Alternative to Epson ?

[NikGrey]

Some may have watched as I fought with the Epson Pro 4K..

I completely stripped (I do literally mean Stripped) that machine several times trying to get it to work properly - I gave up in the end as I was literally flushing Money/ink down the drain and I had to draw the line somewhere.

Over the past 2 days I have had an old Epson 1520 on my bench, it has had hardly any use - really surprised to see One this old in such good condition.. so - the heads were blocked so strip again, head out and cleaning solution blown through until I see perfect lines of fine jets.

Re assemble everything but no, same as the other Epson.

So, I am wondering what my choices are for A2 printers - obviously I want to try something different to Epson (I dont much like their technology, tiny little holes that block at the change of wind direction).

What, for example are other manufacturers equivalent to the old Epson 4K for example?



sent using tapatalk whilst seated in the Gents.

[pisquee]

Don't write off Epson from your experience of some old abused machines. If you use decent ink and don't leave the unused for too long, they work very well, even old machines of the 4000, 7600, 9600 era, it's just a shame the one you bought was a dud, but you knew that was a possibility when you bought it cheap - I would never advise buying a printer of this age without seeing it working perfectly, firing all nozzles, and ideally still in daily use with Epson inks - the one dud 9600 we had in had been running cheap unbranded chinese pigment inks, and in a warm conservatory/greenhouse. I wasted a load of ink, cleaning fluid, and time but gave up in the end and put it back on Ebay and sold it honestly as needing repair for more than we'd paid for it!

[daviddeer]

To be honest your really stuck with epson. The only brother printers to do 'wide format' 11" wide by 17" long cut sheet are the MFC-J4510DW,J4320DW and the like which do 11" wide by 17" long cut sheet. Alternatively if you can find an old iris printer (First produced on 1985) and like the idea of mounting one print at a time onto the drum then good luck. HP mutoh encad and oce/Canon all use thermal heads and are unsuitable for sublimation. Roland do some tasty items if you have a bottomless wallet but watch out on the older machines as they are very prone to head blockage. Or buy a new epson printhead for £600 -Bargain (not). Alternatively you can get one custom made in china for around £3,000!!
For anyone who wants to try to resurrect their 4000 this article /walk-through might help

[pisquee]

From what I remember it wasn't specifically for sublimation work, so there are more options out there, just not something I know about...

[daviddeer]

From what I remember it wasn't specifically for sublimation work

OOPS!!!I think the 8 litres of powerchrome ink he was selling have given the game away, silly me.:redface:
Well with over 600 wide format printers for standard printing to choose from it should be easy lol.
Questions similar to what's the best printer are what's the best t shirt and what's the best mug.
Answer: Suum cuique

[NikGrey]

To be honest in the end I just wanted to be able to make A2 posters, nothing extravagant

The idea was to be producing Box Canvass by Christmas but like last year (with the setting up of the website etc) it looks like I will be a little late coming to the Ball.

[daviddeer]

You could do worse than this 6 colour beauty. Canon printers have come a long way in the past 5 years and they have a much larger gamut. To be honest it was a toss up between my epson and the canon , but when I purchased it the canon only had 4 colours.

You can buy bulk ink if you think you might need 7 gallons

[NikGrey]

I saw that machine last night - seems a tad too good to be true though to me..

Honestly, these Canon have been catching my eye for a while now - I bought a 'Bubblejet' in 1985 for about £600 and it was great until it ran out of ink (I couldn't find a supplier the printer was that new).. My solution was to move to Greece and spend Ten years back in time '50 years'

[JMugs]

12 colour.......strewth. Hmm .... No I shall leave alone.... I shall leave....I shall...

[rossdv8]

Hi Nik,

As you know I'm pretty outspoken about Brother printers, but I have no experience with their products that will print A2 or generally wide format.
I changed to Brother because they are disposable (price wise), and although they use Epson print head technology, they use nozzles you could drive a truck through, so there seems to be less clogging. My dyesub Brother A3 printer might bave a blocked nozzle show up on a test print after I've been overseas for a month or two and it has just been sitting, but a single head clean gets it bacl to normal. My A3 that I use for Pigment to canvas and the other that I use for pigment to paper do clog once in a while, but a quick self clean is all they seemto need.

After printing A3 canvas for years I'm interested in seeing where you go with this because I'm curious about moving to bigger prints, particularly A2. At the moment I'm still doing sublimation onto pre-stretched frames as well as direct pigment printing onto canvas for wall art.

Cheers.