Looking for Advice

[jennyd60]

Hello all. I'm very new to the whole concept of Dye Sublimation, and I could do with some advice over printers.

My partner and I want to run a small mug printing cottage industry from our home. My partner is an Art and Design student, and I am currently retraining as a chemistry teacher after years of working in engineering.

Photo printing of mugs has always been a hobby which we have enjoyed, but I wanted to move from doing small batches using a commercial printing firm, to full DIY.

My initial reasearch suggested that an EPSON WF2750 printer which I already had spare, should work well enough. So I ordered a set of CITYINK pre-filled Dye Sub cartridges, and having flushed the printer with flushing fluid attempted to print - at this point everything went wrong and the print head clogged completely. NO print at all.

I reflushed and tried again - clogged again. I reflushed a third time and fitted genuine epson ink and all is well - perfect printing. What am I doing wrong? Is it bad ink? or have I made a poor choice of printer?

I see that various firms offering a kit using a Ricoh printer - which is not unreasonable in cost. Would I be better scrapping my attempt at using the epson and simply buying a purpose built ricoh?

I have ZERO desire to end up as an unpaid IT maintainance tech - I want a solution which, as far as possible, just works. I have to say my experience with Epson, on this point is ABBYSMAL, every time I have used anything made by that awful company it has promptly failed, which is why the printer was lying about spare in the first place, because I didnt trust it - an opinion which has now been considerably strengthened.

I also have a Brother and a Canon printer in the house, which are both 100% more reliable than the epson but can find no mention of these being suitable for Dye Sub work, although I have rather gathered that the Brother should work, whils the canon won't.

So any recommendations please - Buy a Ricoh kit, persevere with the epson (possibly trying a different ink supplier), or use the Brother printer?

[socialgiraffe]

For dye sub you only want a Ricoh or an Epson really and ideally you want to get the printer from a dye sub supplier.

Given your circumstances I would recommend a Ricoh, They are perfect for the home as they do not clog if left alone for periods of time. If you can get your hands on a cheap one that has not been used, OR, you are prepared to flush it with dye sub inks (which does waste ink) then go for it.

I would recommend the guys at Ink Express for what you need. They will be able to supply you with refill carts and have a great back up service should something go wrong. You will need to install their ink profiles etc but as you can already do this it should not be a problem.

Give them a call and askif the Ricoh model you are thinking of is suitable and then go from there.

[Justin]

Ink Express are part of our Premium Membership scheme and will give you 10% off inks/papers so may be worth a look.

Completely agree with Simon, Ricoh would be your best bet to start off, pretty much painless.

[rabb]

Hello all. I'm very new to the whole concept of Dye Sublimation, and I could do with some advice over printers.

My partner and I want to run a small mug printing cottage industry from our home. My partner is an Art and Design student, and I am currently retraining as a chemistry teacher after years of working in engineering.

Photo printing of mugs has always been a hobby which we have enjoyed, but I wanted to move from doing small batches using a commercial printing firm, to full DIY.

My initial reasearch suggested that an EPSON WF2750 printer which I already had spare, should work well enough. So I ordered a set of CITYINK pre-filled Dye Sub cartridges, and having flushed the printer with flushing fluid attempted to print - at this point everything went wrong and the print head clogged completely. NO print at all.

I reflushed and tried again - clogged again. I reflushed a third time and fitted genuine epson ink and all is well - perfect printing. What am I doing wrong? Is it bad ink? or have I made a poor choice of printer?

I see that various firms offering a kit using a Ricoh printer - which is not unreasonable in cost. Would I be better scrapping my attempt at using the epson and simply buying a purpose built ricoh?

I have ZERO desire to end up as an unpaid IT maintainance tech - I want a solution which, as far as possible, just works. I have to say my experience with Epson, on this point is ABBYSMAL, every time I have used anything made by that awful company it has promptly failed, which is why the printer was lying about spare in the first place, because I didnt trust it - an opinion which has now been considerably strengthened.

I also have a Brother and a Canon printer in the house, which are both 100% more reliable than the epson but can find no mention of these being suitable for Dye Sub work, although I have rather gathered that the Brother should work, whils the canon won't.

So any recommendations please - Buy a Ricoh kit, persevere with the epson (possibly trying a different ink supplier), or use the Brother printer?

When you installed the sublimation cartridges, you did check that you don't have rubber bungs blocking any vents? If the vents are blocked then instead of drawing inks through the printer it will simply create a vacuum in the cartridge.

Just a thought but it is a possibility.