Mdrake2016

22 hours ago, johnson4 said:

I always filled them until the sponge side went to the top, either way the ink should flow from the “tank” side down near the exit port. It might not be sealing well when installed. 
 

you can pull the sponge out of the cartridge, clean it and put it back if you wanted. Depending on the “ foam” some soak the ink up good, some need to be fully saturated to “flow”. I dealt with this a lot on a primera label printer as well, same concept. what happens if you leave the air port open and close the “tank” side, do you get worse results? 

The cartridge is 100% the problem. It happened again this morning after a few prints. I pulled the cartridge out and the foam side was practically dry while the other side was filled with ink. I tried refilling it as if it was the first time: snapping it on the orange base, removing both the colored plug and vent plug, filling it on the colored plug side and waiting for it to move to the sponge side....but the ink was not flowing into the sponge side. I never let the cartridge get empty. So I'm really not sure why this is happening.

1 hour ago, johnson4 said:

what happens if you leave the air port open and close the “tank” side, do you get worse results? 

I actually did that for my last few prints and they printed fine. I will be printing another large batch tomorrow and report back.

36 minutes ago, johnson4 said:

How old are the white ink carts? Like how long have they had white ink in them?

Well it looks like using a new cart didn't help. 5 prints in and clog once again. However, I noticed a few things. In the first pic attached, you can see ink pooling more on the gray slot. This seems to always happen and the clog is always on the gray cart.

Second, take a look at the new cartridge. It looks like the ink is not going down all the way for some reason. The red cart looks completely saturated at the bottom. The bottom of the sponge looks pretty clean. I fill these carts on the colored plug side until both sides fill up near the top (this time, I didn't let the sponge side fill to the top. I plugged it once it got 1/3 of the way up as you can see. But this is the only time I did that). Then in the printer, I leave the vent side plugged in with the color side unplugged. 

By the way, humidity has consistently been over 60% here in Chicago the past few months so this is not the issue.

2 minutes ago, johnson4 said:

How old are the white ink carts? Like how long have they had white ink in them?

The colored ones are about 2 months but no issues with them. The white I actually started using when I got the new XP-15000 a few weeks ago. I suspected the cartridge to be a problem so I just put in a new one after a head cleaning wouldn't work and it seems to be working right now. I will continue printing and see if the clog comes back.

If the cartridge is the problem, is there a way to empty them out and clean them to be able to keep using them? I actually took my last one and put it in a small puddle of cleaning solution letting is soak for a few days now thinking that might work but that'st just me experimenting.

2 minutes ago, johnson4 said:

Are you using DTFsuperstore dtf inks? 
 

is it only the white? 
 

Yes DTFsuperstore and only white so far.

After my first ruined XP-15000, I made sure to take good care of the second one. I clean the wiper blade and around the capping station every day after using the printer. I clean below the cartridges on the printhead every morning before using it. After a couple weeks of using it, I'm now getting clogs every 4-5 prints and I can't figure out why. Last weekend I had to suddenly leave town for the weekend so I put cleaning carts in, ran a few head cleans til the nozzle check showed all ink out. I thought this would help the clogs but after putting ink carts back in, the problem continues to happen.

A few days ago, I had a stubborn clog on my white and I noticed that the part under the cartridge looked like ink may have somehow dried. I cleaned it with printhead cleaning solution and it worked. But again after 4-5 prints, I get a minor clog again which shows on my prints.

Any idea what could be happening? Anything I can do besides removing the whole printhead to stop this from happening? Attached is the nozzle check. It seems to get clogged in different areas every time I check.

On 5/13/2021 at 12:59 PM, johnson4 said:

I use a special file in EKprint, that doesn't advance the film as it's done printing.

Would you be able to let me have that special file? I tried to private message you but it says you're not accepting messages.

I thought I could just select Roll mode on the settings but it tries to pull the from the casette.

1 hour ago, johnson4 said:

You could modify a shaker, where you have a metal rod (x2) one with rubber rollers ( like pulled from an parts Epson printer) and have the film sandwich between them. Add 4X fans and leave around a 10-12 inch gap between the exit and the " sandwich" rollers so it has plenty of time to cool. Just run the DC motor ( maybe even the same one from a stock epson used for the paper feed) with a speed controller or gear reduction. 

This would be great if the take-up reel can still be used, attaching it to the sandwich rollers. I like how the sensor works to trigger the take-up reel whenever the film gets close to it so it would be amazing to keep that mechanism working. I just unfortunately have no clue how this can realistically be done by ME. I'm sure you could do it but I'm beyond stupid when it comes to electrical stuff.

3 hours ago, johnson4 said:

While it's probably possible to use a method to do it the way you want, it wouldn't be efficient, at least if your printing multiple things. If your not going to print more than 20-30 prints at a time, honestly the mini shaker is a waste of time if you don't ever plan reaching that point. If you want single prints on demand, the mini shaker isn't going to do that. having the best of both worlds, is to have both a mini shaker/roll printer, and then a standalone unit for single prints from a roll printer. 

I also want to point out, don't get the idea that you can use the mini shaker to cure sheets. It cannot. The way they heat, it will cause the film to curl ( since it's not in roll form with pulling on both sides) it curles up, hits the heating element and catches on fire basically. 

 

 

 

Thanks for the explanation about all of this. I suspected pretty much everything you said but wanted to be sure.

I mean there is always work to be done but I feel like it would be more efficient if there's a way to get it to print into a pile instead of a roll so we can begin heat pressing immediately.

double post

2 hours ago, johnson4 said:

About one inch wide, length varies. I spaced them so the left one would hit, as it turned away the right one then the middle as the right one turned away. Repeat. 
 

the Chinese ones use a silicone sheet for a “ flapper” which would probably be easier/better. 

 

Hey Johnson...I got a couple quick questions about your shaker (the premade one)

First, does the take up reel pull the film? Or is it the printer pushing the film? The reason I ask is because if I get one of these, I may not want to wait for all of my prints to finish before I decide to start cutting them off the take up reel. I'm thinking of possibly just letting it print and letting it come out of the machine into a box or something instead of having it roll up, but I guess this depends if it's the reel controlling the whole thing or if it's just the printer.

My other question is on the last print of the batch, how does the film keep going through the shaker if the printer is done printing? 

30 minutes ago, johnson4 said:

So your doing two head passes of white ink per line, if you notice it advances once every two head passes now. 

Ahh I see I got it now. I’m extremely happy with my results doing it this way now (other than the colors...I still gotta figure out how everybody uses Graphics mode while I have to use Vivid). 
 

One concern I have with a higher printing speed is if using the auto shaking/curing machine. Would curing be an issue with the print moving through the machine this quickly? I’m getting an approx 2 min print time for a 9x12 print. 

31 minutes ago, johnson4 said:

I noticed in 1440x720 mode, it prints the same speed with or without an underbase. 
 

in 1440x1440 mode, it prints half as fast as expected, however if you add the underbase, the print time doubles again. Basically like it’s printing in 1440x2880. 

I played around with some of my settings in the 1440x720 template that I saved, and I think I may have found the best settings with banding so small, only picky OCD people like me would notice. Surprisingly, my images that have gradients look even better using these settings than my 1440x1440 template (more smooth gradient). What I did was the following:

1440x720 for both color and white

Ink Configuration:

Drop size: Medium
Ink Level: 1 
Ink Density: 95%

White Underbase:

Mode: Content Based
Level: 2 (THIS is what made everything look a LOT better for me)
Density: 110% 
Color Contrast: -17 (still testing this to find the optimal look that I'm going for)

May have to play with the density levels but so far, the prints are looking great this morning.

26 minutes ago, johnson4 said:

if that is the case, it would probably even be faster to do 2 head passes instead of printing in 2880 speeds ( 1440x1440 with underbase enabled). 
 

 

When printing in multi head passes, how does that work exactly? I thought single pass meant it prints everything in 1 shot and multi pass means then the printer would have to “rewind” the film and then print the underbase after the color layer is laid down. I guess I’ve always printed everything in single pass since I don’t understand it. 

32 minutes ago, johnson4 said:

Just heard this from eukon 

 

“in DTF printing, with one pass underbase printing enabled, the White underbase and Color layer has to be in the same resolution.”

Well that sucks. Looks like we’re out of luck with that for DTF printing.

23 hours ago, johnson4 said:

I printed at 1440x720, single head pass. I don’t remember exactly since my computer “ updated” overnight and I have to start over. But the ink percentage was around 80-100, with four white ink channels. 
 

I have noticed that also. I intended on emailing them just haven’t had the chance yet. If I select 1440x720 Cmyk and 1440x1440 white, it still prints in 720, like the CMYK setting is all that matters. I also don’t like the fact that I can’t manually use anything between 50 and 75 percent on the underbase. I use 65 percent on my Cmyk, if I do that with the white underbase it turns into 650. 
 

ive emailed them before and gotten things changed before, so I’m hopeful it won’t be an issue to fix/explain. 

A workaround for that percentage issue is to use an option that doesn’t exist on the drop down box. For example when I tried to use 60% it went to 600% since that’s also one of their options. I used 61% and that worked.

10 hours ago, johnson4 said:

I always do  

 

I had some decent results, with the white being perfect on the p400 at 1440x720. I also had some pretty decent cmyk prints, still working on the proper settings though on the cmyk. It’s weird because I’m not getting banding at all, just not enough ink.

With EKPrint...I can’t seem to get it to use different resolution settings for the white and color. Meaning if I use 1440x720 for color and 1440x1440 for white, it does 1440x720 for both even just by the look and speed of the print. It seems to use the Color resolution as the whole print even though in the manual they suggest choosing a lower resolution for the White. 
 

What settings were you able to adjust to make the white look perfect?

4 hours ago, johnson4 said:

I've read something about the L1800 printing faster over some sort of change like that. I've been working on getting 1440x720 to print good with the " ink pooling" method. Printing CMYK+W takes forever on any of these printers. 

I have 2 problems with 1440x720

- Theres banding on both the color and the white. 
- Pure white leaves strange random streaks throughout the print (both XP-1500 I have did this). 
 

I tried increasing the ink density a lot on either the color alone, white alone and both together but didn’t have much luck. I went up as far as 175% for the white. Seemed to be SLIGHTLY better but not much. If you do find a way to improve this please let us know. 

I’m curious if setting it to a different printer would affect the print speed. 

4 hours ago, simaprint said:

I have the same problem. but I can't find "Configuration-printer setup Feed mode"
Can you tell me where to find these settings? I messed up the whole program but in vain.
I attach a picture below so you can see what it's all about!
Thanks!

Configuration, Ink Setting, Printer Setup. Then on top change it to Manual when using sheets.

53 minutes ago, Contracandles said:

I'm going to do my best to just leave the dye ink carts in the printer and just refill them without ever removing them.

I was hoping to do the same with the DTF inks but unfortunately have to shake them up every morning. Unless there's another way I'm unaware of. Shake the whole printer maybe? Lol

On 6/12/2021 at 7:34 PM, johnson4 said:

The opacity under the white settings determines what gets what ink and how much. So say that is set to 0, then only white in the design is printed. The lower that number, down to 50, the more ink it puts down in those areas, also increasing the darker areas getting white ink. If you select 50, they all get white ink, like the transparency settings. 

This is the adjustable knob next to "Opacity contrast" when printing with Content Based or Mixed mode correct? When adjusting that in Transparency mode, it doesn't affect the white. I tried printing in Content Based or Mixed and did not get good results at all, but that's because I didn't realize the knob controls the white as you're describing here. I will have to play with it for sure.

As for the white only working with the "white underbase" checked, the problem with this is the choke settings can ruin white only areas of the print. For example, I have a design (it has white only areas and colored areas) that I need to put a choke of 5 or else the underbase pokes through the colored areas. However, the white only part of the design has thin lines. Adding the choke (which again I have no choice but to use) makes those thin lines VERY thin. I guess the best way to combat this is before printing, edit the image by adding a few pixels to the white areas (in illustrator, photoshop, etc) to compensate for the choke that EKPrint would use.

Everybody, please be careful with the cartridges on the XP-15000. The sponge cartridges suck if you make a mistake. I made 2 mistakes:

1. I had both holes on the cartridges plugged when I first installed the DTF inks, and it caused some leaking and a clogged nozzle that never cleared.

2. Yesterday I wanted to manually move the printhead so I can clean the wiper blade, and my finger accidentally hit one of the cartridges so it popped up and caused the ink to spill through. This seemed to fry something. I get an Error 031006 so I took apart the printer, removed the printhead and cleaned it the best I could but I still get the error when I put it back together.

4 hours ago, JTS said:

I get terrible cure results in my oven with temps over 225 fahrenheit, no matter what the time frame.  Longer times at lower temps works better for me.

I cure at 225 fahenheit for 3 minutes.

I'm not exactly sure how hot my flash dryer gets (I think over 500 degrees) but when I use it to cure prints and while the platen is hot, my prints cure in 30 seconds and look great. I think a lot has to do with the distance of the heating element as well.

When my platen is cold, it takes about 1 minute.