surprisingly light, weighing only around 615 pounds. It is 53 inches tall, 103 inches wide, and 34 inches deep. Its Ultrachrome GS3 inks hold up to ISO 18930:2011 standards, which give it high durability numbers compared to its competitors. You can buy its new red solvent along with its 9 colors and enjoy the same excellent durability and media compatibility when combined with more passes.

The printer, Epson Surecolor S80600, is one of the few with a certification from Pantone, which means that it can cover 98.2% of the expansive Pantone color gamut. So far, only a few members of the Epson SC-S family and the Ronald RF-640 8 Color have a Pantone certification. The S80600’s new red solvent, along with its 9-color print capability, intuitive printer interfaces, and UltraChrome GS3 silver inks for outstanding photographic reproduction, has unparalleled media compatibility when combined with its media drying system that improves turnaround time.

Epson SureColor S80600 Printer Manual

The S80600 printer, along with the Epson SC-S series, has one user guide for its three models (Epson SureColor S40600/S60600/S80600 Manual). A hard copy comes with every purchase, although you can download one from Epson.com if you lose yours.

Although the manual compresses three printers’ usage information into one booklet, it’s still comprehensive without being too hard to understand, with a part number for every component and instructions broken down into easily-digestible steps.

The manual is 170 pages long and brings you directly into the Table of Contents. The illustrations are a big help, especially for ordinary managers and technicians who are still learning the names of productive and photographic sign making parts of their printers.

The manual teaches you how to check for clogged print head nozzles, a common problem in eco-solvent printers, along with some basic troubleshooting for jams, LCD screen problems, and heater malfunctions. It teaches you about nozzle configuration color and monochrome heads and how to add in silver inks for outstanding color depth.

Reviews

Pros

The Epson SureColor S80600 printer is one of the most well-known printers on the market. Many reviewers see it as the best eco-solvent printer of all time. The SureColor S80600 is one of the most reliable printer families, rarely breaking down and producing minimal wasted inks, unlike its similarly-priced counterparts’ ink cartridges that require cleaning every day.

With an instant rebate, a discounted price, and the SureColor S80600 extended service warranty, this printer is an easy recommendation for its media compatibility. Print birthday cards, IDs, and signboards without worrying about nozzles clogging and blades dulling.

The S80600 is also a champ when it comes to ease-of-use. It’s a breeze to perform preventative maintenance and manual cleaning on the printer, and you only have to do it once a month.

Cons

The single downside of the S80600 is a minor annoyance that a software update can fix. The light inside it, which gives you a preview of your media, makes you wait 10 seconds before switching it on or off.

Comparisons

The only competitor of the S80600 is the HP Latex 570. The Epson prints quicker and produces better picture quality than the HP, with slightly deeper blacks and more vibrant yellows, but it cannot run on third-party inks.

Mutoh and Mimaki manufacture dual-head printers similar to the S80600, but they’re mostly UV-cure. UV-cure printers produce sharper odors and have more expensive parts. If you want a high-quality, cost-effective printer, your best bet is the Epson SureColor S80600.