# Need advice between epson printers 9900/9890/SC-T7000



## cubedecibel (Nov 1, 2009)

Hello folks,

I'm totally new on dye sublimation and I need some advice.

I'm looking up;
Epson SureColor SC-T7000 
Epson Stylus Pro 9890
Epson Stylus Pro 9900

What would be your choice? SC-T7000, is alot more affordable..

And when it comes to ink; 
As I am in the EU and we are quite limited in both machines and supplies i found a few options, but one of my suppliers have the *Manoukian Subli-Ink*. Is that any good? They are sold in litre-bottles and fairly cheap.

And transferpaper;
TexPrint can be bought by three of my suppliers. I guess that is OK?

Do I need a RIP if I buy a stock printer?

Any help and inputs are highly appreciated.

have a great day.


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## cubedecibel (Nov 1, 2009)

No one have experience in one of those machines for sublimation?..


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## rubengevo (May 17, 2013)

get an Epson 9700 - it's a CMYK only printer, you don't need all the light/green/orange crap to do sublimation. You'll be wasting your money on inks that you don't need. Get refillable cartridges - there are 770ml carts, you'll need two reset chips - one for the cartridge, another one for waste tanks. You don't need a RIP - the driver has more controls that you'll ever need , believe me. The only reason to have a RIP in this case (sublimation) will be to do repeats - but you can create a file across the width of the page and print as many copies as you want - just make sure you have plenty of RAM on your computer. Good luck!

Rubo


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## Coastalrich (Jun 24, 2009)

cubedecibel said:


> Hello folks,
> 
> I'm totally new on dye sublimation and I need some advice.
> 
> ...


The key here is not what is the best printer choice for you but to find a dealer that can provide you with a solution that will work for your production needs. You will be very disappointed unless you find a dealer that can provide you with the complete solution from the printer to the inks to the paper, RIP, etc.

If you want to have successful sublimation production and concentrate on what you do best like marketing and selling do not try to put together the sublimation production by just buying the cheapest items and hope for a workable solution.


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## cubedecibel (Nov 1, 2009)

Thanks for your replies!

Rubengevo:

No one of the serious epson-dealers in Sweden have the 9700 any more.. A total of 3 sellers have it and the cost is 1200-1500€ more than surecolor SC-t5000.

The surecolor is also a 4-color printer, with two blacks. 5 total... Wouldnt that be the same as for 9700?


Coastalrich:

That would be great, but NO suppliers in sweden offer sublimation-stuff in general.. A few are selling the small ricoh-printers and sawgrass inks. Other than that its all 20000-30000+€ mutoh or mimaki-machines.


The three printers I mentioned are the ones that I THINK would work for sublimation with my budget. I will, how ever, need to buy a 3-party CISS and some ink from sawgrass or manoukian.. And will have no machine support. Just from ink and paper supplier.


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## ingulpthis (Jan 6, 2015)

hello everyone, 

sorry to just jump in but, I am a newbie and I was wondering if I purchase the Epson Stylus Pro 9900 printer. how do I transfer the image to the apparel. Can you heat transfer from this printer on to apparel? . how do I transfer the image to the apparel? Is it based on the paper I use? If so, open for recommendation before I purchase this equipment. I will also need a cutter that will be able to cut out small image dimensions. Do you have any recommendation, the printing area is 44" wide. Lastly, what kind of ink would be great for the different color shirts, and outerwear jackets? Thanks


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## mcpix (Jun 27, 2008)

Most people choose the 9890 over the 9900 for sublimation because the 9890 uses 8 inks (C,M,Y,K,Lc,Lm,Lk,LLk). This matches the 8 color sublimation ink sets of many vendors. The 9900 is a 10 color machine.


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## baumanb (Apr 8, 2007)

mcpix said:


> Most people choose the 9890 over the 9900 for sublimation because the 9890 uses 8 inks (C,M,Y,K,Lc,Lm,Lk,LLk). This matches the 8 color sublimation ink sets of many vendors. The 9900 is a 10 color machine.



Most of shops printing sublimation, use 4 inks printers. Using CMYK only.


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## ZO6 KLR (Jan 8, 2013)

rubengevo said:


> you don't need all the light/green/orange crap to do sublimation. You'll be wasting your money on inks that you don't need. You don't need a RIP The only reason to have a RIP in this case (sublimation) will be to do repeats
> 
> Rubo


I want to address a couple of comments.

Regarding the extra inks being a waste of money, that really depends on the substrate being printed and the type of production you are running. We run 8 colors on all of our printers as we do quite a bit of hard substrates. Running all eight will give you better tonal gradations and a slightly higher (not much) color gamut. If fast production is needed, yes, a dual CMYK printer setup is quite a bit faster and when doing fabrics/textiles, you will not see that much difference. Hard substrates such as Chromalux and license plates you will see a major difference when using 4 vs. 8 colors. With hard substrates, I can pick out an 8 color over a 4 color every time.

The comment about not needing a RIP is very questionable. RIP's not only afford you with convenience of multiple prints and repeat orders as you stated but also give you control over your transitions, linearizations, ink limits and the most important, profiling. I don't know of any serious production company that does not use a RIP. It will also provide automatic nesting to save on paper consumption. Most RIP's also give you a cost analysis of each and every job. There are more benefits that RIP's provide but I'm highlighting what best helps me.

Can you get by without a rip? You sure can, but why would you want to? If I had it to do over again, the RIP would have been the FIRST thing purchased along with a spectrophotometer. I would have saved most of my hair a long time ago.


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## mcpix (Jun 27, 2008)

ZO6 KLR said:


> Can you get by without a rip? You sure can, but why would you want to? If I had it to do over again, the RIP would have been the FIRST thing purchased along with a spectrophotometer. I would have saved most of my hair a long time ago.


Thanks for a great post that answered a lot of my questions. I have an Epson 4880 (Artanium UV+ ink) and I've been struggling to get the color I want. I just picked up a used i1 spectrophotometer off eBay last week and I was debating whether to get the Wasatch RIP for my machine. Looks like that's next on my list!


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## socceronly (Jul 22, 2012)

Once you add in the cost of a good RIP.

How close are you to the F6070?


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## danielccm (May 2, 2017)

mcpix said:


> Most people choose the 9890 over the 9900 for sublimation because the 9890 uses 8 inks (C,M,Y,K,Lc,Lm,Lk,LLk). This matches the 8 color sublimation ink sets of many vendors. The 9900 is a 10 color machine.


What if I already have a 9900..... Can I work with it? The only problem with it now is that it has an obstructed inyector (black if I'm not mistaken).... What are my options? Thanks!


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