Hey All

[mrs maggot]

hi Twedd, welcome to the forum, please please repost your printer wants and desires in the printer section, so it can be added to and in time will offer an informative post to other new people on the site, rather than being hidden in the intro section of the forum.

[bms]

HI Everyone,

I am Alan, I own a independant gaming store in Northumberland called R U Game, I have a large area at the back of my store which is never used so going to put this space to use and start a printing company since I already pay the rent on the entire shop including the back might as well put it to use!

with me owning a gaming store I already get my target customer through the door and feel this is just natural progression for the company to take, I have a artist already employed who customises my gamepads and consoles etc and he is happy to design gamer related copyright free tshirts for me as these will be 100% his own work and designs.

I am wanting to use this forum for advice on many things as although I run a business I know nothing about printing! (except for what I have read over the past month).

I have pretty much weighed up all the pro's and cons of each process and yes I would love a dtg but I will be printing mainly onto dark tops so the budget cant stretch that far...

I am thinking of using 3 different printers for the all the printing that we are going to be offering but I am very flexible on this and will listen to you guys for any guidance....

Inkjet Epson SX130 - this printer is going to be our printer to print onto inkjet transfers for use on dark t-shirts only.

Canon Ip3600 - this printer will solely be used for edible inks to print cake toppers / cupcakes etc..

Epson Photo 1400 - this will be our main printer for printing everything else such as white/light t-shirts and anything with a polyester coating as I am wanting to set this up with a CISS system using dye sub ink...

please feel free to suggest changes or offer any sort of advice.

Many thanks for your time

Alan

Welcome Alan

Here are my views...

SX130 is okay as a cheap entry level printer and so long as you continue to use the genuine Epson durabright inks in this printer then you can print onto printable flex as well. Do you have a cutter to cut around the shapes? If not then have a look at the Cameo cutter as this is a great little machine for cutting around images as well as offering the possibility of cutting letters for going onto garments, e.g. BECKHAM on the back of a t-shirt etc. If funds permit then I'd consider going to a laser printer as this will give you options printing onto light cotton garments using TTC3.1+ papers or onto dark garments using OBM5.6 and contour cutting around the shape. The OKI610 is recommended but a big jump in the budget. Great machine for standard office printing as well.

Summary: consider Cameo for cutting letters, SX130 okay but might become expensive to run using genuine inks.

Canon iP3600 isn't widely available now. The iP4950 is a quicker printer and same quality as iP3600 and same price I think!

Photo 1400 for sublimation. This printer has been discontinued from Epson now so no longer available new from most places. Whilst this is a 6 colour printer most sublimation printers these days are 4 colour and the colour reproduction is excellent. You don't need to go for 6 colour. The CISS system is fine, except you should expect to have a higher maintenance workload keeping this working compared to a Ricoh using a cartridge based system. Do you need a A3 printer for this? As you SX130 is A4 why do you need an A3 sublimation printer? The A4 recommended options would be the Ricoh GXe3300 or the SG3110DN.

So, assuming budget is no object I would suggest you look at the OKI C610 instead of the SX130 and consider a cutter like the Cameo. iP4950 is ideal as a edible printer and for the sublimation work if you need A3 then consider the Ricoh GXe7700 but if A4 is large enough then the GXe3300 or the SG3110DN would be ideal.

Okay, just to throw an alternative into the mix to completely confuse! The printing to light coloured cotton garments can be done with the SX130, Oki C610 or you could look at the Chromablast system. Cheaper than the laser, more expensive that the SX130 but really good results onto light/ white cotton garments. You can't print onto dark garments with this though. Personally if you're going down the dark garment route the OBM5.6 is a better material - it is thin so doesn't hang heavily on the t-shirt and if you want to experiment in the future with a good quality heat press you could look at WOW7.2 which gives you reproduction close to DTG but with the Oki laser printer.

[Twedd]

Hi Guys

Thanks for the welcome messages and advice, I am going to have yet another rethink on equipment used and consider the laser printing and rioch alternatives mentioned so if anybody has any for sale PM me

@mrsmaggot - Will post in the printer section also

[WorthDoingRight]

@BMS Well is there any news on a new Epson A3 printer with Sublijet type cartridges being available soon?

[bms]

@BMS Well is there any news on a new Epson A3 printer with Sublijet type cartridges being available soon?

Not heard anything yet, but in the A4 market the WorkForce WP-4015 is just available using SubliJetIQ inks