Printer to replace the Epson Photo 1500W for sublimation...

[UK Printed Mugs]

Big thumbs up to P600. We made the switch today from 1500W to P600 (originally 7100dn for years). The CISS, inks and paper from the guys at Ink Express who have fantastic customer service. Have only printed about 25 A3 sheets but print is very good.

Perhaps in a few days I will write a little comparison and better feedback but mini review would be:

Pro
Touch screen lcd panel makes life easier
No need to reset ink via cartridge switch.
9 colours. Although I think two are both just black. So better quality. I guess.
Has paper roll holder. Although not looked into paper for it yet. Anyone?
CISS dead easy to install.

Cons
Keeps telling us we are using non genuine cartridges. Both on touch screen and in Windows. Very annoying as you have to press “proceed” to continue. Did update to latest firmware straight away so perhaps new “feature” from Epson as Alex from InkExpress says it doesn’t happen on their set up.
Perhaps a little slower. Certainly not timed yet just initial perception.
Onlu supports 2.4ghz wireless and not 5ghz which is very annoying and old school. Need to ensure wireless router is set to both bands therefore.

As a company we have been avid Sawgrass ink users. For now we will continue to run SG ink in our SG400’s purely for mug paper printing but happy to have moved to the dark side and to an Epson set up that should be good to go until we can justify a 24” or 44” set up.

[Boyan]

Photographic testing with Epson Surecolor SC-P600-







1) The custom ICC profile produced a print that had quite a green colour cast, this is because the profile was made as a colour profile rather than a dedicated black and white profile.
2) We found that best results were achieved by using the printers 'Advanced Black & White Mode' which is found within the printing preferences. This mode is used and overrules the ICC or colour management.
3) We found the BW images printed much darker than onscreen so we opted to change the Tone from 'Dark' to 'Light' in the advanced area of the print settings.

With all the above sorted we achieved a good tonally neutral black and white photographic print on to the t-shirt.

Alex

I have your ciss and inks for the 1500w and working with the profile you send me all was perfect minus the blacks were always greenish. I am a photographer with much colour calibration experience when i worked on large format printers for a company printing a lot on cheapo materials.

So i couldn't help and bought the X rite Colormunki. And although not a pro gadget I made a new profile, calibrated on top of your profile, always the same greenish instead of black. Was going even to sell the x rite colormunki cause i thought it's too simple, until i noticed that when i make the profile it asks me if i want to improve or make new. So there is the key. Once you make the profile and finish, then again this profile needs to be improved with what exactly you print. I fed 2 different black and white images, recalibrated 2 times with the freshly generated charts from these exact images and voila, the black now is spot on black. No green or whatever hue.
So at the end of the day the profile should be improved with the exact type of images one prints and then it becomes perfect. Obviously black and skin tones are of great importance, so it is a must it seems to refine the initial profiles.


About the A2 printers, i have been looking at prices of paper and it seems it's much cheaper to print on roll, so if one prints much A2 roll is better for a printer i think. Same like owning a 60x40 press for more serious business. i start to miss that 10cm i think lately.

One thing became clear these months, the Epsons are better than the Ricoh in all the ways. If i am to go back i would have bought a more expensive Epson just for the sake of the roll option. Especially with the new materials for sublimation coming out these days.

Also i would like to share one thing more. Being my first 2 months in a retail location in a shopping centre. Its Absolutely Super Important To Cover Tightly With Plastic The Printer. At home- no problem as i live near the sea with much humidity. At the shop 1 day and head was dry . 3 channels bad. Much cleaning, next day the same. I said F%%ck, what bloody happens. Then i thought a bit and decided air conditioners and super dry air. What to do? Formed a tight cover from a bubble wrap nylon and some scotch. Print, then close and cover it right away. No problems from then.
So make air tight your printers and the heads will not dry. Thats it. Especially with the Ciss keeping it semi open. Its enough to cover tightly the front, sides and top, no back. Dont forget that there was no ciss and the waste ink was not going to separate deposit outside, the printer would be maintaining a certain humidity inside, generated from the waste ink at the bottom of it and the closed lids. Hope that will help somebody.

[UK Printed Mugs]

P600. After 7 days away with printer turned off we just re-opened, turned on printer and did one head clean (to be on the safe side) and printed off 30 A3 full colour sheets with no problem at all.

[InkExpress]

P600. After 7 days away with printer turned off we just re-opened, turned on printer and did one head clean (to be on the safe side) and printed off 30 A3 full colour sheets with no problem at all.

Great to hear Olly! Mine has been left for 3 weeks (wouldn't recommend it generally, but was purely for test purposes) like you I did one print head clean prior to doing a nozzle check and it was perfect.

It really is a very reliable printer, also the Inktec inks we supply with it don't appear to block up very easily at all which is always a bonus.

Alex

[Justin]

Great to hear these printers are performing as well as they are. I'm keen to get my hands on one when I can, the 1500 is great but starting to show it's age, P600 print improves considerably which is a surprise.

[InkExpress]

Great to hear these printers are performing as well as they are. I'm keen to get my hands on one when I can, the 1500 is great but starting to show it's age, P600 print improves considerably which is a surprise.

I still love the 1500W, but do find the SCP600 that little bit better. They still have little annoying niggles like the annoying 'none genuine ink' warning but nothing out the ordinary to any other Epson printer. Give me a shout when you're in need of one Justin :)

Alex

[greenroom]

This is all really useful thanks - we bought a SCP600 for prints on heavier media than the laser can handle, and not being experienced in inkjets it's nice to know it sounds like we picked well. We've got SG800s for sublimation, and being newbies started out with Sawgrass inks to try to avoid unknown ink pitfalls, but it's definitely time to get ourselves sorted with Ink Express CISS.

Trouble is - you've made the SCP600 look so good for sublimation, it's making the SG800s look a bit old hat!

[InkExpress]

This is all really useful thanks - we bought a SCP600 for prints on heavier media than the laser can handle, and not being experienced in inkjets it's nice to know it sounds like we picked well. We've got SG800s for sublimation, and being newbies started out with Sawgrass inks to try to avoid unknown ink pitfalls, but it's definitely time to get ourselves sorted with Ink Express CISS.

Trouble is - you've made the SCP600 look so good for sublimation, it's making the SG800s look a bit old hat!

Thanks Greenroom! The SCP600 is a fantastic machine, I think its only drawback against an SG800 is print speed (they can be a little slow) but print quality, media handling, service intervals, and general day to day use its a far better printer, cheaper to buy initially and cheaper to run overall.

Drop me a message if you want to ask any questions or request a print sample from our in house SCP600.

Alex

[Boyan]

There is also the P400, that also can be made chipless, has very simple ink delivery system / reliability/ , has roll function, has now sublimation inks. And is cheaper and could be found even cheaper at some rebates.

It does not have the color panel, the Ciss is a bit more expensive as its rarer. I bought one to play with and eventually convert to DTG. Just unpacking it today.


But IMHO if i go back again Roll function and Cheap Roll Paper will be the deciding factor. So an used A2 with good head or new P800 i believe is the best for a shop or for heavy use. It will pay itself from the paper price difference when using roll. If one does not print every day, A3 is better. My 1500W works perfectly so for now i will continue to buy the not so cheap paper packs of 100.


PS. the Ricoh is really an ugly old brick compared to the Epsons and the silent beauty of the way they work. And on top of that they break much more, are more expensive and need additional attachments to work. Ricoh is the past...

[PaulH]

Hi Alex,

I have had a read through this thread and found it very interesting.

I am researching an A3 printer at the moment, and was looking at the SG800. However, the fact that it only uses 4 colour inks suggested to me it might have some limitations on its colour gamut compared to a printer with more colours (I am now using a Canon Imagegraf Pro-1000 for my photo prints, which has 12 ink cartridges). The SCP 600 might be a solution to this issue.

I wonder if you, or anybody else has done any tests of the colour gamut between the SG800 and the SCP600?

In addition, are you aware of any information on the durability of prints made with InkTek inks compared to Sawgrass inks?

Finally, do the InkTek inks have a posted, or real use by date? Sawgrass inks appear to have a published shelf life in the printer of six months. Are InkTek similar? To be honest, this could be a red herring in the selection process. I was using an Epson3800 for photo printing until quite recently. Some of the inks were used at a much slower rate than others, and when I finished the cartridges I saw that they were well out of date, but never had any problems with the printer performance, colour shifts or nozzle blocks. It was the failure of one of the well used ink colours that finally killed this printer.


Paul