Epson R1800 Cartridges

[nik_decalarama]

I'm struggling to find sublimation ink cartridges to fit an epson R1800, so my question is this - is there anything special about sublimation ink cartridges or can I buy blanks like these: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/REFILLABLE-IN ... 4013wt_991

and then just fill them with sublimation ink? I would rather not go for a complete bulk CISS system as I don't think it would be used enough to make it worthwhile.

[FlyingAl]

Hi,

I use CISS myself so can't give you a definitive answer regarding those carts, just wanted to mention that if you do go for refillable carts, get EMPTY ones, the ones you link to INCLUDE ink. You won't be happy if your carts turn up pre-filled with regular ink and not sub ink, doh!

cheers
al

[bms]

I'm struggling to find sublimation ink cartridges to fit an epson R1800, so my question is this - is there anything special about sublimation ink cartridges or can I buy blanks like these: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/REFILLABLE-IN ... 4013wt_991

and then just fill them with sublimation ink? I would rather not go for a complete bulk CISS system as I don't think it would be used enough to make it worthwhile.

You need empty refillables as mentioned. I would suggest you look at a CIS filled with sublimation inks. This is going to work out cheaper than buying empty cartridges and bottles of ink. Each bottle of ink is around £60 inc vat for 125ml and you need 6 of them plus the cleaning solution = expensive. A CIS with sublimation ink already in it, primed, guaranteed is cheaper. It's cheaper because you get less than 125ml of ink (I think it is around 85ml per colour x8 including the cleaning solution). It's been a while since we sold a R1800 system now so I can't remember the costs, but I think its around £300 inc vat for everything (inks, CIS, profiles etc).

[Justin]

My advice would be to sell the R1800 on and buy a Ricoh system if you can. Far easier to get up and running quickly, can be left off for longer periods as you've indicated a CIS may be overkill for you. Yes you could use refil carts (and personally I prefer these to a CIS) but as Martin has said you may as well get one for the costs of each option if you continue down this route. The Ricoh would be 4 colour cartridge, far easier for a newbie sublimator.

If you don't need A3 the A4 Ricoh setup (printer and 4 x carts) can be be bought cheaper than the 6 inks you'd be buying for your 1800

[nik_decalarama]

Thanks for the advice everyone. One of the reasons I went for the 1800 was because it is A3, thinking that it could be put to better use than an A4 i.e. large prints on tshirts, etc. Looks like I may look into CIS after all - as a long term solution it probably would be the best route to take.

[Paul]

I would go for refilables. Les problems and cheaper.

[nik_decalarama]

Having looked around, the Ricoh GXe3300n looks like a good bet and you're right, it would be cheaper to buy one of those new and a full set of cartridges than it would be to get my R1800 set up, plus I wouldn't have the hassle of competely clearing the printhead of old ink! Not too sure I'd want to get rid of the R1800 though, I could use it to print photos as the quality is very good and non-OEM inks are cheaps as chips, literally! Problem is, we would then have 3 different printers all doing different jobs!

[JSR]

I have an R1800 here and it's a fantastic printer...

...but I wouldn't put dye-sub inks in it for all the tea in China!

To start with, it's a "square peg in round hole" scenario. The R1800 has 8 ink channels but, for the most part, you're only ever going to be using CMYK (just four colours). The Red and Blue will only be very rarely used, the second black will never be used (you're only putting ink in there so there's something for the printer to flush out when doing a maintenance head clean), and you put cleaning fluid in the GOP channel (for the same reason as the extra black - so you let the printer flush it out when doing maintenance).

You're far better off going with a printer that actually uses all of the inks that you put into it - either a 4-ink CMYK printer, or a 6-ink CcMmYK printer.

The R1800 was designed primarily for pigment inks taking advantage of a tiny 1.5pl droplet size. That technology is wasted on dye-sub. Dye-sublimation ink is quite thick and, if there's a chance of it blocking, it will. Why risk a £400 printer when a sub-£100 printer will do just as good a job for you?

Using a precision printer like the R1800 for dye-sub printing is like using a finely-honed scalpel to carve your Sunday roast. It should never have been "chosen" by Sawgrass as a dye-sub printer because it's overkill. The only reason Sawgrass went for it was because they erroneously believed that the R1800 was replacing the 1290S. No one with even half a brain believed that, but Sawgrass apparently did.

My advice would be to save your R1800 for top quality photographic printing (which is what it was designed for), and buy yourself a ~£100 printer for dye-sub printing. Personally, I'd only use OEM ink in my R1800 but that's personal preference (and it's why my R1800 hasn't printed anything for a couple of years - because the ink is too expensive! ).

[nik_decalarama]

Hi JSR, that's pretty much the conclusion I am now coming to - keep the R1800 for other work. I did wonder whether to sell it on but the quality of print is just too good even with non-OEM inks. I can get all 8 cartridges for £6 delivered, I wasn't expecting much but I am very impressed with the output. They are dye-based though, so will most likely fade in a short space of time. I'm sure I could put the R1800 to use, even offering a printing service for A3 sized posters, prints, etc. I need to find a good reason to keep it

[JSR]

Hi JSR, that's pretty much the conclusion I am now coming to - keep the R1800 for other work. I did wonder whether to sell it on but the quality of print is just too good even with non-OEM inks. I can get all 8 cartridges for £6 delivered, I wasn't expecting much but I am very impressed with the output. They are dye-based though, so will most likely fade in a short space of time. I'm sure I could put the R1800 to use, even offering a printing service for A3 sized posters, prints, etc. I need to find a good reason to keep it

If you do offer up a printing service, you may want to switch to pigment inks to help hold back the fading of dye-inks. Pigment ink does cost a little more than dye-ink, but if you refill your own cartridges, it needn't be too expensive (and certainly still a lot cheaper than Epson's own ink). I, personally, wouldn't want to be selling prints using third-party dye-ink to anyone because of the fading issue, but each to their own.