Newbie needing advise on Ricoh printer

[Amin]

Hello all
I am a professional photographer and although have been into T shirt printing business for a while I only used Inkjet transfers. Now decided to step into Mug printing and other merchandise so decided to order the Ricoh Ge3350eN and realised too late that it was the wrong one apparently as I bought it with the normal gel inks and have just printed the first print after installing it. I got it fairly cheap so I am not hitting my head on the wall hard yet.
So my request here is for advice and opinions please. What would you recommend I do? My house is filled with inkjet printers including an A3+ canon pro 9000, and various others. Do I keep the Ricoh and order the Ge3300eN with the right inks, do I bite the bullet andresell the Ge3350eN cheap or just make use of it side by side, and for what ideally, ideas please.

I have got a fairly great contract come my way recently where I will be selling personalized merchandise and want to step into Mugs, iPhone covers, etc. Its a tourist visiting place where they get on average over 100K visitors a year and rising, so all the help and advice will be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks

Amin

[Justin]

Hi Amin and welcome to the forum. If you already have the standard inks installed in the 3350 I would suggest just keeping it and using it for day to day printing, invoices etc. I bought one for under £50 recently (delivered) so for what you'd get second hand personally I wouldn't bother.

The 3300 sounds like your best bet if you're only planning on A4, otherwise you're looking at the 7700 if you stick to Ricoh. If budget is tight you could look at the 2600 which is sold by Transfer Supplies.

Sounds like you could be onto a good thing there if you get your product range right! Best of luck with it all.

[Amin]

Hi Amin and welcome to the forum. If you already have the standard inks installed in the 3350 I would suggest just keeping it and using it for day to day printing, invoices etc. I bought one for under £50 recently (delivered) so for what you'd get second hand personally I wouldn't bother.

The 3300 sounds like your best bet if you're only planning on A4, otherwise you're looking at the 7700 if you stick to Ricoh. If budget is tight you could look at the 2600 which is sold by Transfer Supplies.

Sounds like you could be onto a good thing there if you get your product range right! Best of luck with it all.

Justin
Thanks for that advice, seems like its going to be the right way to go.
Really appreciate your help and advice on this

Many thanks

Amin

[Amin]

By the way, can I just ask if these Ricoh's are cheaper to run for day to day printing of documents compared to for example a typical Canon Inkjet printer? Wife uses the canon inkjet 4500 and seems to me that it is a gobbler of inks, I might just swap it with the Ricoh and tell her to use that instead, if its cheaper to run. Of course I have the Canon 9000 which is a fantastic quality printer but my oh my, does it drink ink . I use it for very high quality prints only on Fine Art Paper.
Thanks

Amin

[bms]

Hello all
I am a professional photographer and although have been into T shirt printing business for a while I only used Inkjet transfers. Now decided to step into Mug printing and other merchandise so decided to order the Ricoh Ge3350eN and realised too late that it was the wrong one apparently as I bought it with the normal gel inks and have just printed the first print after installing it. I got it fairly cheap so I am not hitting my head on the wall hard yet.
So my request here is for advice and opinions please. What would you recommend I do? My house is filled with inkjet printers including an A3+ canon pro 9000, and various others. Do I keep the Ricoh and order the Ge3300eN with the right inks, do I bite the bullet andresell the Ge3350eN cheap or just make use of it side by side, and for what ideally, ideas please.

I have got a fairly great contract come my way recently where I will be selling personalized merchandise and want to step into Mugs, iPhone covers, etc. Its a tourist visiting place where they get on average over 100K visitors a year and rising, so all the help and advice will be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks

Amin

The 3350 will be okay for standard printing but its not recommended for sublimation printing, especially given you've installed the genuine cartridges into it. As Justin says the GXe3300 would be the route to go if you want to stick with A4. The GXe2600 isn't supported by Sawgrass as the long term performance hasn't been evaluated (and isn't going to be), so the GXe3300 remains the only new A4 Ricoh printer supported by Sawgrass - and indeed the only new A4 printer currently supported.

[bms]

By the way, can I just ask if these Ricoh's are cheaper to run for day to day printing of documents compared to for example a typical Canon Inkjet printer? Wife uses the canon inkjet 4500 and seems to me that it is a gobbler of inks, I might just swap it with the Ricoh and tell her to use that instead, if its cheaper to run. Of course I have the Canon 9000 which is a fantastic quality printer but my oh my, does it drink ink . I use it for very high quality prints only on Fine Art Paper.
Thanks

Amin

If you can get the cartridges cheap enough then the Ricoh will be cheap to run. We've a large box full of genuine Ricoh cartridges that originally come with the printer as new (these aren't supplied with the printers), so if you need a bulk lot cheap then get in touch!

edit - the genuine Ricoh cartridges we have are for the GXe3300

[JSR]

So my request here is for advice and opinions please. What would you recommend I do? My house is filled with inkjet printers including an A3+ canon pro 9000, and various others. Do I keep the Ricoh and order the Ge3300eN with the right inks, do I bite the bullet andresell the Ge3350eN cheap or just make use of it side by side, and for what ideally, ideas please.

If you're unfamiliar which printers can be used for dye-sublimation and the reasons why, you can read this handy FAQ on the subject: http://www.dyesubforum.co.uk/vbforum/sh ... ch-Printer

If you have a large contract already, you're going to be looking at more than one printer set up. You'll definitely want to budget for a backup.

[JSR]

By the way, can I just ask if these Ricoh's are cheaper to run for day to day printing of documents compared to for example a typical Canon Inkjet printer? Wife uses the canon inkjet 4500 and seems to me that it is a gobbler of inks, I might just swap it with the Ricoh and tell her to use that instead, if its cheaper to run.

If you require a printer for day to day printing and are not concerned about long-term UV fade resistance, then the cheapest option for ink saving would be third party inks.

I've been using a Brother printer with giant refillable cartridges since January 2011. I bought 100ml of all four inks back in January 2011 for £9.99, and I still have a good amount of each left. For day-to-day printing, that's an ink cost of around £5 per year.

[Justin]

.....The GXe2600 isn't supported by Sawgrass as the long term performance hasn't been evaluated (and isn't going to be),

Any idea what tests Transfer Supplies have done before starting to sell this printer Martin?

[JSR]

Any idea what tests Transfer Supplies have done before starting to sell this printer Martin?

Would be more interested to know what "long term performance" tests Sawgrass does on the ones they approve, given that everything from Epson to Ricoh seem to have problems at some time or another even if they are "approved".

If the suggestion is that only those printers Sawgrass perform "long term performance" tests on are any good, then this implies that printer OEMs are routinely shoving inferior/rubbish printers out the door. Do Ricoh strike you as the kind of printer manufacturer that would devote loving care onto the GXe3300 at the same time as risking ruining their reputation by kicking the "rubbish" GXe2600 out the door? Seems unlikely, doesn't it?

Comparing the two models on the Ricoh website, they seem almost identical except for the network connectivity.