# whats the best printer to use??



## sas1 (Feb 8, 2012)

im wondering whats the best printer to use for printing sublimation transfers.
can only find ricoh and epson models but can only find ricoh cartridges so im not to sure if you can use epson printers


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## Riderz Ready (Sep 18, 2008)

Search these threads as there are numerous post regarding the subject.


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## sben763 (May 17, 2009)

Epson will do just fine. If you can still find a wf1100. Ricoh have print head failures. Epson tends to clogg. I personally would go with epson as I have always been able to unclogg the head. If you print often or use something like Harvey head cleaner it prints automaticlly by a schedule all should be good.


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## sas1 (Feb 8, 2012)

sben763 said:


> Epson will do just fine. If you can still find a wf1100. Ricoh have print head failures. Epson tends to clogg. I personally would go with epson as I have always been able to unclogg the head. If you print often or use something like Harvey head cleaner it prints automaticlly by a schedule all should be good.


 can all epson models be set up for sublimation??


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## baddjun1 (Aug 5, 2009)

sas1 said:


> can all epson models be set up for sublimation??


No, not all Epsons can be used in dyesub. Some vendors support some Epson printers while some support other Epsons. Check out Conde and Best Blanks (preferred vendors on the left) and you will see what I am saying.


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## pisquee (Jan 8, 2012)

All of Epson's inkjet printers can be used for sublimation. IF you can find the appropriate refillable cartridges or a CISS for the printer, and then buy the sublimation ink in bottles. This is more the DIY way fo doing things, whereas you can buy a printer package from a vendor where everything is set up tested and ready to go. The former route is a lot cheaper, but can take some time to set up and get going, whereas buying a package from a dealer can be a lot more expensive but will be closer to being ready to go out of the box.


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## sben763 (May 17, 2009)

I do believe it is all as long as they have a piezo print head. I thought at on time some of the old office jet all in ones didn't. The biggest thing is that ICC profile provided by the ink supplier. But recently a seen a post here that suggested playing with contrast and brightness levels in advanced settings and I have obtained some good prints with china ink no profile. I guess the old dog can still learn new tricks. Now to throw away all that expired SG ink. Even though the date is still good. They say it's not the ink but the china stuff works well in same printer.


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## sas1 (Feb 8, 2012)

can you go down the CISS route with a ricoh?? the cartridges that you can buy for the ricoh are very highly priced compared to buying the ink in refil bottles
All packages that i can find on uk based websites supply Ricoh printers


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## pisquee (Jan 8, 2012)

Apparently there are sublimation inks available for the Ricohs from China, but not readily available in UK at the moment. IF you want the choice of a lot more printer models and ink makes, then you need to go the Epson DIY route.
Certainly for UK, getting a custom made ICC profile is not hard or expensive, so a lack of supplier being able to supply this should not put you off the more realistically priced non-Sawgrass made inks.


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## pisquee (Jan 8, 2012)

...There are refillable carts available for the Richos. I have not seen a CISS, but as a CISS has refillabel carts at one end, you could probably make one, if you wanted to be really DIY!


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## sas1 (Feb 8, 2012)

i am leaning massively to the epson route if anyone could help me with models i could or should go for and what else i should need.

if anyone as got websites i could use to buy the inks etc feel free to pm ( if thats allowed )


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## pisquee (Jan 8, 2012)

Epsons start cheap with the S22 basic 4 colour A4 home printer available for around £20, and go up from there to massive 44" wide models feeding paper from a roll.
If you can find refillable carts, or a CISS for a model of Epson ink-jet printer, then you can use it.
For cheap printers, refill carts, CISS and inks, ebay is a good place to look.


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## spiderx1 (Oct 12, 2009)

The refillable carts for Ricoh are 60-80 ml so not so much of a PITA as a standar 15 ml cart such as an Epson. Many of the CISS systems are only 100 ml. So close. Still looking for Ricoh sub ink though.
But I think starting out the Epson models would be best. Ricohs are expensive and so far unreliable. Only due to the many failures reported here. Mine works fine, so far, probably just jinxed myself, my warranty ran out yesterday. I think your issue with Epson is a driver. You are going to use CMYK only for sub, most likely. Most of the new epsons are cmyk lk lm lc etc up to 8 channels. That's why an 1100 maybe good it uses a CMYKK. Sure someone here has a fix.


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## mgparrish (Jul 9, 2005)

sas1 said:


> i am leaning massively to the epson route if anyone could help me with models i could or should go for and what else i should need.
> 
> if anyone as got websites i could use to buy the inks etc feel free to pm ( if thats allowed )


What country are you in? What type of product(s) do you wish to create?


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## sas1 (Feb 8, 2012)

I'm in england and wanna do mugs tshirts and iPhone cases


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## mgparrish (Jul 9, 2005)

sas1 said:


> I'm in england and wanna do mugs tshirts and iPhone cases


4 color Epsons are the way to go. If you do an occasional 13x19 then a B1100 (our WF1100) would be suggested. 

Your ink and printer situation would be local, so you either need to use a printer that Sawgrass supports or go "off the reservation" like some of us here do and find a 3rd party non Sawgrass sublimation ink supplier that supplies ICC profiles with their inks for a stated printer.

If you go Sawgrass "SubliJet" you either have to use their CIS system, or use SG prefilled (but not refillable) carts which are a huge ripoff $$$. SG does not support refillable carts or others CIS.

Or get your own CIS or refillable carts then use Artainium (Sawgrass) bottled bulks inks, or a 3rd party non SG sub ink.

A sublimation profile is a must. It will either come with your inks provided by the sub ink vendor, or you can have one made.


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## sas1 (Feb 8, 2012)

From what I've read about sawgrass I want to stay away from them so what alternatives are out there


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## mgparrish (Jul 9, 2005)

sas1 said:


> From what I've read about sawgrass I want to stay away from them so what alternatives are out there


Someone from the UK or in Europe would need to chime in because anything in the the US would have to be shipped out. Ebay UK would be your best bet or you would have to go to the import route from a vendor you might find on. 

Manufacturers, Suppliers, Exporters & Importers from the world's largest online B2B marketplace-Alibaba.com


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## sas1 (Feb 8, 2012)

When I get home from work I'll have a proper look on the Internet.

Sorry for the questions all the time but what is a sub profile


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## mgparrish (Jul 9, 2005)

sas1 said:


> When I get home from work I'll have a proper look on the Internet.
> 
> Sorry for the questions all the time but what is a sub profile


From ...

ICC Profiles for use with ArTainium UV+ Sublimation Ink

"
An ICC Profile is needed if you are using ArTainium UV+ dye sub inks for the first time.
To obtain consistent accurate colors from any dye sublimation ink some form of color correction must be used. There are many different approaches taken by ink suppliers to obtain decent colors. However, for optimum results, we use the internationally recognized _ICC color profiles_ method. An ICC profile is basically a small file which you load onto your system and every time you print from Corel or Photoshop, etc. your printer knows to use this file and therefore prints accurate colors. 
​


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## sben763 (May 17, 2009)

It a ICC profile it tells the printer how to print the sublimation so that after heat pressing the colors are correct. For a novice it reccomended. Up until a week or 2 ago I wouldn't have made this statement. But if you take the time you can adjust saturation contrast brightness and so in the advance settings and get great results with the epson print driver. I order some sublimation inks from china and no profile so I didn't use them. A member made suggestion and it worked great.


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## pisquee (Jan 8, 2012)

an ICC profile is used by your computer to know what amount of each of the colour inks in your printer to use to make the colours you want to actually print. As each manufacturers ink will be a different colour - a Rotech yellow may not be exactly the same as an InkTec one for instance, an ICC profile is needed to 'compensate' for these differences.
Inks from some manufactures like Sawgrass will come with a generic ICC profile to cover a range of printers, i.e. one ICC profile to be used on every Epson 1400 for instance. For some this works out OK.
In an ideal world every Epson 1400 would be exactly the same, but in reality this is not the case, and each of them is slightly different. Although you wouldn't normally be able to tell unless you actually owned two of them and were using them together to print the same run. For some people this approach is "good enough"

Large bulk inks, the kind available on Alibaba and Ebay don't come with an ICC as it is expected that the end user will get one made. 

Don't worry though, for someone in the UK, this process is straightforward and painless, and not expensive. Search Ebay for "custom ICC sublimation profile" and seller Mugs4Us has a service where he sends you a colour chart to print out, and you post this to him. He then does a transfer print of the chart, and scans the result, and emails you a profile. He includes detailed instructions, and is very helpful with advice if you get stuck. This profile will then set up whatever inks you buy for your unique printer.

I am not mugs4us, but used his service for setting up bulk inks on our large format printers, and found his service very good, and so like to recommend him for people wanting better results from their inks, or need an ICC for going the non-Sawgrass route.


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## sas1 (Feb 8, 2012)

Thanks a lot you guys you've all been very helpful


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## mgparrish (Jul 9, 2005)

sben763 said:


> It a ICC profile it tells the printer how to print the sublimation so that after heat pressing the colors are correct. For a novice it reccomended. Up until a week or 2 ago I wouldn't have made this statement. But if you take the time you can adjust saturation contrast brightness and so in the advance settings and get great results with the epson print driver. I order some sublimation inks from china and no profile so I didn't use them. A member made suggestion and it worked great.


You can do similar things with "Curves" but I doubt you can reproduce this photo with a simple graphic program tweak ...

http://www.gballard.net/dl/PDI_TargetFolderONLY.zip

Any kind of graphic tweak I'd like see if it can attain the "universal" solution to a wide variety of photos and image files vs. an ICC done correctly.

It's possible to do as you describe, but only doing it "piecemeal" on a unique individual would you have good results. The next photo would require a re-tweak.

I'd like to see you sublimate that photo onto something witout an ICC using only some graphic files adjustment and see if the results equal what a good ICC can do.

The time spent doing a tedious tweaking and tweaking and tweaking makes no sense, just use (or get) an ICC.

For vectors a swatch method can work but trying to accomplish the same thing manually for a detailed photograph is a poor allocation of ones time.

I can "dial in" any one single photo but very very doubtful those same settings give me the same results on the next photo, or the next.


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