johnson4

So I have 4 good heat presses but over the years it has started to be a pain… literally. Pricing out air/pneumatic heat presses, the price isn’t terrible but when you have four heat presses already, it makes it much worse of a price. I have meant to do it for awhile and when I looked I couldn’t find anything on the subject. in my example my heat press is a magnetic auto-open press. The same could be done/added to a standard press without these features with minimal changes. Adding this has essentially bypassed the magnetic portion anyway. it’s not pretty but it works, maybe it’ll help give you an idea on how to proceed in your situation if you are in the same position. it was about $100 per heat press to add these, including the custom laser cut metal brackets. i don’t remember exactly off hand, I think the 16”x20” presses themselves were $700 delivered. i can post specifics or a part breakdown if anyone is interested.

Haha, honestly I probably could have been more helpful most of the time. Thanks for the compliment though. Through so many experiences and seeing people come and go and how they went- it’s hard to keep recommending things when the basics are ignored and ultimately results in some form of failure. that and I’m just some random dude who is going to be wrong at times too, mixed with bad and good days. I wouldn’t consider my answers or advice anywhere near the level of what the forum used to offer, but I try.

What’s this for?

Could always remove the Chipless firmware with an update and see if it still does it as well.

Are you using regular paper or film? If you are using film, some film isn’t recognized by the sensor on the printhead. Double sided film would fix that issue, if it’s paper, then obviously not the issue. I’ve also had this a symptom of the Chipless firmware as well. I had to power on the printer and then unplug it ( not power it off properly) then press and hold the power button 5-10 seconds. I did this several times and it would work eventually. it’s a PITA sometimes but once you get it going it fine. it could also just be a defective printer.

You have to do that daily, even if you don’t use the machine. Sometimes it takes several ink charges. That’s the reason for the white ink mixing tanks and circulation on purpose built machines. for example, the R3000/P600 required 3 ink charges every time I used it, ( everyday) to keep the white ink from doing this after the printer was a couple months old for me. So every month or so I started manually flushing the ink system and the problem went away. It took over 2 hours to do and over a liter of water but that’s what I had to do to be able to avoid this issue on that specific printer. if it’s a stock manifold, or a built in CISS those cause the worst issues. DTF superstore white ink gives me 24 hours+ before it starts to do that. So I can shake,mix, use and be fine all day. You may have bad ink, but it’s unlikely to settle that fast unless it has been neglected. What printer do you have?

The 15000 license is a little bit of a pain sometimes, but it's not the biggest issue. The biggest issue is the cartridges leaking and the printer coming back with a malfunctioning printhead and being able to properly circulate/maintain the ink with such small cartridges or a DIY CISS. Almost always this printer dies within a month or two from a 31006 error, which is usually related to liquid on the printhead cables or shorting out somewhere. The ink cartridges for the printer are not really ideal. It's why the XP600 printheads are converted over to use actual dampers with adapters for the chinese printers, since they are similar in design as the 15000. The 8550 has similar characteristics, except with a built in ciss that cannot be properly maintained. You would need to manually flush the lines daily and shake the whole printed to agitate the white ink to keep the white ink from separating. Beyond that it doesn't have the issue with chip less or leaking dampers. I personally haven't seen anyone successful with it for any long term usage. For something long term you would want a higher end printhead and printer build, for low volume or short term usage one of the above would work with random pains. For low volume long term usage you would want a printer capable of that such as the P400/P800. The p400 can be flushed in-between uses really easily so you don't risk clogging or settling of the ink, while the P800 would need used more often, it can easily be ready to roll with a couple head cleans with the white ink. Other variations like the P600, R2000, R1900, R3000 all have their own pains and do not work as well because of their associated downfalls. If it were me I would go with the 15000 if my budged were $600 or less, opt for a few sets of cartridge's and swap them out as they become empty. When done for the day make sure you put both caps on the cartridges and you'll have to replace your white cartridges regularly do to the ink pigment settling in the sponges. If you can find a P400 or P800, Those two are the most ideal DIY conversion printers. After that, a cheap Chinese printer running the xp600 printhead would be my next go-to. unlike sublimation it requires daily maintenance and tons of learning curve. Sublimation is essentially OEM usage from an inkjet printer with dye based ink that pose very little issue to clogging and no issues with settling. Usually for small usage it's cheaper to just order your transfers from someone. Yea, It's $1-$2 more per print, but overall if you are not dedicating yourself to the machine and learning it and can afford the learning curve mixed with low volume requirements, It would be what I would suggest. If you invest $2000 you would need to make over 1,500-2,000 transfers before you break even just simply ordering the transfers for example. That's quite a bit to get from one of those printers before it experiences some form of catastrophic failure.

Not sound advice, I know. But that is the extent of what I know with the rollers, I just tear them out haha.

I have had several things fail to cause this on multiple shakers. 1. The relay has failed. 2. the motor has failed 3. the sensor is failing to trigger the relay 4. bad wiring. some run on an AC motor, some use DC. Likely your machine uses AC. I have had 2 of those fail, when they do it's almost immediately. Sometimes you can replace the start capacitor and it's fine, sometimes it's the windings. I throw them in the trash and convert them to DC since they are over $100 just for the motor, while a DC counterpart is like $15 and haven't had one fail without extensive use. Not to mention DC is safer if the wires to it are dangling. A simpler more common issue is there is a forward/reverse switch on the front/side of the roller unit, there is also an " off" position on the switch. Make sure it's not in the off position. Also, The sensor in the bottom of the "duster bay" must be triggered to make it work.

I'm not familiar with that machine, sorry. Usually it's clipped in or a couple screws. I usually just rip them out since the machine will be dead in a year or so anyway.

in general the rollers are removed from DTF printers. You then need an output tray to hold the film in place so it doesn't have a head strike. If you don't remove the rollers it will smear the prints, If you do and you don't make an output tray you will have a head strike basically. On epson conversions you need to see what is holding it in, screws or clips, and undo those. They should come out easily.

Did you check the head alignments and make sure your encoder scales are clean?

No problem, if the cleaner got down on the head cable then it’s likely both.

Could be both. When the printhead shorts out so could the mainboard. Any spills or anything like that in the head cable? I got the hot head cable often on a p600, I had to reseat the head cable on it to fix it. The “ smelling something burning” is the part that gets me. I’d worry damaging a new component and replace both.

You need to set it to print 1 pass in the white ink settings page.

Use wic reset to see what the code is

Yep. I mean some rips can print up to a level of transparency and fade the under base, but again requires much more effort and testing for each image to get it right. i just outright don’t do it.

Halftone dots or some other design effect. You can’t get a transparency edge effect from a solid ink reliably that I am aware of. That or some other design element that transitions the white to a black edge for a black shirt.

No worries, they work good but clog super easy.

People do that yes, I haven’t. I did find the aftermarket’s for this printer are poor fitting as well.

Did you do 2-3 head cleans after the carts were soaked? That is correct on the arrow. Use a syringe and put the orange cap on the ink cartridge bottom, and suck “ air” from the yellow cartridge fill port to see if ink easily flows in. If not, there’s a problem. If it requires heavy suction, there’s a problem. The ciss should be several inches higher than the printhead at the Ink level, not just the ciss. If you have dampers it’s pretty much a must. I run mine about 5-6 inches higher than the printhead with the in-line dampers, but that’s me and my setup, your results may vary so be sure to test. just a warning- if you can only use this printer on the weekends you likely shouldn’t use a CISS with it, especially that printer. i didn’t block anyone, I’m actually not sure if I know how to do that. My inbox is probably full.

It works great with two white ink channels, just needs more frequent white ink refills. some programs require the use of four. i use cleaner in the empty channels. im sure you could use LC and LM if/when the RIPS support them on the printer. You’ll notice most of it is RIP limitations.

were the other prints white only? Theres another guy on here who uses Acro often so he'll likely get you an answer at some point if thats not it.

If I remember correctly you need to disable one "copy", Maybe disable print color layer first, disable white+color and remove white+color my making it 0 copies. Sorry It's been awhile since I used Acro.

I think it's going to vary from person to person. I would just recommend buying a purpose built setup from someone with support in your country and a history of good business practices. Epson conversions will always be disposable and have some flaw in the grand scheme of things. For an actual business that wants to actually make real profit- I would personally avoid Epson conversions for DTF specifically. They are great to learn on and grow from, but know your efforts and costs will ultimately result in throwing it in the trash eventually. Even over super tiny miniscule mistakes. Going the DIY route has cost more money than I like to admit, It's just like any other manufacturing business.