# Canon for sublimation ?



## jge (Oct 7, 2008)

One of our customers claims to have used a CANON IP4200 for sublimation. They have an Epson sublimation printer, but had a problem with it doing a job late one night, so they took their Canon printer, drilled a hole in the top of the cartridge, removed the inks and put the sublimation inks in.

They say it printed perfectly and that they managed to get their job out.

I am waiting for a batch of refillable cartridges to come in so I can try it as well, but wondered if anyone else has ever tried this ? 

(Since we've all been told for years that nothing other than Epson works, we've certainly never tried any other printer)


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## charles95405 (Feb 1, 2007)

It will be interesting to see if this works long term. We have always been told that the printheads in the Epsons were necessary and that the 'bubble jet' technology would not work...keeps us posted


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## LordZargon (Sep 27, 2006)

It all depends on the technology that the Canon uses to project the ink out of the nozzles. 

Epson uses the piezo crystal effect to project the ink on the paper. HP printheads generate heat within the head that project the ink and that heat will also start the sublimation process within the printhead itself.

No idea what Canon or Lexmark use, but if the printhead is part of the ink cartridge itself, you can probably bet they are boiling the ink to project it.


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## jge (Oct 7, 2008)

Well, it almost kind of works.
If you just put sublimation ink in the cartridges it prints 1 page at best and then nothing else. If you mix the sublimation ink with the standard Canon ink, you get better results, but nothing to write home about.............................


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## LordZargon (Sep 27, 2006)

Upon additional investigation, only Epson printers work wtih Dye-Sub inks. All the others use some method that heats the ink as part of the projection process.

Why would you mix Dye-Sub ink with normal Dye-Based ink? What did you hope to achieve other than wasting very expensive Dye-Sub ink? 

Even it this did work, you would not be able to use any existing ICC profiles as it would be the same as watering out the inks. You would never get a true color representation.


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## jge (Oct 7, 2008)

Beats me, but this customer tried it and claimed it work, so I thought I would try it on the off chance that I could finally give Epson the Finger.

They (Epson) are such a bunch of twits. They will happily refer customers to my company for sublimation systems, and bulk ink system, but have us blacklisted and WILL NOT repair any Epson printers for us, nor will they allow any of our technicians to attend any of their training courses on how to repair the printers...............


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## LordZargon (Sep 27, 2006)

True, they are getting very ****ty, and they are making their cartridges more and more difficult to refill. They simply can't seem to accept that not everyone wants to run their freaking inks. If they at least offered sublimation ink cartridges, but they don't, and make it more and more difficult to work with them as a company.

As an alternative, you could just go with a large format Roland or Mimaki Dye-Sub printer. These allow you to use non ArTainium inks, so you could give Epson and Sawgrass both the finger at the same time. Only issue is the high cost of those printers.

I would just register your people under a new company name, and get a business license and keep it live for a year. Just set it up as a DBA and run with it until they get smart to it, then start over again.


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