# Sawgrass SG400 or Artisan 1430?!?!



## danab690 (Sep 20, 2016)

I have only dealt in vinyl thus far. I want to get into sublimation. My first research I thought OK, I definitively want the Sawgrass SG400. Then I came across some different forums from here. Most of them were from a few years ago. I am asking as a very new newbie for any help possible. I don't want to make a huge mistake straight out of the gate. Looks like the Artisan 1430 is close to the SG400.


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## hawaiianphatboy (Apr 28, 2008)

I am also pretty new to sublimation, and started with the Artisan 1430. My understanding and feedback received basically stated that the inks are cheaper or the Epson printer, and you can go with a CIS. The Artisan is a six ink system so you would be buying six colors for the printer. I did have a problem early on with the Artisan. To this day i dont know what caused it, but after only about a month, the rear sheet feeder would not feed the paper through. I could not figure it out, however it looked like one of the rollers would not grab the paper for the wider format paper. I could not figure it out, and eventually landed up breaking it trying to fix the roller. I purchased a second printer which was a factory refurbished one, and was using that one for a while until i decided to buy a different Epson for my sublimation and use the Artisan for my positives for screen printing. Other than trying to tweek the settings so that i get the best colors possible there weren't to many issues with the new one. There are quite a bit of different inks and companies to buy them from, but i went with Cobra. They give you the profiles you need to get the prints close. To me the most difficult part of sublimation is finding the right settings and the amount of wasted substrates trying to find the right time and pressure for each item. Good luck to you.. Aloha


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## PatWibble (Mar 7, 2014)

hawaiianphatboy said:


> To this day i dont know what caused it, but after only about a month, the rear sheet feeder would not feed the paper through.


Some coated papers (photo, sublimation etc) can leave a residue that builds up on the rollers, in extreme cases causing them to skid.
You can buy cleaning sheets, which you run through the printer to clean the rollers.


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## Dekzion (May 18, 2015)

Good advice Pat, and you know what I'll say to the OP. Go Ricoh. Design print press job done.


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## PatWibble (Mar 7, 2014)

Dekzion said:


> Good advice Pat, and you know what I'll say to the OP. Go Ricoh. Design print press job done.


I am in the other camp - a 1430 (1500w) man.

I concede that due to the power driver the Ricoh/Sawgrass is better for the low volume, quick turnaround/'while you wait' trade. 
Great for High Street locations, printing onto a wide variety of substrates.

I only got into sublimation as a way of printing Hi vis cheap enough to compete with the online sellers, so most of my prints are one colour logos. I don't really get the colour matching issues that would be solved by the SG400.

Once properly set up, and if you get slightly larger orders, then there are big savings to be made with the Epson.

Inktec Sublinova for the Epson costs £70 per litre - Sawgrass cartridges cost £40 for 30ml (£1300 per litre).

Comparing the SG400 and the 1430 isn't a totally accurate comparison. Although when the ciss is added, the two cost similar amounts of money, the SG400 is an A4 (9") printer, and the 1430 is A3+ (13"). 
If the user needs the bigger A3 size, then the larger Sawgrass SG800 ( upto £800) is nearly 4 times the cost of the 1430 (£190).


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