Jump to content

JTS

Members
  • Posts

    48
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    2

Everything posted by JTS

  1. One thing I found about the 15000 is that the white needs fully replaced if it sits too long in the printer. Shaking carts won't help. You will get exactly what goforeman44 pic shows. If I haven't printed for a few days and have forgotten to shake the ink carts, I'll just dump the white, refill and do a couple print head cleanings and I'm good to go. I've never had any luck with white that's sat in the 15000, unused for more than a couple days. It think that's the downfall of the sponges. On the other hand, I think the sponge helps stop the head from getting clogged with white in general. The 15000 I'm using is basically my test machine. I have another brand new in the box ready to go if this one gets messed up from testing. My latest test was to leave it sit untouched with ink carts half full for a month. Instead of just trying to print right away, and possibly causing more problems running gunk white through the head, I immediately dumped the white in the carts, and left them upside down while I ran about 8 print head clean cycles with my cleaning carts. I then got the final drops of ink out of the white carts, refilled them, topped off the other colors, installed the DTF ink carts, ran 4 print head clean cycles to get the ink primed and ran a job. Printed perfect (I never run print tests. I can tell from a regular print job if it's printing correctly.) @johnson4 can tell you guys how paranoid I was about the print head getting clogged and ruined when I first started in DTF. The one month untouched test shows that if you use good procedures when printing you minimize a lot of problems down the road. I always clean the wiper and cap thoroughly when done using the printer and drop enough cleaner in the cap to saturate the sponge, but no have a puddle. I attribute the easy startup after one month no use to my daily procedures.
  2. A set of ink cartridges that only have cleaning fluid in them.
  3. Unless my XP-15000 is broken, it only prints white when white underbase is turned on. If Inturn it off, not white prints at all. It's been like that from day one. I don't even see a setting for white ink, other than in the underlay menu. For black shirts, my settings are 90% for white and 90% CMYK. For white shirts I use 15% white and 90% CMYK. I basically use 90% CMYK and adjust white according to the shirt color.
  4. Even though I have a good process down and my shirts are coming out great, I'm still new to this and started with only a heat press and a pretty nice convection oven left over from another business I has. I learn something every time I do a job. I have a small setup in my basement and cure in my garage. At this point I'm just making all the sale I can and will update equipment as needed. I see a better curing alternative as the next needed piece of equipment.
  5. Eventually I'm going to buy a legit flash or DTG specific unit to cure.
  6. I had zero luck using my shirt press.
  7. 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.
  8. I have to to say that this is the #1 tip for anyone who wants to get into DTF. If you want to print QUALITY transfers, there's a lot to learn, and even with a nice cheap starter printer like the XP-15000, you'll still need to invest around another $1,200 in RIP and supplies to have any hope of learning the ropes. You can only read so much before you just have to dive and and learn from trial and error. DTF is not a turn key operation. You have to enjoy a challenge, have some tech skills and most of all have determination.
  9. Update: After leaving the cleaning carts in for a couple days and running a couple print head cleaning cycles per day, I put in filled a new set of carts and installed them. That seemed to do the trick I was back up and running with good prints. I may have just had a normal clog. DTF printing is still new so I may have paniced. Either way I'm back up and running. Having a set of cleaning carts is a must IMO. It's a nice fallback if you run into weird printing issues. I've done the cleaning cart purge a couple times when printing went kind of wacky and both times I was good to go after a good cleaning cart cycle. One thing to note, is I've always had minimal banding in my blue channel. Nothing terrible and the average person would most likely never recognize it. When I press the transfers with my textured silicone cover sheet, it blends everything nicely. Curious if anyone else has and minimal banding issues.
  10. I just ran into a problem yesterday. Was printing fine, then red and white channels started printing very light. Now I'm getting massive banding. Installed and ran my cleaning carts through a bunch of head cleaning cycles. Had to leave for an event, so I'll re-install ink carts and see if that fixes it.
  11. Yes, second press. No cover sheet. Same temp for 15 seconds.
  12. With DTF being DIY thing, I wanted to start a thread where people could give recommendations for accessories they use for DTF printing, based on the hardware they are using or just general items that make the DTF life easier and prints better. I'll start out with the Flexible Application Pad from Stahls. I bought this on a recommendation from a guy I used to buy transfers from, and I'm super glad I did! I mainly use it to give the transfer a texture when I do a second press. I don't think it would do much good for the first press. It gives a screen print look and texture to the transfer. It's not ideal for all designs, and I mainly use it when I do knockout screen print style transfers, which is what most of my designs are. On designs that are straight text it give a the print a much nicer look that the standard smooth texture you get from a normal print. You can buy thin silicone mats for cheaper on amazon, but the hook is the texture of the pad. Basic silicone pads like the ones you see on Amazon are smooth and won't do anything more than a teflon sheet will do. https://www.stahls.com/heat-press-flexible-application-pad I'm interested to see what accessories other use when printing DTF.
  13. I can officially say the maint tank resetter works. I just installed the tank I reset the other day and it worked without a problem. I reset the after market tank from Amazon when I pulled it and the resetter went to green light, which means it successfully reset. No if I can just get this printer banding issue resolved I'd be good to go..
  14. For some reason the 2manuals site has the correct XP-15000 firmware on the main firmware page, but the wrong one on the directions page. I had the same problem until I realized the main firmware page was a different firmware. The one worked perfect.
  15. I tried the resetter on the OG tank that was "full". I put the resetter to the chip. The led blinked red a few times the turned green. I'm assuming that means it was reset. I didn't install it. Waiting for the other tank to "fill". I've been filling the ink carts while still installed. Doesn't seem like it can cause a problem. Any negatives to doing that?
  16. Maint Tank Resetter showed up today. I was leaving for work and the package was on the porch. I'll be trying it out later tonight.
  17. By wet capping, you mean putting drops of solution in the cap sponge before turning off? What problem does that cause. lol, I've been doing that before I turn off every night... I've been meaning to ask, how often do you run a cycle of cartridges with just cleaning solution to flush the printhead?
  18. After dropping white underlay to 75% and color to 90%, my prints and cure are now as I originally expected. I'm pretty sure the powder was mixing completely with the thick ink and curing all together. My prints after cure are solid now when put to the light. My cures are constantly good as well. The heavy ink settings were my problem all along.
  19. Ya. I totally forgot I had a nice Oster tabletop convection oven from when I closed my arcade. I baby any equipment I buy, so it's in like new condition. I kept the box, so when I closed the arcade, I just gave it a quick clean and packed it away. On Friday I stopped at Walmart on the way home from work to get an oven. I was pissed they didn't have the one I wanted. Then I remembered I had that one in storage. Glad I did. Saved me from spending another $100. Below is a link to the one I have. I like it better than the one I was going to buy. For the amount of shirts I currently sell and give away for promos, it will work great. I'll use it until I need to upgrade to a better system. It has a digital timer, so it's simple to time the cure. https://www.amazon.com/Oster-Countertop-Convection-Stainless-TSSTTVDGXL-SHP/dp/B00OXSR486/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=oster+convection+oven&qid=1619460389&sr=8-3
  20. I totally get it. Now that I'm playing around with color density, my prints look like what I thought they would. I had waaay too much ink previously. But that's kind of where I'm at. Up to this point is was getting all the setup, supplies and just getting to the point I know my way around the printer and RIP software. Now I'm finally to the fun part :). It's amazing what minor tweaks can do. All I really need to get to now is thinner prints but with the color still "popping". My first legit print looked awesome. Great color and solid transfer. But it was pretty thick. I just printed on with25% less ink, and I think the colors will pop just like the thick one, but be a more reasonable thickness on the shirt. Going into it, I was thinking the thicker the better on the white, to get good pop in the color. I was wrong. This ink can be seriously tweaked.
  21. When you say When you say "bubbled up" do you mean seeing the different layer height of the ink?
  22. Out of curiosity, what are you using as your determination that the color is too high? Is there a certain negative result you are getting?
  23. I dropped white underlay down to 50% density. Prints and cure look much better. After pressing white and colors lost their pop. So 50% must be too low. Will give 75% a go tomorrow.
  24. Another update: First print after a ton of tests and tweaking. Still need to tweak ink setting, but I'm almost there. This is the logo for my arcade (which I had to close due to the Rona). I designed the logo 7 years ago. It's pretty awesome to 100% design and print my own shirts! I'm getting holes that I think are due to my underwhite layer being too think and absorbing too much powder. Then when I flick the film, chunks of completely absorbed white ink are coming off and leaving blank spots. The close up of the "A" shows a hole from my above theory. The other close up is just a close up in general. Very minor, but I plan on resolving this issue with some tests and tweaks tonight. Also seems a bit thick in the main yellow area. I think that's due to the thick white underlayer and thick powder absorption as well. Overall I'm very happy with the quality. As good or better that what I've been ordering.
×
×
  • Create New...