# Sawgrass Ink? Cobra Ink? Who's better?



## shiver (Mar 16, 2008)

Hi All. I've been asked by an existing customer if I can do dye sublimation? I currently just do 
t-shirts using heat press vinyl. I tried the screen printing route and, I'll be honest, all the separating, screens and messiness with the chemicals just wasn't for me. I've thought about dye sublimation in the past but thought I would waste a lot of ink and have a lot of headaches due to not having enough jobs to keep the printer running enough for the inks to not dry/print head problems. This customer thinks she can keep me busy enough ( she supplies to a lot of the casinos/bingo establishments). It's been years since I looked at set-ups, so I'm sure things have changed since, say...2008...when I last looked at dye sublimation. 

Would any of you be so kind as to share with me your set up? What I'm looking at cost wise for a print (I'm sure it varies depending on size of graphics and more). I'm a little familiar with Sawgrass Ink. Read about Cobra Ink, that's a new one for me. CISS system, read some about that as well. 

I use CorelDraw for all the designing. I have Photoshoppe but I'm not very familiar with it. 

Thank you for sharing your knowledge with me.


----------



## Dekzion (May 18, 2015)

Hi Vicki and belated welcome.
We use a Ricoh with Sawgrass ink and trupix paper. we design our pic with Serif apps but any prog will do the same quality if not better probably.
we export as a jpg and hit print. it goes through the 'powerdriver' app and comes out beautiful every time.
I feel I'm robbing the customer by charging £1 for an A4 print because the real cost is far lower than that.
Ricoh and Sawgrass were designed to work together so that is what they do.
From all accounts according to Mike, ciss is a bad way to go with cobra inks, he said not long ago that refillable cartridges should be used in Epsons, but then that's a personal opinion and there are many who swear they have theirs working great.
Epsons are cheap, cobra ink is cheap, ciss makes it all cheaper. loss of substrates, materials and consumables is not.


----------



## mgparrish (Jul 9, 2005)

Dekzion said:


> Hi Vicki and belated welcome.
> We use a Ricoh with Sawgrass ink and trupix paper. we design our pic with Serif apps but any prog will do the same quality if not better probably.
> we export as a jpg and hit print. it goes through the 'powerdriver' app and comes out beautiful every time.
> I feel I'm robbing the customer by charging £1 for an A4 print because the real cost is far lower than that.
> ...


CISS doesn't make it cheaper, it's the ink cost that makes it cheaper, but otherwise an accurate post.

With either CISS or refillable carts you still buy the inks at the same price in bulk.

Also, loss of substrates is not an Epson or Ricoh issue, you can see from the printed page if there are nozzle problems _usually_ before you press, so you don't waste substrates.


----------



## mgparrish (Jul 9, 2005)

shiver said:


> Hi All. I've been asked by an existing customer if I can do dye sublimation? I currently just do
> t-shirts using heat press vinyl. I tried the screen printing route and, I'll be honest, all the separating, screens and messiness with the chemicals just wasn't for me. I've thought about dye sublimation in the past but thought I would waste a lot of ink and have a lot of headaches due to not having enough jobs to keep the printer running enough for the inks to not dry/print head problems. This customer thinks she can keep me busy enough ( she supplies to a lot of the casinos/bingo establishments). It's been years since I looked at set-ups, so I'm sure things have changed since, say...2008...when I last looked at dye sublimation.
> 
> Would any of you be so kind as to share with me your set up? What I'm looking at cost wise for a print (I'm sure it varies depending on size of graphics and more). I'm a little familiar with Sawgrass Ink. Read about Cobra Ink, that's a new one for me. CISS system, read some about that as well.
> ...


Starting out I do not recommend CISS. They add complexity to the process. Most with refillable carts have way fewer issues.


----------



## Signature Series (Jun 11, 2016)

mgparrish said:


> Starting out I do not recommend CISS. They add complexity to the process. Most with refillable carts have way fewer issues.


This is singly the best advice everyone should give anyone starting in dye sub. CISS are a disaster and to be honest the only people they benefit is the ink companies selling them as you will waste more ink then you ever actually use on products. Are there exceptions to the rule? Of course but if you look through years of forum post the situation has never changed or improved.


----------



## Viper Graphics (Mar 28, 2009)

Dekzion said:


> Epsons are cheap, cobra ink is cheap, ciss makes it all cheaper.


Epsons are not Cheap, Cobra Ink is not Cheap....they are reasonably priced compared to that overpriced overrated Sawgrass inks and Ricoh printers....now, the off brand inks and such you get on Ebay from China, now that is cheap and it's a gamble.


----------



## Signature Series (Jun 11, 2016)

Viper Graphics said:


> Epsons are not Cheap, Cobra Ink is not Cheap....they are reasonably priced compared to that overpriced overrated Sawgrass inks and Ricoh printers....now, the off brand inks and such you get on Ebay from China, now that is cheap and it's a gamble.


To be honest you really think Cobra Ink is anything more than ink from China relabeled? In my opinion the difference between Cobra Ink and "cheap" ink from China is profiles and support. That is what you get, which is very important, for the additional cost. If you really look at it Cobra ink is very expensive in comparison to high quality ink from Italy, etc. that is sold in liters.

If you look at it the main reason desktop ink is so much more expensive then "wide format" ink is the cost of supporting desktop users. I doubt there are any wide format production dye sub companies using Cobra Ink. If I was a desktop user and used a good amount of ink I would use a ink like J-Tek that would be half the price.

In short the additional cost people spend on Sawgrass are justified to them by few issues just like many will pay more for Cobra not to have as many issues as generic ink.


----------



## mgparrish (Jul 9, 2005)

Signature Series said:


> To be honest you really think Cobra Ink is anything more than ink from China relabeled? In my opinion the difference between Cobra Ink and "cheap" ink from China is profiles and support. That is what you get, which is very important, for the additional cost. If you really look at it Cobra ink is very expensive in comparison to high quality ink from Italy, etc. that is sold in liters.
> 
> If you look at it the main reason desktop ink is so much more expensive then "wide format" ink is the cost of supporting desktop users. I doubt there are any wide format production dye sub companies using Cobra Ink. If I was a desktop user and used a good amount of ink I would use a ink like J-Tek that would be half the price.
> 
> In short the additional cost people spend on Sawgrass are justified to them by few issues just like many will pay more for Cobra not to have as many issues as generic ink.


Most of the Chinese inks cost more for the shipping than the inks costs.

J-Tek might be fine, or even InkTek, just need a profile made. One of these days I might get some optical equipment and play around with that stuff.


----------



## mgparrish (Jul 9, 2005)

Signature Series said:


> To be honest you really think Cobra Ink is anything more than ink from China relabeled? In my opinion the difference between Cobra Ink and "cheap" ink from China is profiles and support. That is what you get, which is very important, for the additional cost. If you really look at it Cobra ink is very expensive in comparison to high quality ink from Italy, etc. that is sold in liters.
> 
> If you look at it the main reason desktop ink is so much more expensive then "wide format" ink is the cost of supporting desktop users. *I doubt there are any wide format production dye sub companies using Cobra Ink.* If I was a desktop user and used a good amount of ink I would use a ink like J-Tek that would be half the price.
> 
> In short the additional cost people spend on Sawgrass are justified to them by few issues just like many will pay more for Cobra not to have as many issues as generic ink.


Even if the inks prices from Cobra were closer to typical wide format prices I wouldn't buy wide format ink from someone that I didn't get my printer from due to the warranty issues. 

Unless Cobra starts selling WF printers and can warranty the printer it would be risky.


----------

