DSF

Hello,
I so a lot of dye sub myself and have started selling inks. I have always used an epson printer with generic ink and never had an issue with quality and never tried a Ricoh printer my self.
A customer asked me if the inks can be used with Ricoh (or any other). I wasn't aware that there would be a problem and that only certain inks would work with certain printers.

Can you use any inks with any type of printer? If not are you able to tell me why not?

Thank you
A

in a word no
dye subink will not work with printers where the print head uses heat this knocks a lot of printers out
if its small format printers and you are selling sawgrass inks then you must be an authorised agent
if its small format printers and you are selling dye sub ink which is not sawgrass then you can expect a call from sawgrass lawyers
if you want to take on sawgrass in the courts you may need go consder the size of your piggy bank as i suspect sawgrass have a very big piggy bank

Are only sawgrass allowed to sell sub ink? Even if I am not selling as sawgrass and clearly saying it is generic? I have always used generic and have used many different suppliers my self over the years and never know this. Can sawgrass actually have ownership over the whole sublimation ink industry?

Any way just selling off a lot of surplus as it was cheaper to buy a lot from my supplier so just wondered if you couldn't use it in Richo machines

Thanks
A

Or is the problem that you are not allowed to call it sublimation ink, and has to be heat transfer ink?

sawgrass hold the patentent/rights or whatever you wanna call it for small format dye sublimation ink no mater what title you give the ink persnally i think you have left yourself wide open by revealing that you are selling these inks i would be very suprised if the powers that be from sawgrass do not read theses posts.
in general non sawgrass inks are taboo on this forum

That makes sense. Thank you for helping me out and I shall re consider selling my surplus! Sorry!

Thanks
A

asub, make a cup of coffee and have a read of any of the inky posts on here, and you will see the minefield you have walked into - be afraid be very afraid..... i can feel a name change coming on

To answer the actual original question that you asked, without going into the whole patent discussion as this has no baring on the technicalities of what is possible.

Sublimation inks can only be used in a piezo headed printer (i.e. not a heat activated print head like a bubble jet for instance, or the inks would sublimate inside the print head itself) so in theory this leaves inkjets from Epson, Brother and Ricoh that can be used.

The spanner in the works with the Ricoh printers though is that Ricoh claims them to use a "gel ink" which implies that they are a thicker "gel-like" liquid than normal inks used in Epsons, and that using normal sublimation ink in the would not work, but it may all be marketing spin and be meaningless and any old water based ink will work fine, but I wouldn't want to risk it, and I am yet to read of anyone who has tried to see any evidence either way.

To clarify (or deeper muddy the waters) Sawgrass do have a patent on a type of sublimation ink formulation and how it is used. It is not all encompassing to cover every other formulation of sublimation ink (even though they want people to believe that it is does) as this is not how patents work. The details/documents of the patent can be looked up on the European patents website by anyone - they are no secret. And there is no stipulation on the size of printer used within those documents.

See, that is what I wondered RE the patent...
"To clarify (or deeper muddy the waters) Sawgrass do have a patent on a type of sublimation ink formulation and how it is used. It is not all encompassing to cover every other formulation of sublimation ink (even though they want people to believe that it is does) as this is not how patents work. The details/documents of the patent can be looked up on the European patents website by anyone - they are no secret. And there is no stipulation on the size of printer used within those documents."

I have seen other ink brands around that have proper branded packaging so I assumed there were lots of companies that engineered these inks but with slightly different formulas.

I will have a read through the ink posts also. As I said it was just to get rid of surplus. I just won't order a few next time, just the amount I need and probably from sawgrass! What are the prices of sawgrass inks? It is something I will look into getting.

LOL and I wont change my account name, just make sure I don't buy other inks again!

I think the points made above need to be easier to find as I have read up a lot on sublimation and had still never come accross the sawgrass issue before. Well at least the info is all here now so that other people can make an informed decision

Thanks guys,
A

The info on Sawgrass, their patent claims, and their ways of doing business are quite well documented on the internet, including already on this and other forums. It is a hot topic which almost always sparks debate, almost like trying to discuss politics or religion.