johnson4

Humidity has nothing to do with a wet ring around the ink on film. I have first hand tested that as well as many others. Humidity also does not affect finished transfers in any way. Humidity does affect your printer nozzle/consistency. dry air dries the ink faster when printing. humidity does affect the powder clumping but does not ruin the powder. the oil in the ink causes the powder to get sticky if you reuse it often with a bad balance of ink percentage for your film.This oil makes the powder stick and become very thick on the media. Humidity has absolutely nothing to do with this issue. Lower the ink percentage, preheat the print before powdering and fully cure the print directly afterwards. No more ring. sometimes bad film coatings do this. Expired or almost expired white ink can make this problem worse. good luck with your DTF adventure.

Are you sure it’s a 120V unit? The 220V units with solid state relays would show 120V all the time on one side. The SSR relay usually only controls one side of the 220V. If it has mechanical relays then maybe one side of the relay has failed. it’s how those relays usually fail. if it’s a 120V unit verified working before, then it sounds like the bulbs bad. You could do a continuity test on the bulb with a voltmeter with the unit disconnected to see if it’s an open circuit.

I have found that EKprint claims to work with printers that it does not work with. I have purchased a license before that ended up never working after months of back and forth to fix it because the driver was never finished, yet was put up for sale. I have an Eco tank printer and a 7210. Both have been replaced twice now using standard paper and OEM inks due to internal failures. It's likely a situation where EK will work based on similar drivers for other devices, so they throw those out there if anyone ever used it. Having only one white channel isn't a great idea any way about it. With 2 white channels it on the 1430/L1800 one large print would take over 18 minutes. Within that time, one nozzle clog could destroy the whole print and it's very hard on the machine. Which almost always happened to me. Those would be great for sublimation in my opinion, that's about it. Personally I feel like it would be a waste of time and money on the supplies and make a mess. But that's me, You could also give it a go and give a first hand experience here about how it did or did not work and why. Good luck!

All Chinese printers require the wide format version of Cadlink.

Neither would work, you need a minimum of 6 colors.

The P800 can do roughly 10 regular sized prints an hour for DTF. 12”x12”. the 5-6 I had used the printheads would fail within 6-12 months. After everything I have done and experienced - I feel this is normal for any of them. Dampers need changed/flushed every 2 months as preventive care if you want the printhead to last that long. If you are well experienced it’s possible for it to last longer, but low quality ink ( even one time) or forcing head cleans instead of cleaning dampers will prematurely kill the printhead. other than that, pretty basic conversion. Make output tray, remove rollers, load ink and clean wiper daily, shake carts daily, print daily.

Hi, welcome. What are you aiming to convert the P800 into?

Perfect/near perfect nozzle checks, decent resolution/print speed( Something like 720x720 won't work) thoroughly mixed ink/good ink at the printhead. After that make sure the ink is pre-heated to remove excess moisture and then cured properly without overheating.

I will give that a try, Thank you.

The ICC profile should only be changing how the printer prints colors and density. I have tried it on my side and it didn't change anything with the lines for me. I used ink from china.

Same photo, just at an angle to show ridges.

This photo for example, quality looks great. Sure underbase could be better but all that stuff is after I get a good print. I scratch this print to test durability.

I am using the Dual UV light version. It’s two strips, I think 12 led in total. this is my very first UV anything, so I relied on the supplier to give good advice( which I rarely do for obvious reasons). I barely found any information about any UV conversions. I was told one strip is for small format, like 8.5” printers. Two strip for up to 17” printers. I think light is too strong. I think it cures too fast, like as fast as it jets out of the printhead. This I think creates the lines. Normally it prints in lines like this, but with a few milliseconds slower cure time it will allow “rows” to overlap. Typically it’s wet on wet printing, the ink is wet right as it comes out so it can “blend”. If you look VERY close you can see the dots that make up the image. with it instantly curing the moment it jets the ink, you get these “ ridges” kind of like a 3D printer. My images print perfect, no missing ink, no odd colors. It you look at it sideways it looks perfect. If you look above or use fingernail to scratch print, you can feel it.

I agree, but I bet that has something to do with it. do you have one strip of LEDs on the bottom or two?

I think its the lamp. The only thing the same is the lamp, we have the exact same lamp and the same results. I think it's too powerful or the LED's are out of spec- something like that.

That’s about how far away it is. Maybe a bit further. If the printing stops for more than 5-10 seconds over one printed spot the printed area turns black and burns/curls. The light will cure UV resin ( from 3D printer) fully in seconds. I’ve tried 3 different rip software with and without ICC, it doesn’t change results. I don’t think it’s that but maybe. my stronger uneducated opinion is aiming toward the light being too strong, like 60 percent opinion. Then the ink being like the other 40 percent. I couldn’t really find any known ink brands and the stuff isn’t cheap to test for sure. Thanks for the advice, hopefully I have time to mess with it.

No worries, I appreciate the insight. I am using an ink feeder. It's a 90 watt lamp. The ink and light are both 395nm. The ink dries perfectly, maybe even too quick.I wanted to try a lower wattage but haven't come to that conclusion yet that it is needed. The supplier said they would both work the same on my machine. If I print without the light it doesn't have these " lines". To me, the printer is working normal. It's just when the UV light is on and printing, it does this. I have adjusted it higher/lower, closer/further away- doesn't matter same thing. It's like the " iron man" head above. I lowered the voltage on the curing lamp all the way down until it almost shut off- it still does the same thing. I think it's the light or the ink causing the issues personally, but I am new to UV entirely.

The csic board, which is a main component and required. it’s what reads and decodes the ink chips. there were a few others, ribbon cables. One printer had a connector the other didn’t. It’s been over a year so I don’t remember exactly which, but I know it was significant enough for me to just throw it away and I’m an avid experienced DIY’er especially with Epson machines. printhead for R2000 is $1,000 plus for refurbished. Printhead for P400 is $500-$600 brand new from Epson still in production. Both work the same. Both needed replaced every 20-30 rolls of film printed. the carriage would need changed, ALL wiring including all ribbon cables and sub boards. The only thing that is the same is the metal case when you look really close there are some small differences there too. One model is almost 10 years older than the other.

You’ll have to change several other parts including the csic board, which won’t fit on the other printer. I had a DTF machine from China based on the r2000 and planned on swapping it to a p400. There was some connectors that wouldn’t match up. you’ll need a new printhead eventually, I’d stick with the P400 since printheads for it are still in production and the p400 has Chipless carts for it.

If you are not letting the printed film sit at all before curing then I would suggest a different film or less ink. Some inks/films don’t work well together. if you see that “ bleeding” line around the print it will have powder there. It’s usually too much ink, or film isn’t able to “absorb” that much ink. I’ve also seen certain inks not work well with certain films. Overall, try less ink, and or try a different film. I ran across this often in my search for the best film/ink.

Is it new? you can do this with the adjustment program for the P5000 if it’s not new or has already been setup.

Probably not detecting the film, need more opaque film.

I used the free adruino code here which works perfect. They use a 30 tooth pulley but it can easily be changed for whatever you have. I have tried with the encoder wheel emulator and without the emulator using the stock wheel/encoder. I can print on paper perfectly with stock ink. I assume it's a jetting issue, or something to do with the ink/LED given nothing else has changed. If I ever figure it out though I'll follow up with it.

Me? It’s a DIY DTG machine converted to UV. It has worked reliably for thousands of flatbed prints. It prints normal without UV ink installed. I changed the ink system and add UV ink/light and that was the outcome.

I still haven’t tested it, it’s just been sitting there. I’ll likely toss the project, I personally think it’s something with the ink. Dx7 head shows perfect nozzle checks but still does that.