We've had an R1800 for some time now. It is a great printer. Here's some things we've learned:
+Epson ink works best. We've used refilled inks, house brand inks and specialty inks. The specialty inks worked OK for specific cases (B&W, for example) but not so well for normal photo printing. Yes, Epson inks are expensive, but after working through the hassles of finding ICCs, determining which to use with each pair of paper and ink comibinations the effort was too much.
+Epson paper also works best, although others, if they have an ICC profile, work well too (we use Epson, Adorama, Moab and Red River). We've had a lot of trouble with HP papers such as tri-fold brochure; they take a lot of tweaking to the output settings to get a good print.
+Run the printer at least once per day. Although the clogging is much less than our old Epson 3000, it still needs cleaning if not used for a couple of days. Lately, this hasn't been a problem as we've been busy.
+Have plenty of space. The printer with its trays out needs a square that is two feet on a side. And it is pretty heavey as well.
+Roll paper is great, but I wish the printer had a cutter.
+Disc printing works really well; we've used our own templates in Illustrator and Photoshop to make some good-looking discs. Not really speedy; if we have a run of more than fifty we send them out.
All in all, a really great printer. Ours has been going string for four years now.
Good luck!
---Ritch
