# STOP BUYING (wide format) EPSON PRINTERS (ughh, just get a canon)



## JENYAKENYA (Feb 6, 2014)

^Like the title? 

Just wanted to share my experience with printing transfers.

I've been printing tees for about 4 years now, and when I was starting off, learned almost everything I know from this forum. My first printer (as recommended by the people here) was an Epson c88. To be quite honest, it's not a terrible printer. I still have it to this day as a backup printer, although it's clogged and needed cleaning twice now.

Eventually, however, I needed to move onto wider images (>13") and once again went to this forum for help. 

I got an order containing mostly Extra large shirts that needed a big graphic, and needed a big printer in a pinch. People recommended the Epson wf7110, which I bought on Amazon for around 170 bucks. I finished the order (about 150 pages printed), changed the magenta cartridge, for an oem Epson magenta cartridge, and it stopped printing magenta. I ran a cleaning, tried some diy cleaning solutions, and eventually gave up.

Unfortunately, these printers clog. I knew that, I just didn't expect a clog a week into owning one. And a "cleaning solution" costs upwards of 20-30 bucks and voids the printers warranty. Luckily, Good Guy amazon allowed me to return the printed for free, and even scheduled someone to come pick it up!

But orders kept coming, and within a few days I had another order that required a large printer. I decided to go to office max and dish out a little extra dough for a nicer, WorkForce-7620. Technically the same printer, but with a few fancier features and better reviews. After about 2 weeks of owning this printer, it started printing weird streaks. All my images (though in full color), had scanlines across them. I was mid order at this time, and since the design was fairly small, decided to switch back to my epson c88 which I had not used in about a week. I started it up, and, Voila!, It was clogged as well.

In a panic induced rage I swore off Epson and went to Craigslist where I saw a fella selling a new Canon Pixma iX6820 with a whole box of replacement cartridges for $120. I picked it up from him within an hour, plugged it in, and finished the print job.

I've had that printer for about 3 or 4 months now, have gone through 2 sets of cartridges on it (that's a lot of prints), and have never had a single problem. I also have a few friends who own canon inkjet printers- they print a few times a month and have never had anything clog on them.




HERE'S THE MAIN POINT:

People here love Epson, and claim that print quality of a 1430 or even workforce printer is superior to any other company. They say this because Epson uses a different print head system. However, this same system causes them to clog up like mad- and although I've never owned an artisan 1400 or 1430, they use dye inks which are even heavier and tend to clog more.
Furthermore, Maybe quality differences are noticeable when printing large photographs, but when you print onto transfer paper and then press your image into a t-shirt, that extra resolution you get from Epson printers completely disappears.

Looking for a printer to start making transfers? save yourself a ton of time and money and get a Canon


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## GTP30 (Dec 18, 2015)

I've had my current Epson 7610 for a little over 8 months now and have had no problems with it. I can't say how good Canons are but I can say my Epson has worked flawlessly and I'd recommend the 7610 to anyone. Maybe you were unlucky or I'm lucky...


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## Dekzion (May 18, 2015)

Brother printers are excellent in my opinion for photo's, every one has front loading stationary carts which makes it a snap to install ciss tanks.
My last one (I gave it to an old friend so it aint here and it's still healthy over there because she was using it last week printing off photo's for distant family) I think is the mcp 3510dw or something like that, It prints full border-less A3 pretty rapidly and only needed a head clean nozzle check roughly 4 times in 5 years. it just sat there doing its thing without question. It's got all the gubbins, document feeder, (which is amazing how that works) wifi, fax etc. but the only thing it lacked was a by pass feeder, so if you wanted to print around the 200gsm thick it really struggled and needed a small amount of pressure to help the paper get started.
I dont know if they take Dye sub ink, one day it'd be interesting to try it. but the pigment ink is great stuff anyway and that goes through fine.


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## kitcarguy (Jan 23, 2011)

I have had an epson 1100 for years now with no issues. But then again I have not done any tshirt prints, just photos.


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## JENYAKENYA (Feb 6, 2014)

Almost two years later seems like people are still stumbling upon this post. Just got a PM from a lurker 

I still have that craigslist Pixma. I print on literally every single day. It's technically a small home/office printer, but I've done runs of 100+ full color sheets of JPSS and glossy photo paper through it at a time with no issues. It also makes very good transparencies on Fixxons inkjet paper, though you do have to print two and double them up. Even with the doubling up I get decent halftones.

I buy Arthur (knockoff) ink cartridges off Amazon. It's around $25 for a box of 28 (4 C,4 M,4 L,16 K), which is ridiculously cheap for ink. I might be able to save a little by installing a CISS system and buying ink by the bottle, but this is already so cheap I don't want to bother doing surgery on my Canon.

The Epson C88 I had was donated. I bought another Canon Pixma just to have a backup in case this one craps out.... it's still in my storage closet somewhere.


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## Mdrake (Aug 2, 2013)

JENYAKENYA said:


> Almost two years later seems like people are still stumbling upon this post. Just got a PM from a lurker
> 
> I still have that craigslist Pixma. I print on literally every single day. It's technically a small home/office printer, but I've done runs of 100+ full color sheets of JPSS and glossy photo paper through it at a time with no issues. It also makes very good transparencies on Fixxons inkjet paper, though you do have to print two and double them up. Even with the doubling up I get decent halftones.
> 
> ...


I see that the Pixma iX6820 uses dye based inks for the CMY. Have you had any reports of shirt prints fading pretty quickly? I've seen some mention on here that after a few washes it'll fade since the inks are not pigment but I'm not sure if that's true or not.


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## whelk (Sep 21, 2015)

I have an Epson XP-950 A3 printer. It is absolute horse crap.

I don't know what it is with Epson. You'd think they'd have got the hang of making printers by now, but this thing..... eugh! As if the print head blocking solid at the drop of a hat isn't bad enough - even with Epson inks, it has numerous other flaws.

First, there is a metal bar that sits just above where the paper passes through. The underside of this bar is covered in waste ink. Why? How the hell did it get up there?! Who knows! But it's perfectly normal, according to Epson! Yet on the odd occasion the paper manages to catch it as it's going through, resulting in a huge blob of ink on the print.

Second, if you put paper into the rear feed slot BEFORE it's asked you to, it just pulls it through and throws it straight back out, completely blank. Why? Why do this??!

Third, often it pulls the paper in from the rear slot, feeds it in to half way down and starts printing from there, instead of from the top of the page.

Then there's the self-cleaning thing, which it seems to do anytime it bloody well likes. I can send it a five-page document, and after two pages it'll just sit there, whizzing and grinding away to itself for five or six minutes, before printing the remaining pages.

I barely use the printer now - only for unimportant stuff, and I use non-Epson inks. Every single bloody time I print anything, it moans that it isn't Epson ink. There is apparently no way to stop it telling me what I already know, given that I'm the one who put the ink in there.

I'm sure Epson printers are designed by idiots. Only to be sold to idiots like me who pay £200+ for a piece of junk.


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## whelk (Sep 21, 2015)

Mdrake said:


> I see that the Pixma iX6820 uses dye based inks for the CMY. Have you had any reports of shirt prints fading pretty quickly? I've seen some mention on here that after a few washes it'll fade since the inks are not pigment but I'm not sure if that's true or not.


When I first set up over two years ago, the first thing I did was make a couple of t-shirts for my daughter, both printed with dye-based inks on Neenah Jet Opaque II. The print on both looked great wash after wash and she's now outgrown them. I'm not saying what you've been told is wrong, but in my experience, dye-based ink has been fine.

I did read the same as yourself about it being better to use pigment inks, but I also read that unless you're printing a hell of a lot, be prepared to do regular print head unblocking as pigment inks are much, much worse for clogging.


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## Ripcord (Sep 2, 2006)

Last Epson I had was a 1520 about ten years ago. It clogged so bad that it wouldn't print anything at all. It was under warranty so I took it to get repaired and it took three weeks. Needless to say I had to buy another so I bought a cheap HP from Office Depot and have bought two more since then. The nozzle is part of the cartridge so in the unusual event of a clog that you can't clear a new cartridge immediately solves the problem.

I buy pint size bottles of ink for about ten bucks and refill the same cartridge again and again so ink cost is almost nothing. 

I will never purchase an Epson printer again. I use a laser printer for most of my stuff and the inkjet for designs that won't fit the laser.


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## crossecheck (Aug 15, 2012)

Hello 

I have Canon IX6800, with Mac 10.13.3. Printing on Ryonet Waterproof film. 
Have tried Matte, Glossy, Glossy II, Pro Platinum, Pro Luster, Semi Gloss, and High Transparency settings, with CMYK Set at these three settings, 75 75 75 30 100, 0 0 0 100, 100 100 100 100. 
Color Setting High with all Saturations and Intensity and Contrast Up. Or Greyscale on High. None of these settings produce film black enough to keep fine lines from washing out. Any advice would be appreciated.

Harry


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## Ripcord (Sep 2, 2006)

crossecheck said:


> Hello
> 
> I have Canon IX6800, with Mac 10.13.3. Printing on Ryonet Waterproof film.
> Have tried Matte, Glossy, Glossy II, Pro Platinum, Pro Luster, Semi Gloss, and High Transparency settings, with CMYK Set at these three settings, 75 75 75 30 100, 0 0 0 100, 100 100 100 100.
> ...


On the Epson and HP printers I've used over the years, the densest blacks have been produced with settings using the black cartridge only, no magenta, etc. and the "transparency" setting for the paper. And the main setting you need to select is "ink volume" or "ink density." Set this control on the maximum.


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## crossecheck (Aug 15, 2012)

Hello Ripcord 

Thanks unfortunately no Transparency setting for paper. 

Also the Canon IX6800 has Black Dye ink in one cartridge and Black Pigment ink in another cartridge but have been unable to locate what makes the printer pick one black over the other.


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## Mdrake (Aug 2, 2013)

crossecheck said:


> Hello Ripcord
> 
> Thanks unfortunately no Transparency setting for paper.
> 
> Also the Canon IX6800 has Black Dye ink in one cartridge and Black Pigment ink in another cartridge but have been unable to locate what makes the printer pick one black over the other.


I'm not exactly sure how Canon's work but with Epson, if you set it to print in "Grayscale" or "Black and white", it will use only a black cartridge and not the other colors.


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## crossecheck (Aug 15, 2012)

Hi Mdrake, yes tried this already. thanks.


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## pippin decals (Aug 26, 2015)

GTP30 said:


> I've had my current Epson 7610 for a little over 8 months now and have had no problems with it. I can't say how good Canons are but I can say my Epson has worked flawlessly and I'd recommend the 7610 to anyone. Maybe you were unlucky or I'm lucky...





Are you printing on Jpss or 3q opaque paper by chance? I have the same printer and have a few questions i would like to ask you in pm so i dont take the thread over if you do this.. Thanx.


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## XiaolinX (Jul 13, 2018)

Is it ok to use sublimation ink with the canon PIXMA iX6820??


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## Mdrake (Aug 2, 2013)

JENYAKENYA said:


> Looking for a printer to start making transfers? save yourself a ton of time and money and get a Canon


I tried PMing your but your inbox is full. Can you tell me if you've had any luck with using transfer masks on these inks? Any reports of fading yet with any of your transfers?

I appreciate your help!


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## secondtonobody (Oct 5, 2005)

i suggest look it up on youtube and throw some screen printing terms in the search and how to get the dark prints will come up. If not i will find out how and let you know


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## webtrekker (Jan 28, 2018)

XiaolinX said:


> Is it ok to use sublimation ink with the canon PIXMA iX6820??



I fail to understand how you can use sublimation inks in a Canon Pixma. I always understood that only printers with piezo heads could be used for duesub. 



Is this while thread a wind-up, or is anyone actually using a Pixma for successful sublimation prints?


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