# Epson 4880 Sublimation Ink Setup Options



## benwilliamson (Apr 3, 2007)

We've just purchased an epson 4880 for dye sub printing to replace our 1400s which just dont last long enough due to the volume of printing we do.

I've noticed that some people have their 4880s set up as a hybrid system with 4 Dye Sub inks and 4 Chromablast inks.

We dont need Chromablast but I was wondering if there was any benefit in using two sets of four dye sub inks (CMYK in slots 1-4 and 5-8)? Is this even possible (if so how?!) and is there any benefit to doing this (I'm thinking it might use less ink? or at least I only have to buy four colours, not eight different colours). 

Any thoughts or advice appreciated!


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## Riderz Ready (Sep 18, 2008)

The amount of ink used will not vary between using four or eight colors. If you go dual CMYK you will need to purchase a RIP. There are several advantages of a RIP including being able to control the amount of ink that the printer uses. Typically printing directly to the printer you are wasting significant amounts of ink.


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## Conde_David (May 29, 2008)

What brand ink do you intend to use?
One benefit of a hybrid setup would be to
use cleaning carts on the right side.

This would lower your initial cost and make
things quite simply.

The software to run the hybrid will depend
on your brand of ink.

Let me know.


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## benwilliamson (Apr 3, 2007)

Thanks Guys.

We'll be using Artainium UV+. Dual CMYK sounds good. I'm assuming that using only 4 Subli carts instead of 8 will reduce the print quality to some degree?


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## Conde_David (May 29, 2008)

Quality is fine. We print in the 720dpi mode.
It's not dual cmyk. Sub on left, cleaning carts on right.

You will need to purchase the dual jet driver. It is
about $129 I think.

What version windows?


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## benwilliamson (Apr 3, 2007)

Windows XP


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## Riderz Ready (Sep 18, 2008)

Not sure how much you are printing but by your original post it sounds like you are printing quite a bit which in itself is a reason to really consider a RIP like Wasatch. With a RIP and a professional ICC Profile you will accomplish two things. First you can dramatcially increase your printing speed. If you print at 720x720 it is like watching paint dry. This was the number one reason we went with a RIP as at 720 x720 the Epsons are too slow to use in a high production environment. By switching to a RIP at 360x720 bi-directional we dramatically increased output of the Epson. Second reason for a RIP, especially at high voulumes, is your ink cost. Artainium ink is very expensive. Printing at 720x720 will drop a ton of extra ink on the paper you do not need. It is Sawgrasses dream come true. A RIP will allow you to significantly reduce ink consumption. 

You just need to detemine how much you really will be printing to determine if the RIP will be a cost effective purchase for you.


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## Conde_David (May 29, 2008)

The profile will put down the correct amount of ink for the print mode.
If you did put down too much ink, colors would look terrible.


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## benwilliamson (Apr 3, 2007)

On-line Jerseys said:


> consider a RIP like Wasatch. With a RIP and a professional ICC Profile you will accomplish two things.


Thanks, we are looking at wasatch and multirip (although I'm not sure if multirip would print at the lower resolution). Mark, do you use this setup and did you have to pay for the professional ICC profile to be created or would Wasatch come with this? Are you using 4 channels or 8?

This is all a bit new to us so thanks for your advice...!


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## Conde_David (May 29, 2008)

I recommend the dualjet driver.
It is low cost around $200.
Profiles are built in.


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## Riderz Ready (Sep 18, 2008)

benwilliamson said:


> Thanks, we are looking at wasatch and multirip (although I'm not sure if multirip would print at the lower resolution). Mark, do you use this setup and did you have to pay for the professional ICC profile to be created or would Wasatch come with this? Are you using 4 channels or 8?
> 
> This is all a bit new to us so thanks for your advice...!


We use Wasatch. I do not have any clue the differences between RIPS and selected Wasatch based on what the ink vendor recommended and it is a very common RIP. We are using dual CMYK. Depending on the ink you are using there is a diffeent levels of advantages of going with more colors. If it is Sawgrass there probably is not a significant advatage going eight colors unless you are doing photo quality on hard substrates like tile. If you are using inks from someone like J-tech there may be reason enough to look at more then a simple CMYK set up as they have other colors such as orange and turquiose which will expand your color range. If we ever do things over we would look at adding specific colors as mentioned above. 

As far as custom ICC profiles goes I would suggest trying the one you get from your ink vendor. If it does what you need it to do you are good to go. If you are not getting the colors you need you probably need to have an ICC profile and printer linerazation done. The idea of custom profiles is that you expand the colors you can hit and reduce the amount of ink you use. The more volume you do the more important all this is to you. I believe I stated before but by changing inks, we use J-tech, and moving to Wasatch to control the amount of ink we use we save approx $2,000 per month on ink cost. Just by using Wasatch to control the amount of ink we use we reduced ink consumption 30% without loss of quality.


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## benwilliamson (Apr 3, 2007)

This has been very useful and I have started evaluating Multirip (I'll probably look at Wasatch and Dual Jet too). Does anyone use Multi Rip with CMYK Artanium inks? The print quality is very grainy. Printing with 6 colors on our 1400 with no RIP is much better quality.

We're using artanium ink in CMYK slots 1-4 (cleaning carts in 5-8) with True Pix paper. I've tried loads of settings in Multi Rip (paper type, resolution etc) but they all come out grainy.

We print on ceramic mugs so the quality must be good. Am I doing something wrong, or perhaps I need to go eight colours after all?


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## Riderz Ready (Sep 18, 2008)

There are so many settings but the one to check first is the resolution. We print at 360 x 720 bi-directional. You may need to print at 720 x 720 since you are doing photograph quality on a hard substrate.


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## benwilliamson (Apr 3, 2007)

I've tried all the settings available within MultiRip 720x720, 1440x720 and 1440x1440 but they all come out grainy. The same prints on the 1400 come out so much clearer?


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