Pressing two trasnfers close together

[Greybeard]

Problem
The image is longer than A4, ~50cm x 20cm
I have an A4 printer currently being converted to dye sub (Epson 4015), but I do have a 40cm x 60cm press.
Solution ?
I envisage printing two images that would overlap, then taping one on top of the other, and carefully cutting through both to give me two sheets that form a single complete image.
I would butt these together, and tape over the back, then print as one.

Any comments, or is this commonly done ?

Solution 2 ?
Is it possible to print/hack the 4015 to produce a 50cm long print ?

John

[arthur.daley]

Don't quote me on this but I would have thought it would be possible to create a custom paper size or you may have to use 'banner' mode in the Epson print driver.

Only thing is that you would, in an ideal world, need a roll feed for your paper. You could try butting two pieces of paper together along their short edge and sticking them together with something like sticky tape - the thinnest stuff you can find and then run that through the printer. I have no idea if you will get a join line - suck it and see I am afraid.



regards



Arthur

[Greybeard]

Thanks Arthur.
I did wonder if there was a banner feed setting for the 4015, as I don't have the manual, and have so far been using Ubuntu to drive it 'blind'.
I'll have a play this evening and if I do find a way through, it looks like an investment in some longer paper will be necessary.
I threw the question out just to see if it was a common practice to tape bits together before pressing, as I could see that as a way of building up large images from a smaller format paper, not just for my particular need.
Certainly, if I find my way though this, I'll post the results, but at the moment I'm juggling too many demands on my time.

This is an approach I've used in the past, putting long bits of paper folded up through one of the earlier Ricoh models, where the registration of subsequent prints was good enough for it to work, but this was only for inkjet(gel prints) on paper, not dye sub.
I also printed directly on to small pieces of silk by taping them down onto A4 paper, on which I did a test print first to locate the correct position.

John

[pisquee]

if bigger sizes is something you need often, then you should consider a bigger roll feed printer, or perhaps outsourcing the transfer printing to someone who has one.

[Greybeard]

Hi pisquee,
No, while it's something I do need often, Arthur has already pointed me in a direction that seems to be the answer.
While Epson support pages seem to be a little coy about it, I found that a drop down window in their pages referring to 'user defined' paper size, shows a figure of 1117.6mm as the maximum length using the type A driver (whatever that is !), and 3276.7mm using the type B driver.
so I would seem to be home and dry.
All I need to do now is contemplate investing in long/roll paper, which sounds expensive !

John
EDIT not as bad as I thought if I just use A3 and cut it length-ways

[Greybeard]

Not going to plan.
My usual OS is ubuntu 12.04, and the 4015 works out of the box in that. While it shows a 'User Defined' size that is larger than A4, anything I set is ignored, and it stops.
I also have XP as a dual OS installed, so I tried downloading the Universal Driver that epson offer for it.
Once again a user defined size is available as shown on the settings window, but it is rejected when I hit 'Print'.
It actually says that this size is not available, even if I set it to the same size as A4 !
So it seems that the actual command of a Custom Size is not available which is curious.
I'm now thinking of changing the driver, but I don't know how to do this cleanly, as yet.
If anyone reading this has a 4015, and has a printed manual, could they let me know if Custom Size is mentioned in the media handling section, and of any indication of what the limits on this might be.
Thanks,
John