DSF

After much reading around the forum, I have decided to buy the ricoh printer but am struggling to source good quality refillable ink. There's loads on ebay but none that I recognise the name of. A felow poster mentioned fotorite ink but I can't seem to find it anywhere. Sawgrass is out of my price range, what is the best option as far as refillable ink for mug printing on a ricoh 3110 printer? (I've not yet bought the printer as I want to make sure I can get the ink for it.)

All advice very much appreciated

I've tested a number of inks sourced from the likes of eBay. Most do not perform very well, the one or two that did were let down by dismal customer services backup. Whilst the savings initially look huge, when you break down the cost per print, risks of using inks that may or may not dry out in your printer, there's very little point.

Thanks Justin, so Sawgrass is the best/only reliable way to go?

If I'm completely honest I wouldn't recommend any other route. I'm all for saving money and buying elsewhere but I'm yet (personally) to see anything that compare, quality, support etc.

Not had any problems so far with refillables using ink from CityInkExpress and their iCC profile.

Thanks for the help Much as I would love to go sawgrass I think I'm going to go for a refillable system bundle from Cityinkexpress and see how it goes.

Much appreciated x

When you take into consideration the cost of the sublimation blanks themselves (which I consider to be overpriced) and the amount of postage the customer has to pay, you have to make cuts somewhere in order to be competitive. Advertising that a mug was printed using Sawgrass inks usually means nothing to the end customer and everything I've done with CityInkExpress inks has turned out fine, even after my own dishwasher and microwave tests.

I can see that buying the best would cut the likelihood of problems with printing quality and if my budget wasn't an issue I would go with the best....but it is so as you say compromises need to be made somewhere. If things go well in the future I hope to be able to upgrade.

My mug press arrives today! Excited but I have no printer as yet to practice with, off to put a printer order in. I think I will go for a bundle that includes printer, ink, cartridges, paper and a profile. I've seen the ricoh 3110 for around £170 with CityInkExpress. I've tried playing with prices buying separately but you don't save a lot and then there's the profile to source.

I bought the Ricoh bundle from CityInkExpress too. There was no ICC profile CD in the box but a quick email to them resulted in them emailing me the required profile in no time at all. Great service. The profile comes with clear instructions for installing on Windows or Mac. In my case I use Photoshop CS5 on Windows and it prints fine.

The refills are currently £15 for a 100ml bottle (x4 colours = £60), so are considerably cheaper than Sawgrass inks per ml. If you change from using the brand of paper supplied in the bundle (and it's decent quality anyway) then you will need a new ICC profile made.

Sounds good, nice to know that customer service is helpful. Thanks again.