DSF

They also have their own new DTGs too!

To have a complete system (printer and inks) with support from the manufacturer is a huge bonus

That is exactly what is floating my boat.

And that an A3 Ricoh with Sawgrass inks costs in the region of 51p per sheet and Pisquee has said that wide format is in the region of 7p per a3 sheet, if I exclude footprint cost and service contract it should in theory pay for itself within a year

I was looking at the DTG at the Photography show. Very neat unit, nice print. The sales staff were quite amusing as they said the pre-treat requirement was annoying and it would be good if epson could get that bit sorted. Now that would be a game changer!

Janners

I asked Epson about paper at Sign&Digital last year. They weren't selling it in the U.K. then, not sure if they are now though.
They were selling Epson paper in the U.S. but not in the U.K. apparently. I'm using TexPrint HR at the moment.
I initially had trouble with a lack of detail in the blacks, spent a while playing with the profile and things are not too bad now.
It's difficult for me to come up with any sort of recommendation as the only other dye sub printer that I have experience with is the Ricoh GX7700 (with powerdriver) - that's been a great little printer so far. On a good day I couldn't tell the difference between the output from the Epson and the Ricoh (apart from a slight difference in the shadow detail of the blacks (the Ricoh is better)).

Am surprised that the Ricoh is showing better results than the Epson. Was the profile you're using for the Epson created for the TexPrint papers or Epson's papers?

Hmm, the profiles originated from Wasatch. They have freely downloadable profiles for different media and substrates. I took the nearest and customised it. As the Epson was so new, there were only 6 or 7 for the SC-F6000. I think it's just a maturity thing. I guess what I should really do is generate my own profiles from scratch - yet more hardware though :frown:

Paul (a member on this forum) might be able to help you with profiles. Not 100% sure as I am not up on how to make profiles and whether it is different for wide formats but it might be worth a punt as he has all the kit and knowledge for profiling.

Don't think Paul's system can generate profiles for using with a RIP, only if you're driving it through the print driver, but I don't think you can do this with the Epson dye sub printers, which they say you have to use with a RIP, which I think is due to it being a re-engineered model, and one of the cart slots isn't in use (IIRC), so the RIP helps get around this issue

I'm reasonably happy with the profiles I'm using now. I'll wait and see what turns up as the product matures and more people use it. At the moment I don't have enough throughput to warrant the hassle and cost of generating my own from scratch.

Do any of have experience of pressing large pieces of Chromaluxe? I have been doing a few 700x1000mm in white gloss aluminium. They are mostly ok but it's expensive to experiment. I followed Conde's recommendation for the first piece and it didn't go well. Now I am pressing for 2 minutes at 190c and the results are good except that I often get a very fine white border down one or more sides. It's very narrow and barely noticeable but annoys me when it happens. The press has a thick nomex blanket over the base and I suspect that it's something to do with how it compresses. My smaller adkins press has a lovely foam silicon base which performs really well. Sadly I can't source a piece 30x40 inches!

I press the 600 by 400 and use 204c for 90 seconds, so the time appears about right...but not so sure on the temperature perhaps a little low.
Press wise I find it best to let the press come up to, then over temperature, drop back ..wait... then press so the temperature of the platen at the very edges is at full temperature. The point being the very edges dissipate heat.
Nomex I would have thought was fine.
Curiosity now are you running a 2 phase press or 3 phase?

Janners