johnson4

As for being used, no it doesn’t matter you can flush the ink. It doesn’t matter with sublimation either. I’ve seen people routinely use the p400 for oem ink, switch it to sublimation ink, and even switch it DTF inks, back and forth in a whim, just run cleaning carts before swapping. the downside to used, it’s service life will be shorter, since it’s used. If it has 100 prints or 10,000, the printheads and capping station assemblies are only good for so long/ so much. But if it’s priced right, I’d go for it.

As for the printer you want, the P400 is the new R2000, which has also been discontinued, but recently. You can generally find the heads for the p400 for $600 or so. Epson will sell you one new head per printer serial number. I think it depends on your printing needs. The p400/R2000 are good for print and sit situations. Cartridges in the head so no ink lines to worry about. You can swap in cleaning carts and 2 head cleans later, a clean wiper and cap top- it can sit for quite awhile and be just fine. Like months. the downside, you’ll need multiple sets of carts because they’ll run out every 25-30 prints. I just had several sets in rotation and refilled them all at once. as for the p600, I think it’s the worst one. It’s a great printer, but the ink manifold is garbage on it. Once it’s loaded with ink, you have to print daily or almost daily unless you want to waste ALOT of ink and time. the reason the p600 is Iike this, it’s ink manifold holds ALOT of ink. Epsons version of “pressurized” ink system for this printer sucks for aftermarket inks. It has tiny holes and rubber valves in the manifold that get white ink settlement built up and quits working right. So, basically if you let the ink separate inside the printer, which only takes 24-48 hours, you’ll be doing head clean after head clean to get rid of that watery white ink. After awhile, this cost adds up, and so does the white ink “sludge” left behind. Once it builds up enough it just stops working efficiently and you’ll start getting clogs and watery prints more Often. That manifold isn’t easy to change and is $200+. $275 from Epson directly. basically, the p600 should be run nearly every day once ink is loaded, unlike the p400. the p800 in the other hand, actually utilizes a pressurized cartridge system and the ink manifold is a straight path. So the p800 can sit for days, and never suffer from the ink settling issue. Worst case scenario, you do 1-2 cleans and it’s good to go- as long as you kept up with keeping the wiper and cap top clean. to give you an example, I’ve went through about 10 p600’s over the years. All suffered when sitting even overnight at times because of the manifold. The p800, 45 days unused with White ink, as long as the wiper/cap is clean and well maintained, 1-2 cleans and it is good to go with no ill effects. so, in reality it depends on what you are going to do. If you print more than 20-25 daily, I’d go with the p600. If you print less than 25 every other day, I’d go with the p400. if you want the best of both worlds, get a p800, in my opinion.

Yes it does. The heads are very expensive though. I would consider it disposable.

There isn’t really any “name brand” anymore. I just buy 4-5 brands on Amazon and return the ones that suck. I just do a head clean and keep up on maintenance, I don’t have an issue with clogging. If you “manually” have to do it, it’s likely toast.

If you don’t have good nozzle checks that can be part if not all of the issue. As for the film randomly spitting out, are you using WiFi or usb? I print a lot, so WiFi, even with a gaming router just wasn’t enough to prevent this from happening. After awhile the WiFi module overheats. as for the USB, I’ve had this only happen when the usb cable was too long, or crap quality. so 1. Stop using wifi 2. use a usb connection and make sure it’s 15 ft or less with a good quality cable. I don’t know about your prints, but mine are around 60-100mb per print. It’s a desktop printer printing around 35-40 those an hour, for me at least. That’s 3-4GB of data through a cheap desktop WiFi module. Any hiccup in the connection, if even for a split second will spit the film out. same with USB. A good quality cable, with quality end connections. I went through 4 brands before I found one that was of quality and worked well. One little nudge and the pc end would disconnect, or, low quality wiring/shielding would cause print errors after 10-15 prints- if that. This isn’t limited to the p800, the same cables did the same on my p400.

I don’t know personally I would reach out to acro, they need to support their customers. Ever since 10.1 and the addition of the 15000, people have had nothing but random issues with it. Ekprint has worked well with the 15000 and is what I use, mainly for roll Printing. Even 10.3 gave people quite a bit of issue with it, I’m not sure about 10.5. I doubt many people, If any, will be able to help here. good luck.

Make an output tray. Remember, head strikes can kill a printhead pretty quickly.

Try a different film. Thin films don’t work well in any converted printers.

On the P600, you remove the damper assy. It'll leak out, so move the carriage all the way to the left with the printhead in it. Get a bowl or something to catch the ink. Loosen the screws holding the hose to the damper ASSY. It WILL LEAK/DRIP for a moment. Paper towels are your friend. Once that stops, Use a syringe and hose to fit on the nipple at the ink bay. Flush each line. It took me 100ML per CMYK and 400 ML per white. I just used water after the first few times because that's alot. Once all the ink was flushed, I would then flush the water out with cleaner. Reassemble, and do 1-2 ink charges 10-15 minutes apart. Sometimes I'd do another 1-2 regular head cleans. That's it. actually Flushes the lines without pushing that crap through the dampers or head. Using carts only, it's nearly impossible to clean the lines entirely. I would expect a capping station replacement in the near future when you are done if you actually just use the carts only. Thats alot of stress all at once. Using a syringe, alternating the pressure will cause more deposits to be picked up. You'll see what I'm talking about if you do it. Once its clear coming out, press hard/soft a few times over and over and you'll see streams of white pick up and come out. Then I just let it sit or load my inks like normal. If you let it sit, make sure you use something designed for that, or with VG in it so it doesn't evaporate and keeps it all lubed up. That's what I came up with and have done anyway. It works well for me. good luck!

Nozzle checks? Maybe missing cyan.

When I say sq ft an hour, That means for a 12x12 print. I know the film is 13" but I leave .5 inches on both sides. Times aren't exact, but generally what I get. Most of my designs are smaller, so I generally get more prints per hour. Rip software has a HUGE affect on your print speeds. Acro and cadlink took over 8 minutes a sq ft on the p800. Cadlink on 1440x1440 took 16 minutes, which is nuts and the slowest of the three. Cadlink was much faster on my P400 setup, so who knows, just my experience. Ekprint gets the job done in around 3 minutes for CMYKW prints but doesn't have " perfect" built in color management. Pick your poison on the RIP programs basically.

I get 20 sq ft an hour out of it with CMYK+W and 40 sq ft an hour out of it just black or white. I have two setups side by side so I can do 40/80 sq ft an hour as needed with the mini shakers. Not bad for a total investment roughly $2,000. I already had the RIP software, heat presses, all that crap. One of the mini shakers needs work, I just haven't had the time to do it yet. I bought it discounted " as-is". It does work, Just not to my " expectations" yet. both shakers have extensive " add ons" or " modifications" though. But It's nice to just let it do it's thing for 2-3 hours at a time before refilling the powder. The P400/600/xp15000 will yield about the same. 17-18 sq ft an hour cmykw and 35ish Black or white. The 1430/l1800 ( any of the low end 90 nozzles per channel X 6 channel models) will cut that in half easily, or roughly 5-8 sq ft an hour cmykw and 10-15 black or white. Good luck!

Another one of the "high tier" brands in my opinion. Do you have the auto open feature? it's a nice add-on.

That's crazy. From what I understood only a couple places made these, the rest were just resellers. It seems like every shipment of them has some drastic change, lol. It makes sense though, slits wouldn't clog nearly as easy as circles. I recommend a timer if you can't get it to put out the right amount of powder without the motor stopping, clogging, too much too little etc. the timer was the last change that made all those problems go away.

Did you install the inks in the right order and did you do the required nozzle checks to verify each color is printing correctly, as well as no clogged nozzles? Nozzle check is ground zero for identifying issues.

I used the P600 for about 5 years for DTG purposes. I ran 4 of them most of that time. The problems I encountered are with the ink manifold. It's absolutely crap for white ink. Springs, microscopic holes, rubber valves, all kinds of crap. The reason, They call the p600 " pressurized" ink system. When in reality its not, it's rather like a diaphragm. It gets gunked up with white ink in as little as 24 hours of sitting. White ink settles- period. If you have normal paths for the ink, this hardly matters unless it's severe which takes months/years of use. they use Ti02 for the white pigment, which is heavier than the carrier. As time passes, small amounts of this Ti02 will slowly drop due to gravity out of the suspension. The longer it sits, the more it does it. It coagulates. Lighter ink will flow around it, kind of like cholesterol in the human body. Eventually, a "chunk" can break off and hit the dampers or head. If you know anything about engines, imagine a Weedeater Carb, or 2 cycle engine carburetor. Even those old briggs push mowers. They use diaphragm pumps to feed the carb instead of a bowl ( needle/float). Thicker fluids, smaller holes, always gunking up- always finding them on the side of the road when a $2 part will fix it. Now on to the p600. The manifold doesn't function well with this thicker ink, then add the ink settling. I would print 20-40 shirts a day per printer, every single day. just sitting for 24 hours would require me at least an hour a day to get my inks good again. I found out, If I flush the manifold and ink lines at least once every 3 months, this didn't happen. Basically, It worked fine if you manually flushed it every 2-3 months. If you didn't, You had one hell of a time keeping it going without wasting a ton of ink- let alone the " soft clogs" caused by this phenomenon requiring a head clean every 5-8 prints. The p800 I used right beside these ( it was a harder conversion for DTG and I did it all myself, unlike the kits for the p600's) didn't experience this- ever. It could sit for 2 days and print fine. It could sit for 6 months. As long as I shook the carts and did a heavy ink charge to get the separated ink out of the lines ( which is simple and literally requires one heavy cleaning). Still working. It's been over a year and the p800 has been rather dormant with white ink installed, the same white ink the P600's failed to work with after sitting for 2 days, except the p800 has gone over 30 days without a single print- works perfect. Actually, as we speak, I have a P800 that has been sitting unattended for 4 weeks with DTF inks in it, without a single issue. The reason- the thing doesn't have a crappy manifold. It literally has a "straight path" ink system and is actually pressurized at the cartridges, instead of within the manifold. If you take both manifolds apart ( one p600, one p800) you will understand. If you take one each apart after letting them sit for 2-3 days with white ink in them, you'll understand more. So If the P700 is anything like the P600, No thanks. The p800's have just worked- Not one single failure- letting them sit for months unused- expecting it to never work- without an issue. I actually had about 8 new P800's here when DTF took off, because I was getting rid of my P600's and changing them to p800's. Fortunately for me, I never did. I sold 7 of them and hanging on to the others until I find a trustworthy buyer, because they just work. One p800 I'm using now, Not one single issue. At all. It's roll printed thousands of 12x12 prints, not a single part changed without a single issue. The main reason I want a P900- I'm bored with how well the P800 works. I want something I can show others how it works, as well as secure newer technology. One day the P800 will die. Sometimes I want a challenge and like to switch things up. I know this sounds stupid, but I love working on things- so in essence we run a business just so I CAN work on printers. Lol.

If you look here, You'll see CMYK inks for wide format printers. https://dtfsuperstore.com/collections/ink/products/wide-format-dtf-inks-900ml

Wide format = 24"+ printers. They take cheaper Epson heads, like the I3200 and 4720. These use the Wide format inks, which aren't in that bundle. For the 15000, Yes that bundle will work from DTFsuperstore.

I’ve had what seems like 100 different presses. im going to be honest, low and mid tier models will not come Close to high tier presses like stahl, hottronix, etc. the $200-$300 range ones, and I had about 10 of these- work decent enough, but usually have fatal flaws and all needed tinkered with within 6 months of normal/heavy use. All were replaced within the year due to severe platen warpage, or some kind of structural damage from heavy use. Even the $300-$400 auto open presses. the middle ground is in the $500-$800 range like from heatpressnation. They will exclude most functional issues. Wiring, warpage, all that crap is good. Structurally they are good as well, but designed cheaper. I have 4, with over 25,000 presses on them. I had to lock tight everything because all the nuts and bolts kept coming loose. After that, been perfect. I use the auto open feature. now, high tier $1000+ Heat presses are built extensively well and built to last. I see them 15 years old working like day one without any issue. To be honest, 90 percent of it you’ll say “ why the hell is this so thick and built like a tank. Is that really necessary”. so for the best “value” get a name brand press. for the best starter press, the mid tier, you’ll get a few years at least. low tier works good for 6-12 months usually. Build quality varies so some less, some much more. it’s an awesome intro if your on a budget and want to see where your business takes you, it’s a good option. But if you are certain you are going in strong, I’d go with a mid tier. If you have the money, and have established some need for it, high tier for sure.

Those are live 220V when the switch is on.

That’s completely different. One machine I have runs the LY2 (12V coil) for the take up roller and the heating elements. The take up roller relay failed and was grounding to the frame on mine. The heating elements suffered due to carbon build up and poor performance until I changed that one. the other one has two Solid state relays instead of the ly2. The one I have has 220V like this:

Both, and Chinese import places are worse than is based. DTFsuperstore is what I use, compared to importing unless in bulk, it’s much cheaper without the risk and if you have a problem it’s easily remedied, or else risk losing the entire transaction amount and receive nothing in return from China.

If it's literally an AC contactor, that's crazy. I'd question if it was capable of handling that type of continuous cycling. So far I've seen now: LY2 Relays Solid State Relays AC contactor The crazy thing to me, this new SHAKER uses 220V for the takeup motor. Crazy stupid for the little/no protection it has. It's like a cheap screw on plug that has MALE prongs that are LIVE. At least the first one had this as a standard 12V DC plug running 12V.

The same relay is also used in HVAC instances, Is it a knock off saying something like LY2? there isn't anything wrong with this relay, as long as you pick up a genuine OMRON one. I tried like 8 different places including ebay and amazon. Even if the photos were right, they still came as knock offs. Places like mouser.com had the legit ones. A few different models will work, one difference for example is a little LED light that says when its activated, that doesn't matter. But yea, These same relays are used in MANY instances, Ever since I've replaced my clones that came with the machine, these new ones show no signs of wear or issues in the 5,000+ transfers I've made since putting them in. The first set of clones failed already by now. Yea, They all seem to be different. If only one company gave a shit to make a huge legit profit and made a unit that just worked and kept that the same. The 1st one I purchased was the first one sold from DTFsuperstore. It has been an awesome machine, given a couple tiny flaws, mainly with the knock off relays it came with. It has been an absolute beast at knocking out prints paired with a P800. I've just been turning it on and printing 1/2 a roll a day now for at least 3+ months without a single issue with it. Likely longer or just stupid things I tinker with. The changes I made, I just stand here doing other things while it prints- every few hours I recycle the powder. Thats it. It's actually pretty boring so I'll tinker with this 2nd shaker sometimes, which is overall in my opinion a crap build. They don't even use bung holes for the bolts. The 2nd one is held together with sheet metal screws. The 2nd one- I don't regret the purchase, But I did underestimate the poor quality ALL around so it's more than a " quick project". I have it heating perfect now, so curing is working well. Takeup roller guide added, so thats fine. Powder timer was added so thats fine, The issue i'm facing now is one half of my machine is 1/2 longer than the other, So EVERYTHING is crooked, including the slapper and the plate where the film goes so it's constantly running/slapping crooked. Didn't expect that. lol. Good Luck with your Mini!

Glad it worked out for you, and I hope it continues that way