johnson4

On 10/2/2022 at 8:07 PM, hurst504 said:

Ok cool. I might have to look into maybe redesigning the lid. This bulb here is 15 3/8 so it should definitely be curing the full length. Maybe the bulbs on its last leg. 

You also need to consider the 15" of space you have where the film runs. Do you have it running in the center? That shaker I have like this one, It absolutely needs replacements. I've been using it non-stop for 2 years. One bulb is shot and the other two have hot spots. 

On 10/3/2022 at 2:43 AM, hurst504 said:

I think i figured out something that I want to test. but the place don't have enough 300w (220v). Do you know if the 400w (220v) would work or nah. 

I was wrong, I looked back at my notes. You want 400W bulbs, not 300W bulbs. Anything over 400W bulbs will burn the film, anything less has a hard time curing properly and cycling properly. 

so 400W is perfect. That is actually what I am STILL looking for. I am trying to find 6 of them, haha. 

2 hours ago, hurst504 said:

Thanks. Let me know if u find it.
 

My next question, Is the 15in length of the bulbs sized from end to end of the white or is the bulb measured from coil to coil. 
 

because the straight part of the wire don’t get hot just from the start of the coiled up part. So if I’m looking for bulbs am I looking for 15in bulbs or something bigger. If that makes sense. 

They size the bulbs from tip to tip of the ceramic end caps where the power wire goes in. They all seem to have that gap from the end cap to where the winding starts, at least the ones I’ve seen. Maybe to prevent the heat from running back into the actual wiring I’m not sure. 
 

With the bulb 15” In length, you’ll get about 13”-13.5” of curable width. 
 

if you redesigned the lid and made the bulbs about 6” away from the film, you would get a more consistent cure without risk of overheating and could use the bit smaller bulbs. The further away the bulb is the more they overlap and create a more consistent heat zone. You would need to move the coupler down to about 1.5” away from the film on the side to keep the temperature in check. It’s what I’m doing on my shaker build anyway.

41 minutes ago, hurst504 said:

Yeah he said he got this shaker when they first started selling them. Ive actually been looking for bigger bulbs before i found your tinkering.
I figured as much that i could go up to about 300w even maybe 400w for 220v. 
Did you find a good vendor that sold 15in/38cm 300w bulbs?
I have another shaker coming. they say it's 33cm but I want to have bulbs just incase it's not. 

The original bulbs are 300W(220v) on mine that looks like that, that’s actually one of my favorite shakers to this day. 

 

finding bulbs has been the biggest pain I have run across, without having them made specifically which is expensive. 

I did find some, but I’ll have to go back and look. I was told they were 120V bulbs 300W, but when I hooked them up on 220V they were at 300W and worked normally. 

5 hours ago, hurst504 said:

the shaker I have I got used from a friend and he brought the gray mini shaker from dtfsuperstore when he sold them. 
ok so if i'm understanding correctly. the sheet metal you used, plugging some of the holes at the top of the oven and the take roll guards solved your edge curing issue. because these bulbs should have been longer in my option. 

as far as using the hvac tape on the holes. I think this one might be different with the holes. 2 rows are offest from element 1 and 3, 1 row directly above element 2 and the other 2 rows of holes are in the center of element 1/2 and 2/3

Those holes are fine, they don’t need taped. That looks like the original shaker DTFSS sold, back when they first started. The ones that needed taped were poorly designed. 
 

See, most of these are 30cm shakers sold as 33cm shakers. It’s rare to find an actual 33cm shaker. Especially back then, I guess it was assumed if the film fit it would work. 
 

for this one, I alternated the bulbs being pushed over all to one side. eventually replacing it with 15” bulbs( where the actual cure portion is about 13.5”) to solve the issue with 13” film. Otherwise, you can only print 11.75” or so wide and it cure fine as long as it’s centered properly. 
 

Personally I’d source some 15” 300w bulbs to replace them with, otherwise it will be endless tinkering. 
 

See the coiled wire in the bulb? Measure that from end to end- not the entire bulb just the wire- that’s about the largest cured width you’ll get. 

4 hours ago, afdermon said:

With open dtg v1430 v2 code, dtf production works without any problems.

I would recommend lowering the voltage to slow the motor down. How’s it do on boot up

3 hours ago, Jimmystanley37 said:

i have all the tools, Laser cutter, soldering irons, resin and FDM printers. im very much interested in playing with this concept. If it works out like you think, it would be a game changer on DIY DTF printers. you have started something fantastic. my email is in one of the above messages, and i'd give you credit for the design and idea. i'lll just do the grunt work.

I’m fine with sharing it, I just have to find it. I have tons of files intertwined so the various version- which I wasn’t good at properly naming, haha.

29 minutes ago, Renee said:

So, I tried that now it won't even print the black undercoat. I've flushed and cleaned everything that I could. It's printing the design perfectly just not the white undercoat and now since I changed the RIP configuration no black undercoat either. 

Do you have it set in the RIP to print the white under everything? 

5 hours ago, Solarious said:

Off topic question do you know how to change the car position in atools so that alignment tests actually print on the film?

I keep having issues now that I aligned my car position to CADLinks a center 

I have no idea. I always did everything from the printer menu in that aspect. The only thing I aligned with cadlink was the white/CMYK alignment head pass alignment, the rest I left alone and it worked fine. 

5 hours ago, Renee said:

I am having the same issue. I have the ET-8550 and the configuration I have is the KWCYMW but it is printing black as the background instead of white. It's frustrating!

Swap the ink order in the RIP. I’d think for that printer the original black tank would be white. 

15 hours ago, Solarious said:

Ah I felt the same way when purchasing, there should be easy to configure packages where you can bundle everything together that you need and just pay a single cost for everything with a slight discount for the bundled items. 
 

Very interesting that it took a while for Cadlink to get back to you, I wonder if it’s a matter of where your at and the service team that your dealing with. I reached out and had a response to add my driver to the version I purchased and they resolved it in a day turnaround! 
 

Thank you for your input on this thread because it’s helping me better understand each option for these printers and steps I need to take to operate my printing business with as little of issues as possible!

 

I wonder if there’s a way to program a automation to clear the jobs within the file system of windows, I know I have automated processes previously with other softwares and some cool apps that let you script commands, but that should be a user recommendation to the developers to create a job cache that auto deletes the folder after a certain amount of memory usage. Not a hard thing to implement I believe.

No worries at all. No it was an issue with cadlink, they were in the middle of selling out to another company when I purchased mine. Other issues usually are resolved in 24 hours or less. They always follow up with a phone call to verify all is well No negatives from me though, just what happened. They were super helpful about it. It was just the add-on code for the PMC add-on that took that long for some reason. 

As for the other thing, I'm sure there is something in place and I'm probably doing it wrong or something. I know other users have experienced it as well, figured I'd mention it though. Cadlink will crash and pop up error codes when your drive with cadlink on it fills up. That's when I go and empty them. haha.

2 hours ago, Solarious said:

How do you like I color studio? And do you own CADLink also?

It works alright, I couldn’t get the NIX to recognize with Cadlink but I had the other one laying around and it worked. Cadlink did get back to me after a couple days how to get it going but I just use the nix now to replicate printed colors. 
 

it took Cadlink about 10 days to send me the “upgrade” code to “unlock” those features. It was quite lengthy. 

i have four copies of  Cadlink running in my “ eco system” of machines. I opted for 4 individual copies of the software instead of purchasing additional ports. The price difference between another copy VS another port was very little, plus I have redundancy and the ability to resell individual copies. I setup “ workstations” with each machine so it was the best route for me. 

it’s a good program, I dislike that I have to constantly go in the software folder and manually delete files- which come from the print files you print. If not, after a few days you’ll have 100+GB locking up your pc. Even if you delete the print jobs from within the software. Other than that the software crashes on me randomly, usually once a week and I lose where I am at with my print jobs. i guess normal reboots would prevent this. Not a huge deal but worth mentioning. 
 

other than that it Makes things consistent and easy. Well worth the cost. I just wish they had an “ all in” feature rich version for “ advanced” users that didn’t require multiple “ add on” purchases. 
 

i personally still like and use other RIP software. Acro being my least favorite.  With Chinese machines you have limited options, Cadlink being the best one in my opinion. 
 

i tried to try flexi, but couldn’t get anyone to get back to me. 

8 hours ago, Solarious said:

Hmm I will have to look into the additional add on I thought they were just compatible with certain sensors already but I haven’t gotten my sensor yet so I wouldn’t really know 

It’s a $300 add-on for the DTF Cadlink version to be able to setup your own color profile, among other things plus the cost of the color sensor. 

3 hours ago, Michatroniker said:

Thanks for the fast answer. You are awesome 

Sometimes I leave my print for about 2 days without printing. Maybe its really clogged now...

But my nozzle checks are always clean. Can it still be clogged if my nozzle checks are fine?
 

Do you maybe have a tip how to leave my printer for some days without clogging? 
At the moment, I make a wetcap and shake the tank & dampers every day.

3 hours ago, Michatroniker said:

Thanks for the fast answer. You are awesome 

Sometimes I leave my print for about 2 days without printing. Maybe its really clogged now...

But my nozzle checks are always clean. Can it still be clogged if my nozzle checks are fine?
 

Do you maybe have a tip how to leave my printer for some days without clogging? 
At the moment, I make a wetcap and shake the tank & dampers every day.

You can have ink flow issues with a perfect nozzle check. I wouldn't consider it clogging, I call it " soft clogging".  Ink flow issues can happen for a ton of reasons, the best way to check this is to print a large 6" X 6" or 12" X 12" solid color of each color, CMYK, to see if you have an ink flow problem. If it drops out or shows any irregularities, then there is something up. 

If it checks out, It's likely your resolution in cadlink. Are you using 1440X1440, or something less than that? 1440X720 is like the minimum, which you'll see that ever so slightly in some prints even at that resolution. 

That is about the best you can do to keep it in standby. 

4 hours ago, Solarious said:

CADLink unedited with stock color profile and no choke

cleaner all around with the white overlay and color accuracy, and I still have the option to tune all my color, unlike Maintop where I have to do a lot of calculations to get color somewhat accurate 

Yea, Cadlink is a lot better from how far I went with maintop. Just all around. 

5 hours ago, Solarious said:

If color is your issue and you already own CADLink I would highly recommend getting a color sensor to be able to make icc profiles and color match more accurately

You need the color sensor and the Cadlink add on to make the profile. I use the i color studio and the NIX mini. 

3 hours ago, Michatroniker said:

Hey guys, I'm new in the DTF world and trying to get into 
So I have some issues and hope someone of you maybe can help me out a little 

( Sorry that some picture are so big, I dont know how to make them smaller  )

My Setup: L1800 with CADlink
PET film, paint, powder and ICC profile are from the same manufacture / supplier

 

1. Problem - Unclean Colors

I cant get solid colors... They are always  "unclean" ( I dont know how to describe that )
As you can see in the picture, there are small white/blue/dark lines but not a solid blue 

 

I tried so much but cant get a solid color.
( I tried head cleans, other ICC profiles, pictures with very high resolution, different choke and any other setting in cadlink.. )

Is it normal for DTF or am I doing something wrong here?

 

2. Problem - Powdering after print

After my print is done, I put some powder on it.
But the thing is, my print is getting "dirty" after I put the powder right after..

 

I tried to wait 3-5 minutes before I put the powder on it and it seems to solve the problem. but why dosnt it work right after the print, is that normal?

 

3. Problem - Glossiness

I would like to have my prints matt. I saw a post from @johnson4 about glossy PET films.
( https://www.opendtg.com/topic/2645-is-it-driving-anyone-else-crazy/)
The thing is, after I did my first press - my print is matt
After the second press, its getting glossy.
So I tried to do the second press with silicon paper instead of teflon paper.
As you maybe can see it in the picture, it isnt that glossy anymore (also got a better feel)

 

So I would like to know if somebody knows other good materials to get a matt finish
Or do I just have to change my teflon paper? Are there different types of it? Or is my PET film just one of that glossy types and I need  matt PET film sheets?

 

 

I hope someone of you can help me out a little

Kind regards 

1. Clogging or too low resolution. Even one nozzle can cause this. Poor ink flow can do this. 
 

2. Ink is too wet. When ink is wet, powder goes through the ink to the surface. It needs to gel before powdering, so it sits at the back.

3. Teflon always makes a glossy finish, and you probably have a hot peel or glossy film. Change film, stop using Teflon. 

1 hour ago, Sundripped said:

Hello all,

New to DTF transfers and have been having  a problem with graphics not appearing to have a solid finish, which especially shows up on black. 

I am using an Epson SureColor F2100, Ecofreen d-film-efn-sq-1416 transfer film and ecofreen powder.

All material is pressed at 300 degrees for 10 seconds to straighten it out, transfers are then warmed  for 1-2 minutes under the press, then applied at 300 degrees for 20 seconds, peeled cold and finally pressed another 10 seconds at 300 degrees.

Attempting to change time, pressure and temp hasn’t resulted in any change.

I’ve attached a photo, has anyone encountered anything similar to this and has any suggestions?

 

That is a film problem or a cure problem. If you can see those " dots" on all the colors with a light at an angle, its a cure problem. You will inherently see it the most obvious on black. 

48 minutes ago, Jimmystanley37 said:

Hello, i am very interested in this project. , i would love to help trouble shoot this with you and give my input. i have the resin printers at the house, would just need the STL file for the adapter, and the dampers you suggest. i am noticing way to much wear and tear by using aftermarket sponge carts, and swapping them back and forth with cleaner carts. This looks like it would be a much better solution than the current setup. would you be willing to send the files and tell me what dampers you use? superhipinterestingthings@gmail.com is my email. this project looks very promising.

 

As far as my testing went it would be a fantastic replacement. On top of that I was going to laser cut a specific thickness rubber ( you know that rubber/sponge type material) and replace the " hollow" rubber seal on the printhead that seals these. Those two things being changed, there would be no chance of leaking at all, a white ink circulation system could easily be implemented and the printer could run nonstop. I was going to place a small sponge material in that cavity on the bottom of the damper so the machine would soak it up as normal since it wouldn't need to be removed often, if at all. 

Beyond those things, I was going to use a timer on one of the Waste tank pins on a relay. It would "open" every 15 minutes and close to reset the ink levels, in total about 1 second. Even while printing this wouldn't cause any issues at all, it wouldn't even stop printing.  worry free self resetting ink while printing.

I already had it setup to roll print and tested that for about a half roll/ 3/4 roll of film. So with those things the final outcome:

An actual ink system/damper system in place without the risk of settling, leaking, or any of that crap. 

White ink recirculation

No more mid print stops or worrysome ink resets. 

You could essentially roll print an entire 320 foot roll in about 27 hours of printing on the machine without stopping, other than for head cleans as needed. Personally I would add a fan as a precaution to the mainboard. 

That was where it was going anyway pretty successfully. Then I got busy and had to stop " tinkering" and find something that worked quickly and right away. 

Ever since it hasn't stopped and haven't had a time to revisit.

It could be replicated pretty easily with a caliper and a resin printer. 

7 hours ago, TheBetterTee said:

I’ve also had someone from Cadlink log into my pc and check out some of the settings and according to her everything looked fine. One thing I wasn’t too sure about was which of the 2 drivers should I use the my p800? They have Epson sc-p800 and Epson sc-p800 v2. She couldn’t really tell me which on to use and why.

V2 has a fully adjustable ink order among other small but helpful things.

7 hours ago, TheBetterTee said:

Thanks for the information. I’ll try this and see what happens. It just odd, prior to upgrading to the p800 I was using a l1800 with no issues whatsoever. Quick question, when you say try. Transparency 50-50 what do you mean? Is that an option in the Cadlink settings.

It is an option in Cadlink. 

1 hour ago, carlathebluegeckoprinting. said:

I checked our supplies, and somehow we got the hot peel, not the cold peel film.  Any ideas on that?

And the first set of prints we did at various percents of K, next will be composite black. Since no other color does this, and solid white lays on beautifully, I suspect it has to do with the blacks.

That was mainly my issues with hot peel as well. I assumed it was just me, who knows though. I've been printing for 2 years now so back then I always thought the issue was me, haha.  That and the transfers fall off the film easier than I would like when handling them but again, likely just me. People seem to love hot peel. 

Usually cold peel has more " pretreatment" so it handles more ink, could be the difference. Honestly I'd personally go back to the film I was using if possible and see if the issue persists, if not, I'd stick with that under any circumstance. I know K usually puts down more than any other color else if it's solid " K" and not composite. I don't think I have ever had white cause an issue, other than just overall too much or too little on the varying film types. 

Whenever you do figure it out, I'd love to hear what it was. 

When that happened to me, the " cracks' before running through anything out of the printer looked like "clear jelly" around the cracks. Likely where it tried to " suck up" the carrier and was overwhelmed. Again, just speculation and could entirely be unrelated. Just figured I'd chime in my experiences with that. 

35 minutes ago, carlathebluegeckoprinting. said:

Thank you for your reply.

I am getting all my supplies from All American Print since they supplied our equipment. Inks are STS 1 litre bulk packs.  None are expired.

I get the film from All American, they were out of our regular brand so I upgraded to the Ecofreen.  I am suspecting this might be the issue.

This morning I reduced the white under from 80% to 65% - the crackling remained. But I had my designer check out the file and the black areas are 100% K. I am now running tests with less black to see if that helps.

The slight banding is because we printed on medium quality mode - 720X720 bidirectional for speed. If I go higher quality the banding leaves.

No worries at all.

Makes sense. Have you tried printing a composite black instead of just K? It looks like the grays are doing fine which is usually from a composite.

It sounds like something just isn't working right together. I know when I switch films I have a hell of a time trying to get everything adjusted to " perfection" again. Hot peel is what usually gives me the problems for some reason. I tend to gravitate toward the " hybrid" film that is hot or cold peel to stay close to what my settings are. Otherwise I end up flooding the film and running into various issues. On the flip side, Cold peel requires more ink so I stay away from that as well. 

As for the resolution, makes total sense. I know running dx7 heads I would run into good nozzle checks but poor ink flow in prints, mainly with cyan, sometimes with magenta. Figured I'd mention it. 

Happy printing!

1 hour ago, carlathebluegeckoprinting. said:

I am printing on a Mutoh STS 628D printer. Printed this job last week, and it came out perfect.  This week, the blacks and dark colors are not laying down solid. You can see the cracking appearance before the film goes through the dryer.

The only thing that is different to my recollection is a new roll of film.  Has anyone ever seen this before?

Looks like slight banding in the prints aside from the cracked look, maybe a few clogged cyan nozzles being most prominent in the green. 

I have had this happen before, But it was my ink/film combination. Ever since using DTFSuperstore I haven't had this issue so it's been awhile. Likely overloading the film with ink in those spots. It's also why I buy everything in bulk, so I can get the settings for that " batch" in place and forget about it for awhile. 

Are you using the same film supplier and type as before? 

8 minutes ago, afdermon said:

we are developing a little more, after all the tests are done, I will share the information with everyone

Cool, Thanks. 

Looks like you are using an Adruino to try and control the paper feed so roll printing as well as other features for conversions can be used in " sheet mode"  and other things following that aspect. 

Basically manipulating the machine to be able to roll print, cut, advance, load, so on and so forth even if not natively supported correct?