Printer for multiple uses

[Gareth Howells]

Hi All,

I am currently looking to purchase a printer for dye sub work. I have done some research about which printer/system I want, but I have a question that at the moment I cannot find any guidance on and hope someone here can help.

I want to do both dye sub and heat transfer work, but due to space I am looking at possibly using one printer for both.

What I was hoping to do is purchase an epson workforce (not sure which exact model yet) along with two CIS systems. One system would hold sublimation ink and one would hold ink for heat transfer.

Will this work? My theory is that I can split orders over two days, one day for sub work and one day for heat press work, therefore limiting the changing the CIS each time.

Does anyone do this? Is it even possible?

Thanks in advance!

Gareth

[gorgall2]

You would have to flush out the ink each time you swapped over. Lot of wasted ink.

[socialgiraffe]

Will this work?

NO!

Its possible but you will waste so much ink that it is not financially viable as each time you change your ink you will need to flush out the old ink, have a search on this forum and you will find better explanations of this. You will need two printers unless you only do white poly garments which can be dye sub printed.

[Gareth Howells]

Thanks for the responses!

That answers that question for me then and saves me a lot more time and effort looking into it.

Thanks
Gareth

[JMugs]

OR...
Yes you knew it would happen... the epson 4880 works off of 8 inks, now I am sure sawgrass have a way of running two banks of four on this. So I think the answer could be "Yes", and as if by magic here is a link..

http://www.sawgrassink.com/technical-su ... epson-4880

Janners

[Andrew]

I know some of the 4000 models could switch to dual cmyk and I had read about someone who ran both ink sets from it. Think it was tshirtforums but about 4 years ago.

[logobear]

if you ever build up a business, you will realise that kit is cheap, and time is expensive.....
Buy 1 great printer that best serves your needs, use it, and REALLY learn to use it, earn some mullah, but more (good) kit
If you buy crap stuff, you will never get past stage 1, coz you will hate the bizz!

[pisquee]

To do this properly, you would need an 8 channel printer, and software like MultiRIP Hybrid. Suitable printers will be wide format Epsons (17" and above) to get the 8 channels you would need to run two different sets of CMYK inks.
You then have a more pro level printer, with 200-300ml carts, and no faffing about with CISS systems, and swapping them over, and wasting inks etc.