Recommendation for Dye Sub Printers

[ZooCity]

We're moving our dye sub printing in house and I'm wondering what's good out there.   

I will be purchasing a wide format unit, not for the width of output but the savings on consumables. 

I see Epson, Ricoh, Mutoh and various rebrands of these print heads/engines and maybe I'm missing some?

Leaning toward SureColor F6200 and calling it a day but my gut tells me the RIP and workflow are equally important to the printer functioning and that's hard to vet out until you are in it.   

Would love to hear what others are using successfully, and why, in their shops.

[TCred]

We have the Espon F6000 which is essentially the F6200 minus the bulk waste container and firmware to run the high density black ink.

We opted to marry it up with the Serendipity Mega RIP as the RIP is what makes the printer run and support for the Mega RIP is good. I had doubts about support from Epson on RIP issues because they don't actually use it or make the RIP.

Experience has proven the RIP choice was correct, many SKYPE sessions and the ability to save the entire rip setup and email it to Jason at Serendipity has proven to be a life saver.

The machine has been faultless, it just works. I'm not sure there is anything more I can say there.

Sublimation paper OTOH has been a learning curve.

We invested in an Xrite i one so we can make our own ICC profiles, and again this has proven to be a life saver.

Any questions not answered fire away.

[ZooCity]

One for Epson,  thanks.  Will look at that rip too.

I have a color munki I need to fire up for this project.  I understand the profiles are paramount.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

[cbjamel]

Zoo remember you also have a big hot press or a roll feed hotpress to handle the paper and product you need.
Shane

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G890A using Tapatalk

[ZooCity]

Zoo remember you also have a big hot press or a roll feed hotpress to handle the paper and product you need.
Shane

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G890A using Tapatalk

We're aren't planning to image larger than a 16x20 heat press can handle.  Buying wide format because I did the math and the consumables are so much lower that it makes far more sense to go with the larger format even if you only need 17"w output.  For instance, you'll spend as much in ink carts for a smaller sawgrass virtuoso in year 1 than the whole wide format package with starter ink would have cost.

I also like that the larger printers are far more robust than desktop format, less hassle overall.

[cbjamel]

Maybe more robust not as quick I have ricoh  with bypass and quick with gel inks. if you cant find gel inks in bigger betterfpr quickness. i dont know if they make one. why?? I run the larger carts that helps. I ran a 4880 with 8 cart good color compared to 4 but head went out. 4 color hard blue and purples on inkjet. Get a hard design cask for sample to test.  My opinion.

Shane

[ZooCity]

What about Roland?  I see their Texart RT-640 has 8 colors which would cost more but worth it for the increased gamut and flo color ability?

[cbjamel]

Send them a sample with lots of colors. Have them print and you do the hot press to see colors. I would try this with all vendors and get how fast and amount of ink used per printed sample. Then compare apples and apples. My opinion. Conde/dyetrans might do samples on the mutoh of choice and epson of choice My Rep is Forrest -  1-800-826-6332. Check with Nazdar also.

Shane

[ZooCity]

Great idea, Thx!

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

[Maxie]

I just bought a Epson T3270, it has 5 cartridges so I have set up 4 CYMK sublimation and one Black for films.
So for I'm happy with the results, I haven't really tested for color accuracy.
One problem is that the Sub inks don't dry that fast so we have to catch the sheets as they come out the printer.      Maybe printing without cutting will work better.
One thing I like is the price compared to the big Sublimation printers, and I also have a back up for my 4880 film printer.

[cbjamel]

Maxie are you printing on sublimation paper? or something else?
Shane

[Maxie]

I use rolls of Sublimation paper.
I have someone in Florida who supplies me with bulk Sublimation inks and he sent me the color settings.
If you pm me I'll give you his email.

[cbjamel]

what brand ink? mine isnt dry but i usally dont have problems with smearing. i am using ricoh 7700 with gel inks from conde.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G890A using Tapatalk

[Maxie]

I'm not sure what brand it is, I get it from
edward.m58@att.net
Who is based in Florida.
A big bottle costs $70.
I also get Black UV blacking dye from him for the same price.
I've been using it for years.
He sent me a profile for the sub inks.
The T3270 prints quite fast and if it cuts the pieces of paper  fall onto each other and smudge.
I need to try either putting a small fan or not cut the roll until the ink dries.

[ZooCity]

To follow up:

Epson F6200 in house.  Running well except it started jamming paper every 2nd print last week using the Epson DS Adhesive paper.

It's all stock, oem inks right now which is, aside from the above, running fine and making some tight prints.

Except, the Wasatch SoftRIP has some major workflow limitations.  According to Wasatch we cannot:

• Print multiple copies out of AI to the RIP.
• Automatically adjust paper length to artboard size.

We'll look into the Serendipity rip suggested but I hate to give up the Wasatch color profiles we have been building ours off of.  Can't believe that the Wasatch RIP can't do the above.   They're suggesting each artist go to the rip station and adjust the paper size per job.... anyone using Wasatch have a better workaround?  I can only setup up to 4 print units so utilizing print units for common paper/artboard sizes is kinda out.