What Sublimation Setup?

[Justin Mann]

Hi John,

Welcome to the world of subli! We have smaller format but run mainly through an Epson 4880 which has it’s benefits but also costs a fair bit more.

Many people ask when they are starting out whether to go A4 or A3, my advice is, if you can afford to run to A3 then do so. Most of the work can be done on A4, mugs, mats, coasters etc. but occasionally you’ll want to do a large place mat/t-shirt etc. and won’t be able to. The other obvious limitation is your press size. We use 15" x 20" presses which have always been fine.

Your biggest decision will be which supplier to go to. I won’t post my personal opinions here (Please PM for an honest appraisal!) but I’ve used just about all of them over the years and have my preferred suppliers now.

Just my opinion but I really dislike sublimation printed tee’s. They have to be done on shirts with a polyester coating which melts very slightly under the press so there’s always a mark where the press has been. There are tricks to reduce the line on the shirt but I’m never happy to sell them. Sometimes it’s the only obvious option though.

Mugs, mousemats, coasters and so on always look great. Sun shades, ceramic tiles can all be printed very easily for a good profit margin.

Don’t try and cut corners with bulk systems/printers etc. as it won’t pay in the long run.

Choose your supplier carefully, look on the forums for folks advice not just mine, many will disagree. You can’t put a price on good support, having someone available throughout the day to answer the silly questions we all go through will save a lot of wasted ink and consumables!

Please feel free to give me a shout for more info.

Best of luck,
Justin 🙂

[Michael Potter]

HI we have been doing dye sub for several months as an add on to our sign & frame business. we haven’t promoted it much just mention that we can supply whatever with there signs and from time to time give a thank you mug with larger sign jobs. We are at the stage where dye sub brings in nearly as much as Frames. We bought a Epsom 1290 6 colour a3 printer 38cm x 38cm press, mug press bulk artarium inks. We have since added a small mighty press which is fantastic. we also invested in a laser temp gauge and found that our original press was 25 degrees Celsius out ( to High) once this was sorted our problems reduced dramatically. Press was Chinese. Like all things you get what you pay for. My wife wants to sell the framing & concentrate on shirts , mugs etc
Cheers Mike

[Steve Underhill]

quote :

Just my opinion but I really dislike sublimation printed tee’s. They have to be done on shirts with a polyester coating which melts very slightly under the press so there’s always a mark where the press has been.

In that case buy your T shirts from Xpres, I havent ever had that problem and get fantastic vibrant colours on all our shirts.

Everyone says their stuff is the best, especially the novachrome guy at the show!

where in reality I took a coaster from the Xpres stand and held it up next to some of his stuff and the skin tones on the picture were as good if not better, so its all down to who you believe really.

I have been using ink from continuousink but once thats gone i will cross over to one of the others as he isnt allowed to sell his ink any longer.
most important is getting the correct profile as without that your sublimation will not look any good.

Theres lots of firms out there just ring around and try and get some advice that suits your setup, you dont need to buy the printer form them dont forget as you will get an R1800 or 1400 cheaper form places that specialise in them, just buy the ink and bulk kit.

[Justin Mann]

quote :

In that case buy your T shirts from Xpres, I haven’t ever had that problem and get fantastic vibrant colours on all our shirts.

Used to buy the Xpres ones but have since tried several other brands, the press lines can be reduced by lifting using a tee pad etc. but I’ve never printed one without some sort of line appearing. Sometimes the line improves in the first few washes but this is unacceptable for a customer.

Colours have always been vivid/vibrant, not had problems there.

Justin 🙂

[Steve Underhill]

Never get the press marks you speak of, so no idea whats happening there.

[John Thomson]

Is there a big difference in final print quality between 4,6 and 8 colour printers?

Is there any difference in the quality of inks? They all seem to be around the same price…..Do the profiles differentiate between the medium you are printing onto?

John

[Steve Underhill]

You wont beat 8 colours for quality, I have a 1290 6 colour and its good but the 8 colour has the edge definitely.
4 colour isn’t worth bothering with in my opinion unless you are just doing logos etc, and don’t need top photographic quality.
The inks seem to be pretty much similar, one supplier will tell you that the competitors cant produce the gamut of theirs etc, when in reality there really isn’t much difference.
someone at sign UK mentioned profiles for different applications so guess there must be as it was quite a new thing.

[Justin Mann]

I always used 4 colour Artainium systems and they were absolutely fine. We now have an 8 colour subli-jet system and we’ve done exhaustive tests for comparison. We use 8 colour for fine art Giclee prints etc. as you get a better black and tones are definitely improved.

There is very little noticeable difference between a 4 and 8 colour system, in fact some of the best prints I’ve seen have been produced by Xpres on their 4 colour set-up. We are planning to convert our 4880 back to 4 colour from 8 as soon as we can.

I had a very lengthy discussion with Sawgrass about the different ink systems and 4/6/8 colour and this particular chap agreed that any subtle differences noticed on a fine art print are lost in sublimation as the print turns to a gas.

The biggest difference I have noticed is the quality of the overall print going from D88/1290 up to 4880’s but then again you would expect this, colour wise, I doubt any customer would question why you didn’t use an 8 colour set-up!

Justin 🙂

[Steve Underhill]

quote :

There is very little noticeable difference between a 4 and 8 colour system, in fact some of the best prints I’ve seen have been produced by Xpres on their 4 colour set-up. We are planning to convert our 4880 back to 4 colour from 8 as soon as we can.

Astounding, 😮
its a simple fact you get better colour range and tones in the 6/8 colour printers, than a 4 colour.
I cannot get the quality that an 1800 will produce, that is a simple fact, not me being biased or wishing to sway anyone, I am on the middle ground with a 1290, but its a fact that an R1800 will produce better prints than a 1290, whether the ink turns into a gas or not, it does it with normal ink, AND sublimation ink.

why do you think all the exhibition printers and sublimation stuff were R1800s and 1400s?
and not D88s
Its because the vendors wanted to show the customers the best possible quality which is only achievable with the higher end printers, after all if a 200 quid D88 setup is just as good, then why would anyone buy a £600 R1800 setup?
Its like comparing a Fiesta to a Ferrari.

Me, i will use the 6 colour setup until the R1800 gets promoted.

[Stephen Morriss]

I’m using a 1290 with a custom profile done by a profileing company, seems to be fine.

But to add to the debate I use a Canon 4 colour + extra black printer for my photo’s and they are fantastic, far better than any Epson I’ve used, but I’ve not used the newer ones.

Steve

[Robert Lambie]

Reading this with interest guys…

just bought a TS-ONE heat press from grafityp along with t-shirt vinyl etc… so I am looking at buying the complete subli setup from nova chrome with the epsom A3 printer, mug press etc… although i am buying this purely for self promotion rather than getting into this line of work, i do want the best kit and supplies i can afford or i see little point in it… so all your comments and feedback are greatly appreciated.

do all of the suppliers like xpress, novachrome etc have good after sales support… any bad apples?

as profiles are being mentioned, does this limit me to the mugs, mats etc i can print/press onto or is it the paper i am printing to i need to take into account?

i received some samples from xpress on t-shirts… seem a decent quality at a pretty good price. but interested in any other suppliers of garments at competitive prices. im not necessarily looking for the cheapest, more a good quality at a reasonable cost.

[Hugh Potter]

what about the laser systems? it’s what i use, not seen anyone mention it yet!

quality is good, though some solid blacks could be a little better, i bought the A4 oki 5600, wish i’d had the spare to buy an A3 though! it’s only been needed tat size once, but woulda saved me a whole load of headache!

38×50 platen is a must. i’ve still had to do a few items in more than one hit.

[Stephen Morriss]

I’m no expert in dye sub Robert but you’ll need a profile for the inks, I’m using ink from a different source than Sawgrass and I had my own profile done.
I thought I’d got it quite close by altering the colours by hand but compared to the profiled print I wasn’t even close.
I’d imagine that the only factor between items is the white point and you can’t profile a mug or Tshirt so it’s got to be done on the paper, after that I guess you take your chance.

How much was the laser system Hugh? I already had the 1290 so it wasn’t much of a decision really.

Steve

[Hugh Potter]

i can’t remember exactly, it was just over £400 for the printer i think, from magic touch. they mess with all the settings so it can print on a wider range of materials, it’s also still covered by oki’s warranty.

the winning factor for me was that i didn’t have to buy coated products as the toner is already polyester, or something like that, giving a much wider range of products that are printable.

i can also use the printer for all my ‘posh paper’ invoices, doing short runs of headed paper (160gm), busi cards (210gm), my own point of sale stuff for my customers who deal in my retail products, and many other uses.

i’ve not come across anything it won’t do yet. not that i use it a huge amount for shirts etc, photo quality is good too.

cheers.
Hugh

[Steve McAdie]

I’ve got an A3 sub dye setup , most stuff can be done on A4 but T-shirts look better with A3. One thing I would say is buy a mug press able to press print to slim bone china mugs as I didn’t’ and regret this. get asked more for the slim office type of mug than the durham mug. I use Listawood mugs as they are dishwasherproof

Steve

[Kevin Flowers]

quote Steve Underhill:

You wont beat 8 colours for quality, I have a 1290 6 colour and its good but the 8 colour has the edge definitely.
4 colour isn’t worth bothering with in my opinion unless you are just doing logos etc, and don’t need top photographic quality.
The inks seem to be pretty much similar, one supplier will tell you that the competitors cant produce the gamut of theirs etc, when in reality there really isn’t much difference.
someone at sign UK mentioned profiles for different applications so guess there must be as it was quite a new thing.

Steve
when a R1800 is converted to dye sub use it does not use 8 colours it uses 6 cmyk, k, r, b & optimiser

(in fact it doesn’t as standard its cmy, k gloss, k matt, r, b & gloss agent)

Kev

[Kevin Flowers]

i stand corrected it can run a light cyan & magenta set up

[Steve Underhill]

I didnt see this post in time but yes, you echoed what I would have replied.
cyan, light cyan, magenta, light magenta, red, blue, and 2 blacks, the optimiser serves no purpose in dye sub, it is filled with black.

And Steve,
you can buy a silicone insert that fits inside your press, that will allow you to press thinner mugs, all you have to do is adjust the dwell times, BMS do one for about 10 quid.

[John Thomson]

quote Stephen Morriss:

I’m using a 1290 with a custom profile done by a profileing company, seems to be fine.
Steve

Very interested in this Steve…….who do you use for profileing? Was it difficult or easy?

John

[Steve Underhill]

Wherever you buy your ink from there should be profiles available to download from their support site, I used revolution transfers 1290 profile, works a treat

[Harry Cleary]

Don’t want to hijack here, but could somebody explain exactly what a ‘profile’ is and what its function is?

[Steve Underhill]

a profile basically lets the printer control colour correction and not photoshop/corel etc so you will get the exact same colour reproduction everytime rather than the software adjusting anything

In fact quite different from the profile Mi6 keep on youHarry.
:lol1:

[John Thomson]

quote Steve Underhill:

Wherever you buy your ink from there should be profiles available to download from their support site,

Some ink manufactures do not have profiles……hence my interest in a ‘custom’ profile.

[Steve Underhill]

Most suppliers of ink will make you a custom profile also, but Ive never seen anyone selling ink that cannot provide a standard profile, that would cause all sorts of problems.

[Peter Normington]

quote Harry Cleary:

Don’t want to hijack here, but could somebody explain exactly what a ‘profile’ is and what its function is?

A profile is a bit like a silhouette Harry,

It matches the intended output with the actual output. trust me, you dont want to get involved, most people dont know the difference between colours, it only becomes an issue if they want it to match a preconceived colour, and they will be placing it next to the matching one,

A profile, adjusts the settings on your output to try and match the colour you need, depending on the media you are printing on, and inks you are using, etc.

Only a nut shell explanation

Peter

[Harry Cleary]

quote Steve Underhill:

In fact quite different from the profile Mi6 keep on youHarry.
:lol1:

ssshhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

[John Thomson]

The bottom line is that a profile ……for sublimation or large format printing means what you see on screen is what your output looks like whatever you are printing onto…..colour correction.

John

[Steve Underhill]

Providing your monitor is calibrated correctly of course :lol1:

[Harry Cleary]

Sorry for being dense here (its a hobby of mine!)……if I am designing in Corel, do I go to another program to see the colours that will print or does the ‘profile’ take over the colour management in Corel. Hope that makes sense.

[Steve Underhill]

Thats about it harry.
the profile will overrride any colour correction in your software

[Steve McAdie]

Steve I tried it with a silicone insert that I made the results were disappointing. Who are BMS? Can you post us a link

Steve

[Steve Underhill]

http://www.printerowners.co.uk
thats BMS, speak to Martin Broad, he is very helpful

[Steve McAdie]

Cheers Steve

[Tim Painter]

quote :

Providing your monitor is calibrated correctly of course

Don’t mention fluctuating room lighting…………

[Calvin.Turner]

Hi,

Maybe I can at last offer some advice in return for all the advice I have had from the forum.

Definitely go for an A3, unless you definitely, 100% know you will never ever want to print much larger than a mouse mat. A4 is too small for a tshirt, even A3 is too small for some of the larger sizes – A3 + is ok though and both the 1290 and R1800 can take A3 + (not sure on the R1400)
I made a huge mistake when I started out, I initially started the subli idea for the same reasons as Robbie, in order to be able to produce my own promo items. I wasn’t sure it would work out so I bought a small press (a Geo knight, not an auction site £199 thing) a D88 printer and artainium system, cost be about a grand or so.
Literally a month later it became apparent that the idea was fine, but the equipment was far too small so I ended up take quite a hit on the pocket. Upgraded to a used 1290 and a much larger Geo knight digital press.
The smaller setup was ok for mouse mats, coasters, keyrings and such but nothing more – a bit like comparing a craft robo to a gx24.
Obviously I have mug pressing equipment too.
I looked at a few systems prior to making my purchase, I looked at auction site stuff, the Novachrome stuff you mention, a couple of others but after much research it seems that the geo knights are decent, well respected bits of kit so thats what I went for and certainly dont regret it (apart from buying one that was too small!)
There are 2 main types of press, a clamshell and a swingaway. The clamshell, as the name suggests opens up from the front like a jaw (or clam…) the swingaway type also does what it says (clever stuff this 😉 ) and swings right out of the way. The advantage of a swinger is that you have the full area to work in and position your work without being underneath nearly 200 Celcius. The disadvantage is that a larger area is required to the side and partly behind the press. I dont know of any advantage that a clamshell has apart from space. I personally wouldnt have anything but a swinger.
There are of course giant presses, pneumatic presses etc which I presume you wouldnt be looking into at the moment.
Larger is better for another reason which may not be initially apparant – you can get more under it – by that I dont mean the obvious, but smaller items such as keyrings or coasters you can do several at once, I can do 9 coasters in a go, could probably squeeze on more but a bit of movement = a misprint, a whole lot of keyrings or other smaller items will also fit under in one go.
Printers, excluding cheap no name unlicensed ink, there are only a few printers available for use with sublimation ink, all epsons. The reason for this is because epsons do not heat the ink whereas many (if not all) others do. This is, incedentally the reason why a lot of replacement ink cartridges for printers come with the print head built in, for eg HP’s. Due to the way they print, the head wears out much quicker, with Epsons the head is part of the printer and not the cartridge, it used to be (and might still be) a myth that epsons are a con because the heads arnt replaced with the ink, the truth is, they dont need to be because of the way they work, they last a long time.
the D88 has a known issue, but I believe this printer is now obolete and has been replaced by the 265 (as far as sublimation goes) Im not sure if there are any other A4 printers available for our use.
1290’s are excellent, they go on and on and the colour reproduction with the artainium profile is brilliant. The only downside is the speed – but its an old printer. Its a 6 colour printer. I have a 1290, and also an 1800.
The R1800 is a brilliant printer, 8 colour (well, sort of! 7 colour plus gloss) The gloss optimiser and sublimation is odd. If you opt for the artainium system the gloss is replaced with "cleaning fluid" what it cleans is beyond me! And what I also find odd and have never been able to get a decent answer for is, if gloss it turned off in the printer settings, then why the heck does the gloss (or cleaning stuff) get used !
I had issues with the 1800 initially, colours were not good. Well, they were good as in nice and vibrant but a mile off the actual colours they were supposed to be, red was orange and so on. Took ages to get sorted out but a newer profile improved things dramatically. The 1800 is pretty fast, in fact very fast for an A3 inkjet.
As mentioned already, the type of system you go for is really down to supplier, common ink types/systems are artainium, rotech and sublijet – all made by the same company sawgrass. I find more suppliers offer the artainium than the others, price isnt a lot different but with the sawgrass you can if need be use a 3rd party bulk feed system rather than the sawgrass one, although when you buy the system its full of ink anyway. I use a 3rd party ciss with my 1290 but with artainium ink, I find it a better system as it uses bottles rather than the tubes that the artainium has that need a syringe to fill. The price for artainium ink is fixed by sawgrass, I think the others are too but I’m not 100% on that. Sawgrass have somehow got the sole rights to produce and sell sublimation ink, anything that isnt from sawgrass is apparently illegal – thats something for another post as its a very political subject. Not only that, with the sawgrass systems you get an icc profile with your particular ink system and the ink is the same each time you buy a bottle.
Paper. I beleive that the sublijet system is slightly different and you can use a high quality inkjet paper – not 100% sure. Also with that system you have different settings for different substrates. The artainium you get a single icc profile and use special sublimation paper, there are a few around, some no name and some branded. I use 2 types – both made by sawgrass who make the artainium ink. Truepux and textprint. Truepix, general use, hard items, sticks to coated glass and mousemats. Textrpint, higher release paper, used on fabrics, doesnt stick, colours not as vibrant on hard materials as textprint.
Colour reproduction is good to excellent on most items. But since the profile is generic and substrates differ, there is obviously a difference in say a coaster and a mouse mat. Just the same as if you printed a photo out on an epson printer onto epson photo paper, then the same onto say hp photo paper or plain paper. I’ve done some work for printing companies, and do regular work for a photographer and never had a problem, I get the odd comment from the photographer about the odd one being "a bit warm" but otherwise all ok. If colour matching was an issue, you could either tweak in the software or if you have a spectro and the capapility to do your own them you could probable create your own profile(s).
Sublimated items look fantastic, and even when you’ve been doing it for some time you still occasionally go "WOW" when it comes out of the press.
The issue of press marks that was mentioned happens with tshirts to an extent, but I’ve never had it that badly. The tshirts arnt necessarily polyester coated so much as blended polyester. Some sublimation T’s are renowned for leaving blue spots all over the place (I wont mention the make) ALL t’s will do this if the press it too hot, or there are bits of lint or dust on the T prior to pressing, a quick zap with a lint roller prevents this – the aforementioned ones still seem more prone to it than others. The xpres t’s are decent, as are vapours.
You will quite probably get 2 lots of press marks – one from the outline of the paper, and one from the area of the press itself. Both can be reduced by using padding which is available as teflon pillow or now the new "t pad its" I use teflon pillows, but you can improvise too. They dont eliminate the marks, but do reduce them. After pressing, if you move the T a little and repress for a short time they all but vanish, and after a wash and iron they are gone. The only time they stay is if the press is too hot.
Not sure but the supplier I use most is I believe on this forums supplier list so should be ok to mention but I’m not 100% so I wont, and I cant check now as I’m being accused of taking 40 mins when I said I’d be back down in 5 so I’d better go ! Hopefully I dont have too many typos, I’ll check over in the morning and correct any and also add anything else that I may have missed.

[Harry Cleary]

that has to be a record post?
I will read it in the morning and afternoon……..too much vino tonight! 😀 😀

[Steve Underhill]

I am intending to finish this post sometime in August.
But nice so far thanks

[Stephen Morriss]

Wow I’m away for a few days and someones written an essay 😮

John I used a company called pure profiles, it was only £15 for 1 profile so it’s worth doing if you can’t get a profile that suits your inks.
You have to be careful to follow the instructions for printing the charts though or they will come out wrong.
Also you have to install them and setup your program to use them correctly, I missed a setting in corel and was initially disappointed at the result but then I checked again and found my mistake and the results were great.
I also calibrate my monitor with a Pantone Huey, when you first do it the screen looks wrong but after a few minutes you get used to it.
And yes what’s on screen is very close (not perfect) to what gets printed.

Steve

[Steve Underhill]

Basically Sawgrass own the patent to sublimation ink, they invented it.
so as you can appreciate they dont like their idea being copied which is fair enough I suppose, but their ridiculously high prices make people seek elsewhere and so if there is a demand for a product at a cheaper price things like patent infingements will invariably happen.
I cant see a reason for ink being 50 odd quid for 125 ml thats just daft, maybe if sawgrass made the price more in line with others prices they could push the others out of the market rather than encourage people to copy them.
Manoukian who manufacture dye sub ink for Mimaki large formats sell their ink for something like £100 a LITRE, work that out. 😮

[Justin Mann]

Anybody using large format sublimation ? I looked into the pricing and wondered how long it would take to recover the additional costs of the printer.

Justin

[Peter Munday]

Justin, I use an Epson 9600 printer and a 1mtr wide calander press to produce large clothes for horse racing blankets. The set up cost £12,000
and unless you have the contracts in the bag then it won’t repay your investment for many years.

Peter

[John Thomson]

Thanks for everyone input on this….it is much appreciated.

we have decided to give this a go…..but not the straight forward way 😀

I will explain all in a separate post in due course………..the good and the bad as it unfolds

[John Gregson]

Be interesting to hear how you get on when you get set up – in the same boat as you but not sure whether to go for it. 😀

[Robert Lambie]

quote John Thomson:

Thanks for everyone input on this….it is much appreciated.

I second that, the feed back on johns initial post has been great.

Thank you Eggplant too, for your in depth reply. (eggplant – Hows about a name change mate? go on… go on go on :wink:)

[Calvin.Turner]

hmm, names on public forums – got me into serious trouble a few years ago, I swore never to do it again.

Regards

Calv

[David Rowland]

well i am getting more known as Dave Rowland in our circle but only the UKSG members know my company and rules prevent us from advertising… having names improves this community, go on a be a devil.

[Russell Huffer]

Rob,

Strange now it seems you are giving people a choice on this, I have sent you 4 emails that you just chose to ignore.

Are you ever going to reply to me one way or the other ???????

I have waited over a month for a simple answer from yourself and I now want an answer.

Russell.

[Steve Underhill]

/Handbag slap ………….. on

:rofl: