Recomended Printer

[Mugman71]

Hi guys

Not been on for a while and the invaluable help I got earlier this year was greatly appreciated so here we go again.

My trusty Epson 1400 has served me well in the last twelve months but its not practical. You may remember my story, I got sold a sub set up with CISS only to have nothing but problems from day one, then the seller disapeared. Due to the £200 outlay I got the printer up and running this time last year and have printed over 1000 mugs on it and I have only had to top up the black ink. Its still running on the original inks. Now although I say its trusty, there's lots of little snags. It will only accept one sheet of paper at a time, you have to sit over it whilst printing as the CISS tube sometime jams it and finally it occasionally does says its out of black ink and resetting it is a nightmare which is where I am now. Its also a big bulky machine taking up much space.

I dont make much on mugs, wholesale I make 60p and retail about £2.70 so I am thinking about scrapping the whole mug side of my business which accounts for only 10% of it. But I have been looking around and am thinking of buying an A4 Ricoh SG3110DN from Mega UK which comes with inks which is £249.00. Is this a good printer? Is it good on ink, how many colour mugs will I get from the supplied ink or can anyone else recomend another printer for the same money or slightly more that will also offer tech help if needed. Its worth pointing out I dont want to go the CISS route again. Im not very techinical either!

Any advice is appreciated.

[pisquee]

I wouldn't advise anyone to go the CISS route.
I would normally advise to only go with a printer which you can get large (100ml+ refill carts for)
I don't normally advise for anyone to go with Sawgrass inks, or to go for a printer for which Sawgrass inks are the only readily available option

That being said, if you are not that techie and just want something that works, don't mind paying Sawgrass prices for inks - Do look up the ink prices to see how much you will be spending to refill each time, then a Ricoh may be the way to go. You will then only have a 4 colour office printer for the printer, and not the 6 colour photo/art printer you had with the 1400.

Your margins worry me in terms of your pricing - for our wholesale and retail prices we charge approx 3 times as much per unit.

[Mugman71]

I wouldn't advise anyone to go the CISS route.
I would normally advise to only go with a printer which you can get large (100ml+ refill carts for)
I don't normally advise for anyone to go with Sawgrass inks, or to go for a printer for which Sawgrass inks are the only readily available option

That being said, if you are not that techie and just want something that works, don't mind paying Sawgrass prices for inks - Do look up the ink prices to see how much you will be spending to refill each time, then a Ricoh may be the way to go. You will then only have a 4 colour office printer for the printer, and not the 6 colour photo/art printer you had with the 1400.

Your margins worry me in terms of your pricing - for our wholesale and retail prices we charge approx 3 times as much per unit.

Have you a link?

I not going to go into why my margins are low but if I tell you I sell in Blackpool wholesale & retail and big companies here wholesale novelty mugs cheaper THAN I can buy them blank you will get an insight.

Someone said installing the Sawgrass software was an absolute nightmare?

[pisquee]

A link for what?

[Mugman71]

Sorry, mis read your message, thought you was reccomending a printer.

[arthur.daley]

sawgrass software is relatively straightforward but when you slip into numpty mode their techie boys on the phone are a godsend and will talk you through the whole process - and you will almost inevitably find it was your mistake that caused any problems.


Arthur

[JMugs]

Ricoh printer from the main suppliers on this forum. Really just sit down with a cuppa, use the search function and you will find all the info you need is already there, from A4 sheet printers to 44 inch roll paper.

Then you can build knowledge for your business development.

This isn't aimed at being grumpy, but at helping you build understanding by associated reading of the basics, then if you want to go deeper (printer profiles, screen profiles, gamuts) you will be better placed.

Janners

[wayupnorth]

The counter on my 3110dn is 521 and still ink left although very low now. I print a range of items from mugs to card jigsaws so probably average 60% paper coverage. These are still the first cartdriges supplied with the printer so not really complaining. Assume 25% used to initially charge the lines & £200/full set = 28p/page so far, paper =14p sheet so 42p/image. My mugs go for £5.95 & £6.95.

The printer has been a source of frustration from the word go, mainly due to the crap driver when using the ICC profile from Photoshop. The driver has no concept of "default" settings. You have to create a custom setting for landscape and portrait handling but neither can be set as default. Consequently when printing from CC the print dialogue always shows portrait format and you have to re-enter the printer setting each time to select the landscape setup. I have tried everything to sort this but no luck. Even saving the file in CC and then opening again does not remember the landscape setting. Never had this problem with any Epson/HP/etc.

I finally gave up the other day and installed the powerdriver which does have a default setting but of course it will not work with an ICC profile so I have to trust the printers colour settings. Early days so far. One niggle is that the image is no longer printed centrally which makes life a bit harder when trimming the paper but I can live with it. According to Sawgrass the solution is to reinstall the driver ! ffs... they are too lazy to add a "center print on page" check box in their driver. Reinstalling the driver made no difference. Also an "auto rotation" option would be welcome.

So after all this I am a lot happier with the Ricoh, it does print well and the running costs are acceptable for my low production and good return rate. However if I was printing in bulk then the Epson large format route would make more sense.