k21john;106452 wrote:Inks, ICC Profiles and so on are or can be a minefield, for sublimation I recently bought a Ricoh SG 3110DN A4 printer and started using Sawgrass Inks, I did have some initial set up issues but an email to Sawgrass sorted it out very quickly and am now printing high quality Fine Art images successfully.
I recently sold my 44inch HP printer which used pigment inks for fine art reproduction and have replaced it with a A2 Canon printer. Both of these printers use 130ml cartridges and are 12 colour. The recommended inks for these are fantastic as they have an archival live of between 200 - 250 Years. They are expensive and if I shop around I can get a set of 12 inks for around 600 quid {ouch) however I have not found anything to beat them on the quality of the finished product and feel the same with using Sawgrass Inks for sublimation.
If it's quality you need then stay away from the bargain bucket inks as you will inevitably have less headaches and be supplying a superior product to your customers.
Not entirely true , Sawgras did not invent sublimation ink and they are by no means the best at making it in my opinion. Neither did Epson or canon make their own ink at first, infact I get my Epson inks from a company who USED to make it for Epson and Canon. So the truth is dont buy cheap chinese and other poor quality goods but find a good supplier of high quality products thats are cheap enough and wont damage your machine. I know of a few who will warranty the wet parts if you swap over. LEts put it this way one of the largest photo print shops in the UK I created profiles for third party in for and youll find them on every high street .
gazfocus;106345 wrote:Really losing the will to live with this darn printer. I'm now trying to print the colour chart for sending off for my 2nd profile, and the printer's now printing lines on everything. grrrrrrrrrrrr
Would I be better off buying some refillable cartridges for my Epson WF-3640DTWF as I cannot afford to buy yet another printer.
I switched to Epson simply because of cost. I use a WF 7610 DWF , Sublinova Smart (i now get direct from Korea), Trupix Classic and a profile made by Paul off the forum. I'm pretty new to sublimation myself, No problems at all with this set up as yet
tanx;106588 wrote:I switched to Epson simply because of cost. I use a WF 7610 DWF , Sublinova Smart (i now get direct from Korea), Trupix Classic and a profile made by Paul off the forum. I'm pretty new to sublimation myself, No problems at all with this set up as yet
Funnily enough, I actually tried my Epson WF-3640DWF last night. I used cheap chinese ink (from Nature Inks off ebay) as they sent me these for free due to some problems with some refillable cartridges I bought off them (and I don't want to waste money on good ink til I know it's going to work), and without getting a profile, the quality of the print is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much better than the Ricoh. I had to print about 50 pages (20 of which came out blank) in order to empty the printer of the non-sublimation ink and let the sublimation ink flow through, but the printing came out good (on normal paper). Not tried it with sublimation paper and a mug yet but will do tonight.
tanx;106588 wrote:I switched to Epson simply because of cost. I use a WF 7610 DWF , Sublinova Smart (i now get direct from Korea), Trupix Classic and a profile made by Paul off the forum. I'm pretty new to sublimation myself, No problems at all with this set up as yet
You must be buying shd loads to make that worth while as the 6percent import duty is enough to not make it worth while. I buy about 40 litres per order.
I used to import Sublinova (50 litres at a time), and i does work out cheaper than UK wholesale prices even sending it airmail. Mainly due to the supplier under-declaring it's value, and product type, as many factories do.
pisquee;106648 wrote:I used to import Sublinova (50 litres at a time), and i does work out cheaper than UK wholesale prices even sending it airmail. Mainly due to the supplier under-declaring it's value, and product type, as many factories do.
I cant import it any cheaper than i get it but im doing everything legally.
It wasn't much cheaper, which is why I stopped doing it once I found a better way of sourcing, and don't need to tie up so much cash in the MOQ to make shipping it over cost effective, so can do just-in-time instead
So....I've finally given up on the Ricoh SG2100N, and have now tested my Epson WF3640WDF with some cheap chinese ink I got for free. The results are much, much better than the Ricoh, and I've not had to get an ICC profile made yet (due to the inks not needing one). I will post a photo of one of the mugs I've printed on the epson, so you can see the comparison between that and the Ricoh.
I've always been an Epson fan....goodness knows why I strayed when buying the Ricoh
Cheap chinese ink WILL damage the print heads , the ink may look ok but the cleaning agents sufactants etc will not be in the ink,. there are good chinese inks however they are as expensive as others once duty paid and worse thing is they keep changing the formula and you get colour changes per batch. I have been involved in ink and ink manufacturing for many years and know this from experience.
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