TMT OKI White

[Andrew]

Hi All,

Anyone tried out The Magic Touch Oki White Toner printer for doing coloured mugs? Never ysed any of the TMT transfer papers so know very little on their stuff. Their advert images look good printed onto a black mug but what are they like in the real world? Cost effective or not etc? It was mentioned on the ad with the new white toner Oki and new 7.5 paper that doesn't need weeding.

Thanks,

Andrew

[Earl Smith]

I received promotion info on this printer this morning. There is no mention about mug printing, only t-shirts. Ive asked for some samples. Could be an interesting addition to a t-shirt print shop.

[socialgiraffe]

I am about to visit them and have a look at the white on mugs. I have had samples from a different supplier of white laser printers and to be honest the white was too weak. Am hoping TMT will be far better.

Most of these sytems at the moment have a few problems.

White too weak
Not dishwasher safe unless you coat them afterwards
Difficult to print in bulk as the transfer time is 35 seconds which is not enough time for a mug to get warm

I have found a coating for point number two which works well. If that was the only sticking point I would work with an engineer to make an automatic coating machine.

Note that mugs use the CPM paper and not WOW. If it was the WOW paper I would be really happy as that has a great white base.

[Andrew]

I did speak to them and they said it is dishwasher safe not proof.... Basically it will wear down the print quite soon. I also can't see how the finish can be as good as ceramic transfers as the carrier film won't burn off at 180c. Work in progress it looks like but worth a look.

[WorthDoingRight]

I also saw them using a water transfer (DCT) that has a white background and transferring that to a mug and then heating that at 180 degrees to improve its wearability.

[Ian M]

Many years ago there was some printers made by Alps & the MD-5000 was capable of dye sublimation prints. The best bit was these printers could print white & also metallic colours too. They were way ahead of their time & it wasn't much later they stopped making them. OKI then bought the rights & they started to produce them under their name but, again they stopped making them too. The technology has been there for quite a number of years now & god only knows why OKI don't start making them again as there is quite some demand for them. A lot of people buy them to make waterslide transfers because the prints are waterproof. If anyone wants to know a bit more about them then here's a link for more info on them http://www.sonic.net/mnitepub/pccafe/re ... inter.html

[logobear]

Laser mugs are completely different, - and in my opioion way inferior to sublimation..... I made them for maybe 10 years until I got into sub (for another reason), - and switched fully straight away. Laser is passable if you only have a laser setup.
I think this release will just be the start of white toner printers, - and will have 'limited' success. It will work well with WOW because wow just needs any toner to work, - image quality will be lower thou, - because there is no K black, - just 100% CMY which isn't as good.
When the next generation of 6+ colour laser prinbers come out we will see the real change, CMYK , - and at least 2 whites, - or maybe white and a transparent?
As mentioned, - the white isn't solid enough for real printed white, - maybe need 2+ whites for real punch, - but this printer will be a game changer, - even if it is only the start of the first half!
I would love to hear from the first owner users ......

[mrs maggot]

logo are you making a trip down to TMT, we were discussing you when i met them at a show recently (did your ears burn) anyway i said we would pop over and take a look at the new printer - not sure we have 2.5k to spare though

[socialgiraffe]

Logobear (and others) are right and I agree that the mugs will never be as good as Dye sub because the image sits on top of the mug and is not burnt in.

I have been testing a different white laser printer system which is exactly as everyone suspects (weak white, not dishwasher safe etc etc). But I have found that coating the mug afterwards does make them dishwasher safe. If the white on TMT's system is tronger then I maybe tempted. £2000 plus Vat would not take long to recoup in my business and is also £3000 cheaper than the system I was looking at.

My biggest concern is that the few that are out there are the first generation of mass produced white laser printers for this industry. I made the mistake of purchasing a DTG (with white ink) which was first generation, cost me £17k and never worked properly. Had five new print heads (£600 a throw) and probably earnt less than 3K in two years. Ended up throwing the thing away as I could not even give the thing away.

WDR, DCT paper for mugs is probably the worst thing I have seen!!! Great for things like candles but having tried the waterslide method it looked and felt like a sticker on the mug which peeled off with ease.

[WorthDoingRight]

WDR, DCT paper for mugs is probably the worst thing I have seen!!! Great for things like candles but having tried the waterslide method it looked and felt like a sticker on the mug which peeled off with ease.

I was wondering if they adhered better if you then did heat them to 180 degrees. I have tried 'mugsnmore' laser hard surface transfer paper - and do have some cpm paper also from TMT to try.

I have been coating my own tiles and sublimating to them - I now seem to have perfected it except for trying to keep the surface free from airborn contamination.

I have just ordered some of the smaller 4" x 4" sublimation tiles from BMS as they were on special along with some more money boxes.