Epson S80 White ink longevity

We use an S70 with white ink. If Epson gives it a 6 month life, consider that an optimistic figure.

 

Orange ink starts fading in 3-6 months outdoors. It makes all your reds turn pink. We have only used the white and silver on motocross decals because of the longevity problem. Bikes are only outside on the weekends when they race and at practice; the rest of the time they are in a garage or a trailer. Even then we are seeing fading of white and metallic silver within about a year.

For regular sign work outdoors we have made profiles that only use CMYKLcLm, and then we get the expected 5 year durability laminated.

 

That is accurate. White 5-6, silver 2-3...silver not supposed to be used outdoors..couldn’t laminate it if you wanted to anyway...I said it before Ill say it again. Silver in is like the 3D feature in your tv...you will never use it.

 

In the past, Epson had performance challenges with yellow and orange on the GS6000 inks. Yellow faded as soon as 3 months outdoor, even when laninated. Orange lasted a little longer but few profiles were actually utilizing the orange or green sufficiently so it was not as widespread as the yellow.

However, the new GS3 inks, used in the S40600, S60600 and S80600 are not the same.

We have tested the inks in an independent third party weather chamber and Avery and 3M have also performed their own independent testing.

Based on the results of the tests and information gathered from Epson, here are the outdoor lifespans for the GS3 inks:

CMYK, Light Cyan, Light Magenta, Light Black, Orange and Red: 3 years outdoors unlaminated. 5-6 years outdoor laminated with a UV laminate.
White: 1 year outdoor unlaminated. 2 years outdoor laminated with a UV laminate.
Silver: 3 weeks outdoor unlaminated (will start to turn green). up to 3-6 months outdoor laminated with a UV laminate.

The following chart is from Epson. *The stated lifespan does not include white or metallic ink.

 

Whoever wrote up that piece of falsehood obviously never had to replace a year and a half of sign production because the orange faded in just a few months (laminated), making all the red turn pink.

 

This would be the fist time I have ever heard of any of the colors fading prematurely using the GS3 inks. We have over 400 Epson printers in our network alone. If the GS3 orange did actually fade prematurely there would be tons of other complaints from the hundreds of S80 printers in the world.

Also, in most profiles, orange is not used at all to create red. It uses Magenta and Yellow.

This post is about GS3 ink. If you are using an S70, that is not using GS3 ink.

 

If this will be indoors away from sunlight, you will get several years. Probably more than 8.

 

I'm curious on this topic as well. We've had our s80 for a couple months now. As a precaution we are running anything outdoors with a CMYK lc lm lk profile, we run the red and orange for indoor stuff. But I've only ever seen a couple different people claiming short life span. We printed some tests and have the outside unlaminated from day one, so far they look identical to the control print.

I'd love to be able to confidently use the R and O inks as they really do brighten up your prints.

Does anybody have any pictures of these fading issues?

 

I would have thought that orange isn't used to make red. But it is. M+O, with very little yellow. Obviously that will depend on the RIP how it decides to mix the inks. But we were using a canned profile from 3M to start with. Now we're using profiles we made ourselves and have no problems with fading. Interestingly, although I bought the printer for the orange ink because our old Mimaki JV3 could not reproduce oranges the way we needed it to, with the S70 running a CMYKLcLm profile, it hits oranges really well.

 

Wouldn't red use mostly red ink?

 

Ok I see now, you are referring to an s70, not GS3 inks.