johnson4

I wasn't suggesting that you are, I was talking about overall. Sorry if somehow that was insinuated. It's a nice process and works well once you learn all the in's and out's for yourself overall, as a whole. It's worth the PITA it can be sometimes is all I'm saying. For sheet curing and powdering, Generally I see people carrying long term success with purchasing something to cure the sheets made for the specific use. I have seen griddles, counter ovens, I mean, tons of things people have tried. None of them yielded consistent good results. Something like this: https://dtfsuperstore.com/collections/printers/products/dtf-sheet-oven And an exhaust fan attached to it is about the only thing I would know. Which I do not know first hand. Sorry, sheet printing isn't my expertise. I've hand made maybe 10, and messed up 9 of them haha.

Good luck with it though, It's a nice process and works well once you learn all the in's and out's for yourself. Happy Printing!

It's not bad, I mostly do other things while they run. After it's all setup, it's pretty much self running.

I roll printed with it for several hours on a bum roll of film with this idea and it worked flawless by the way. Kind of comes with the price tag though unless you spend the time modifying it. If I spend 2 hours working on 2 printers a day, running 8 hours a day I can make $700 a day. that is with 6 hours printing, 2 hours down time. It's worth a few inconveniences for certain, enough of them though and you'll want to fix those inconveniences. Just don't focus on them before they become an issue, or you'll never get to printing. Been there done that.

Yea, I don't take anyone's word for it, without verifying on my end and applying my own ideas first- on anything. Inkchip/chiplesssolutions will tell you the same, that is just how the 15000 works. Roll printing wouldn't be bad, you just need to attach a relay to one pin ( I forget which one It was I found would work) of the waste tank. Attach a basic timer ( $12 on amazon in a acrylic case) and just turn it on when you are printing. Have it reset the inks every half hour or so, by simply opening the circuit for 1 second then closing again for another 30 minutes. It doesn't mess up the prints if it's that quick and it resets the ink levels. There is a nozzle back in the printer that goes into the waste tank, since the waste tank must be present you could drill a hole in the waste tank and have it drain in a hose from the tank, or by pass that and cut the tank in half for the chip, and attach a hose/clamp directly to the waste ink nozzle for one example. Other than that, I never minded. I just emptied it out daily, shouldn't fill up that fast unless something is wrong. For me it was one head clean each cartridge change and it did fine. Each morning i did 2-3 head cleans and was good for the whole day ( plus when I changed the carts). With the CISS, I did a head clean every 2 hours or so. Again, not enough to fill it up for a few days. Simply dump the waste back into an old ink container and done.

I never did, Some users said it worked. I never looked into it. I went the opposite path of fixing the issue rather than doing that. I had set in motion to remove the "rubber" seal and replaced it with a solid sheet, the OEM hollow seal is what causes the issues, making it a solid sheet allows a great seal. I never completed this task either. I measured and lasercut the replacement slightly thicker than OEM so it would be a bit more pressure on the solid sheet creating a good seal. Brianna or veronica might be able to help you more with this printer, My tester is still out in storage because I didn't have time anymore. I do know it's do-able with a bit of ingenuity and could easily work well in a roll printing environment reliably, it's just " fine tuning" and finalizing the adjustments needed to get there from the things I mentioned. I am more focused on the P5000 because it has quite a bit more to offer, I need to secure replacements to my P800 fleet and I need to up my print speed and maintain print quality. So, One way or another I'll make it work just like I did with these. Roll printing in sheet mode works best for me, but I doubt anyone else does that for one example. Helps achieve 12 12"X12" prints an hour CMYK+W from the P800 at 1440X1440 resolution. I am hoping to get 20 12"X12" from the P5000, or 25 10" X 10". Which would directly compete with the chinese printers in speed, and beat them in quality for less than 1/5th the price without having to use cadlink. Bigger fish to fry on my end these days unfortunately.

That is what I was talking about, Those dampers can be purchased for about $5 and attached to a regular CISS for a total cost of about $30. That's what they did. I tested this last year and while it works, it works for the CISS, not the carts leaking and creating a giant leak, which is why I still wouldn't use them. If you do, Just keep an eye on it. Maybe make sure the CISS has a shut off valve for all the ink lines for when you are not using it. The dampers function is to stop the ink pressure from pushing ink IN the printhead from the weight of the ink or to keep it from sucking ink out of the printhead if lower than the head, not the ink leaking from the printhead and sucking more ink out until it has drained the entire CISS destroying the printer and making a giant mess. If you can get a good seal on the aftermarket carts, you should be fine. The number of tests I did back in the day when I originally came up with the idea showing it works great, I still have one in use now. But those carts seal on a standard Epson head, not like the xp15000 head. Some users use the OEM carts to bypass this issue, might look into that. Good luck with it though!

I mentioned it somewhere in a reply to you, I don't recommend it but it will work if you get a good seal on the aftermarket carts. You need to print with it all the time or flush the lines/carts before printing.

1. that'll do it. 2. carts should work perfectly fine when the air vent is open and the fill hole is capped. 3. with good film you can instant peel without the smallest of detail lifting up. If you feel like you have to " pull" the film off the shirt, it's not good film and likely has too much powder on the print as well- from my experience. 4. Everything out there is pretty much out of production. The p400 is a great printer for an upgrade over the 15000, 17ML carts, ink never needs reset. I got about 35 single color prints per refill, or 15 12X12's before refilling- I just kept pre-filled carts in a caddy I 3D printed. It makes for easy swapping in cleaner and letting it sit for however long. The P600 is the worst because of the stock ink system. The P800 works great and is a reliable machine- given you don't have a head strike. 80ML carts, prints fast and clear. Other than that there isn't an in-production printer I can recommend. I am testing the P5000 which is promising, but I don't know yet so I can't say anything about it until I complete my assessment. I feel this printer is about to be discontinued by Epson soon anyway. so all that is left is Chinese printers or finding old outdated models used. Some people use the 6 color ecotanks- I won't recommend wasting your money on that if you intend on getting good results for any extended period of time.

I am sure it would, but it seems like alot more time than clicking the waste tank in and out. That takes about 2 seconds if it still works. You don't actually have to take it out, just pull it out half a inch and push it back in- resets the ink levels.

No, just take out and put in the waste tank. It resets the ink without an issue, or it did for me.

The reason I wanted to do the damper adapter was to prevent the ink leaking. The OEM cart's and fititngs sucks. But you can use in-line dampers on the unit and it work jsut the same with the exception of the poor fitting OEM carts. They are about .20 cents. the carts are about $5 a set, and the damper assy ( hose and tank) are about $18 delivered. Mix that with manually pulling out and replacing the maintenance tank and you should be good. Just be sure to make sure your carts are sealed well, or they will leak and destroy the printer. Using a timer and a relay you could easily intercept the one wire on the waste tank and have it "NC" and simply open/close every X amount of time that you set. Simply turn it off when not needed. Otherwise, refilling and manual resets every couple prints is not ideal, but doable.

Not on the XP-15000. You need to reset the ink every time it runs low. If it runs out while printing, it spits out the film. This sucks for tiny 7ML cartridges. With the chipless firmware I was hoping they would fix this, but it sounds like they haven't. A little trick I found last year when I was testing this printer, just pull out the maintenance tank and put it back in real quick, it will reset the ink levels too. I don't remember if I did this while printing, but I would just pause my windows " queue" and do it when the print finished, then pull out replace then unpause. this allows it to continue printing worked like a charm. That is if you have a CISS or something. If not, Then you'll need to refill the cartridges too every reset or every other reset. That's why I was working on a damper adapter for this printer, I made it, fitted it, tested it, but never printed the final revisions and used it, I got busy with other projects. This in itself would allow the printer to run on a CISS without those cartridges, with actual dampers with filters in them. That and a timed relay setup which cost about $20 to make to automatically reset the ink levels Via disconnecting and reconnecting the waste tank while printing. This would allow you to roll print on the 15000 and never run out of ink, or worry about the resetting of the inks. That was my goal and was tested independently. IT was my " go to" budget DTF printer. Then I got a million orders and had to find something else that worked with less effort. This solved the problems with it though. While It was tested and worked, I never finalized and built an actual "setup" of this. with every component in place at the same time, just individually.

Not on the XP-15000. You need to reset the ink every time it runs low. If it runs out while printing, it spits out the film. This sucks for tiny 7ML cartridges. With the chipless firmware I was hoping they would fix this, but it sounds like they haven't. A little trick I found last year when I was testing this printer, just pull out the maintenance tank and put it back in real quick, it will reset the ink levels too. I don't remember if I did this while printing, but I would just pause my windows " queue" and do it when the print finished, then pull out replace then unpause. this allows it to continue printing worked like a charm. That is if you have a CISS or something. If not, Then you'll need to refill the cartridges too every reset or every other reset. That's why I was working on a damper adapter for this printer, I made it, fitted it, tested it, but never printed the final revisions and used it, I got busy with other projects. This in itself would allow the printer to run on a CISS without those cartridges, with actual dampers with filters in them. That and a timed relay setup which cost about $20 to make to automatically reset the ink levels Via disconnecting and reconnecting the waste tank while printing. This solved the problems, but is a bit complex. While It was tested and worked, I never finalized and built an actual "setup" of this.

If you design your artwork as a vector and make all the colors solid cmyk colors, as test printed from Cadlink, they come out good. the examples you see from most people are their “ best” and usually spend more time than would normally be spent to achieve those colors. me personally, I loaded an ICC profile into EKprint and acro. Doing this will make them also have a grainy look because it’s trying to make a perfect color, mixed with how the ICC is told to do that. when trying to get perfect colors it basically works like this: CMYK. That’s it. Everything else is a mix of them, plus white. The grain is the white showing through trying to trick your eyes into seeing that color. When lighter colors at the edge of the spectrum are used it looks grainy because the brightness comes from the white ink and nothing else. That’s why RGB has such a broad spectrum with an artificial light. well, the ICC profile also tells the RIP how to handle the halftone/dithering/ overall dot placement. So when you see “grain” you are just seeing too large a gap between the color dots. this is changeable but very deep into it. You can do this within Cadlink when you make your own ICC with the add-on module. So technically these things can be fixed, or made much better- at another cost. for acro and ek, it’s based on how the ICC tells it to do it. For me, I can get the same colors from all 3 ( accurately) from all three programs using the same ICC and ink settings. Ek and acro just aren’t as grainy because this dot placement is much better handled. This can be handled much better in Cadlink, but it hasn’t been from my experience. If you can buy the add-on and do your own ICC and spend the time on it, you can make it print fantastic ( baffling) good results by adjusting this in far more detail than any other rip. But that’s an add on that costs more than the RIP, plus the high end tool for this ( like $3,000). That and you’ll have to get past cadlinks rude customer service and deal with the customer put downs in an attempt to buy this add on- at current anyway. Personally if someone wants to insult my intelligence and take my money, it’s only going to be my wife. Haha. seriously though, don’t follow the crowd, don’t listen to people who spend more time editing videos than running these machines. It’ll pay off in the end if you try hard enough on your own. I have continually done things the “ mass” mock me about. I do things that are “ impossible” because they failed at it or are in disbelief. I do it all the time, I have found things I haven’t shared with a soul, even 8 months ago and people still are not doing it yet. actually, if I didn’t do this, I wouldn’t have a business anymore. keep us updated, even if I am the only one that responds a lot of people will end up looking at this over time.

Yea, all changes made to the queue should be made without images loaded into it, those aren’t adjusted. the grainy colors are just how it works, you’ll need to find color boost, or use colors in your graphics that are solid. If not, you’ll end up over-saturating your lighter colors trying to fix that. i received acro 10.5. it processed the image and sent to the printer in 10 seconds. Acro 9 took over 2 minutes for the same image/size. so the beta testers I asked a few months back said “ kinda faster” and that was after prying for info for a few days. It’s actually usable in a workflow now and that is one speed example. I shouldn’t have had to buy it to find that out- but I will be detailed with my review of it. once you use and compare the 3 rips, I think you’ll find print speed and print quality is more important than a pretty user interface and “ exact” colors that end up more grainy than they should be isn’t actually as important as having vivid, bright, solid colors and increasing your workflow by 35-50 percent at that.

yea the place you put the ink in. If that is empty then there wouldn't be anything to leak except what is suspended by the sponge meaning no pressure to cause a leak. I've never done this, just an idea that might help. The capping station sponge, if you wet cap it will mix the liquids in the carts and potentially wick back up the side of the printhead and damaged the head on this printer. I've done it.

Cleaning carts do leak, So I would agree, avoid letting it sit with them in. If you did a cleaning with the cleaning carts ( I would) You could then suck all the liquid out of the reservoir side so there is nothing to leak- just the damp sponge. Should work.

Be careful leaving it clogged and sitting- if you can help it. Glad it's working out though!

Nice, Hopefully you get it working well for you. I went down that rabbit hole and I never want to go back, haha.

By all means I am not a "pro" with cadlink so if someone wants to correct me, maybe you'll get an answer. I have a love hate relationship with it, if you haven't noticed.

The ink density is setup when the person made the driver for CADlink. Max ink from my understanding is the limit to prevent flooding. Basically what is the most ink it can put down, no matter what is requested. Anything at or above that number is considered max. This is not where you adjust ink density. That's the thing with cadlink, what you are looking for to adjust doesn't exist. It's made during the driver creation. You can adjust the " saturation" or " brightness" of each color to remove ink. You can also adjust the color adjustments, however this is what the ICC profile used for it is going to be based on. Basically linearized. Acro you can just click X percentage for each color, cadlink is not this way- that's the part that makes it " easy". All you can change is the white ink under base, to a certain degree. Out of the box it should be printing without flooding. I would check other issues. You do need a rather large ink deposit, from the photo's above I do not see too much ink going down. If not, Reach out to cadlink. I am in no degree a "master" of cadlink. I have used tested and messed with every available function without buying "add-on" modules. What you are looking for is exactly what I wanted as well. I was asked to pay for an add-on to create my own print driver/ICC for this. When you create an ICC in cadlink it also sets up the ink limit from what I understand which is why you can't change it other than the up to 7 on the slider scale. Like I said, Sounds like you might be looking for Acro or EKprint.

When you start printing and get to printing 10-20-30 prints a day, you'll know what I mean.

For print quality, cadlink gives me the worst, however it is pretty accurate on the colors. BUT, With Acro, or other rips you can profile your own printer and load the profile into the RIP and achieve the same results. It's what the backend does with cadlink, the part you don't see. You can change these things on cadlink as well, but like I said, I personally don't feel like it's worth it. Not knocking them, but just because everyone uses them doesn't mean it's great. It means it's easy. Try AcroRip ( sorry 9 doesn't work on the 15000) or reach out to people who have. Try the EKprint demo, it's free. works with it well- actually the first one to work with it well. Overall, For Epson conversions you are in for quite a bit of learning. Might as well do it with a good RIP. For these high end machines, Cadlink works pretty well with them. The people selling the machines drop cash for support and fine tuning things and can have issues fixed with a flick of a finger. Afterall, They are after the best and quickest way to keep their customers happy after dropping wads of cash on a printer. So reaching out to the printer seller at this point is really easy and works well. Since you are using a conversion though, it's not going to be nearly the same. You'll be alone with the help of some other users, who are likely inexperienced themselves. This causes problems because what some people swear by, will soon enough be a learning experience that changes their mind. So I recommend bypassing that- and manage your own losses and experiences. It'll take time and money, but once you come out the other side it's easy.

If you do all of your design work outside of cadlink, then it doesn't bring much to the table. Any changes you do make within the program to images can't be saved, so if you need repeatable results doing outside of the program is best anyway. Cadlink is reliable and always gets updates. It is supported in a way that will keep it up to date, they support alot of printers, functions, and print methods. They sell add-ons for multiple things, including making your own profiles. However, When I asked to purchase this I was faced with a rude comment as-if I am incapable of comprehending the complexity of such things and they do not have the time to hold my hand ( literally this was said). Ironically, their " self help" system built in happens to have instructions for this. I've tried multiple times but these are generally the responses I get. So I only use CADlink if it is required by the printer, in which case I would reach out to the seller of the printer for help, not cadlink. When my license quit working ( twice now) from the Dongle, It took a few days but we got it situated. I was careful to step around what I was saying though, they insinuated this would cost money. They only offer support for like 90 days ( Something short) unless you purchase yearly support subscriptions. Overall, I feel cadlink was a quick money grab from the beginning. It's easy for new users and makes things just work relatively easy. Making things " the best" however it just doesn't work well. Most people I have worked with side to side over the last year and a half have all strayed away from cadlink to Acro, Dev Studio or some other Rip I don't remember. The key functions this software lacks are the key functions I look for. However, these key functions also make it hard for users to get printing without tons of waste, frustration, and overall customer support. So- Cut to- Do you want to call a Prius a sports car because it gets you from Point A to point B because it's easy, or are you looking for actual results that will be beneficial to your business while others are stuck sending out low quality prints? If so, I'd go with another RIP. In the end, Cadlink dumbed down their own software to get it to a lower price point for new basic users can get up and running quickly. The software was normally over $1,000 until DTF came out. It's quick and easy, but It is far from the best print speeds and print quality. I am sure it is capable of this- but without dealing with underhanded comments, dropping cash for add-ons and spending alot of time on it overall. It's just going to be for the most entry level users to feel like they are printing great transfers with the push of a button. Me personally, I don't recommend anything other than you testing all your options, spending at least a few days with each until you understand and get a feel for them, you'll quickly pick a favorite. It likely won't be cadlink. As far as I know, all licenses are sold as-is non-returnable or refundable. Might as well keep it and try, Don't be discouraged based on my comments. I'm just saying don't limit yourself, Acro 9 is a great way to test Acro, If it works well for you, then know the newer versions are better. Try Ekprint, Dev Studio, WhiteRip, I mean all you can find. Do it before you get busy, before you start selling or doing anything that will prohibit these changes in the future. Otherwise, you'll run into these problems mid-production and find yourself in a pickle. I've watched several businesses fail over this. Good luck!