Mdrake2016

It's hard to see exactly in the photos, but I remember when I overcured/cured too fast with the gloss film, there would be holes in the final print on the shirt. I think that's what I'm seeing here? Happens with matte film too but not as much.

Double post. Can’t delete this for some reason

Can I ask if you’ve tested Acrorip enough to know if it has the ability to queue prints? I know EKPrint just used the main windows queue which was simple enough. Might be able to automate the whole process so I wouldn’t consider the fact that I have to handle each print individually a problem. As far as the speed...would you say the 1440x720 with Acrorip is as fast as EKPrint’s 1440x1440?

Something weird there...I just printed a 11.25 x 15 image with my P400 and it finished in exactly 5:02 with Cadlink. Is the P400 faster than the P800 or could something else be causing that? Personally, I like Cadink the best for a few reasons: 1. Color adjustments...I don't know if Acrorip can do it but EKPrint can't. I guess it SOMEWHAT can in the gamma adjustments but it throws a lot of things off when I do it that way. With the color profile that Cadlink has loaded, it didn't work perfectly out the box but I was able to adjust the CMYK individually until I got it looking accurate. I've noticed different inks from different manufacturers have their own optimal CMYK levels in Cadlink and the ability to adjust it is real nice. 2. The ability to just drag multiple files on there and hit print. The way my business is laid out, I print items to order so it's extremely efficient to be able to do it this way. The nesting feature is also great if I have smaller images that would fit on the sheet/width of the roll that I'm using. CADlink DOES have some editing capabilities, but I stay away from them. I just don't like them at all and I'm a photoshop person so I like to do things on there, save the file and load in CADlink and hit print.

Based off of your description, I think I can confidently guess I know which software you’re referring to in each one. Looking forward to seeing your test results.

Can you do me a favor and take a look at the nipples on the printhead to see if there is dried ink? I had the same problem as yours and I sat there for 2 hours with tweezers removing dried ink around the nipples. Cleaned them the best I could. After I did this, my ink stopped dropping out. I also changed cartridges thinking that may have been the issue but I truly think the dried ink did it. I'm thinking that while printing, because of the dried ink, the seal between the cartridge and the nipples releases, causing air to get into the system and give you these problems. Since I fixed this weeks ago, I haven't had any issues.

I just get this: https://dtfsuperstore.com/collections/film/products/a3-11-3-4-x-16-1-2-transfer-film-hot-peel Don't get me wrong I'm sure there are some from China that work. But all of them claim to have the best quality and most of the ones I've tested look exactly like yours looks in the photo. It just seems difficult to find the ones that do supply the good film. With the matte film, on the actual image, I'd still say the quality is pretty good (7.5/10). You only really notice imperfections when looking up close. But film like DTFsuperstores where white does not mix at all with the color is a 10/10. Near perfect all around.

I get great prints out of cadlink and the P400. What I see on your photos is a problem with the reds and I have the same issue there, but that is a film issue and not the software. With DTFsuperstore film, I don’t have this issue at all. I got other film from China and the ink tends to mix with some colors, red more than anything else. This seems to happen with the matte films the most. What I did notice however is I had to reduce the “max ink” to 380-385 to reduce the color inks. And I had to play around with the white underbase in that color adjustments window you have attached anywhere from 55-70%. When adjusting the settings, be sure to remove everything out of the the queue first. Then add them back in to test the updated settings.

Just to be clear, CMYK with no white on film? I figured it would be easier to see on plain paper but I guess I can just print it on the film and lay it over a white sheet to see more clearly. I’ll have to give that a try tomorrow.

This is more difficult to figure out than I thought. On regular paper, yellow looks perfect, no lines, but I don't know if it's because of the paper absorbing too much ink or if it actually the white causing an issue. Even with less ink coverage, it's difficult to see. Either way, I'm thinking I will spend sime time cleaning the ink channels and we'll see if that makes a difference.

I'm using a P400 with carts. Originally, I had issues with the white ink slowly beginning to develop lines after a few prints. I did 2 things: cleaned the spikes that go into the carts and I used new carts. I'm not sure what fixed it but the white no longer does that. I'm thinking too much dried up ink on the spikes didn't allow a good seal with the carts. Then immediately when the white seemed to be fixed, I noticed my yellow having the lines as you see in the pic. It could very well be the white which I have to try today but I only see it on yellow and just a bit on a basic red. Other colors seem to be mostly fine, other than my grays being a bit off since this began happening. I have been taking extremely good care of this P400 since it was pretty costly. I also ordered carts from a different supplier which will be in next week and I will see if that makes any difference. The thing is I would be extremely surprised if the head is failing after just 1 month of using it. I haven't had a ton of orders (maybe 500 prints on this so far) so I'm thinking there is some clog on the yellow, but good idea on printing CMYK alone.... it will help me determine if the white could be the issue since that's what gave me issues initally.

I suddenly have an issue with my yellow channel. Nozzle check for some reason looks perfect but I'm getting lines on my yellow which naturally affects other colors a bit as well. Any idea what could be happening here? Doing a search on the forum and throughout Google has been tough because most people have some breaks on the nozzle check while mine looks fine. I tried cleaning and changing cartridges but neither made any difference.

Way better for sure. I honestly think nobody knows about this...why else would anyone do the unplug method if it can be done this way?

I'm thinking there is some timer in the printer causing it to do an ink charge (or cleaning..whatever it's doing) if I take too long cleaning. Cleaning the wiper takes me a bit of time. So what I did the past few days was clean the wiper, hit the ink button to send it back. Then hit the ink button again and then clean the capping station. So far, doing it this way hasn't done an ink charge

So I pushed the printhead fine after hitting the ink change button. Surprised no one ever says to do it this way. The thing is, the printer is STILL sometimes doing a quick ink charge or cleaning when I hit the button to send the printhead back to park. I cannot figure out what is triggering it to sometimes do this and sometimes not.

Oh no let me clarify about the ink in the capping station. What I meant was when I inject cleaner in there, a bunch of old dtf ink from the sponge comes up and mixes with the cleaner. So the pool looks very contaminated with ink. Looking at yours, your pool looks very clean compared to mine after you inject the cleaner. As for the way you’re moving the head to the left, you did it so easy with just your thumb. I’m going to try again tomorrow. I may have just been scared to force it when I tried earlier.

Ok the video loaded now. So it looks like I may be unnecessarily overdoing the cleaning. I literally clean the wiper for a couple minutes alone and then dry it off lol. How do you just move the printhead to the side like that without unplugging the power cord? I tried that earlier and I feel like I’ll break something if I try pushing it over with the printer still on. Also I noticed that when you filled your capping station, you had very little ink mix with your cleaner. Night and day difference with how mine looks. How is that possible? Mine is filled with my DTF ink when I do that, even if I spend a few minutes cleaning the sponges off with paper towel.

Unfortunately same issue. Takes me to an error which says "We could not locate the item you are trying to view."

I think it took a day for my video on another thread to start working on here.

Man that would be a ton of help if you can send me a video. There’s videos for so many printers but can’t find any useful ones for the P400. It’s funny you mentioned Arizona. I actually plan to move out there in the next year or 2. So living in a dry area like that, would wet capping be needed for the P400?

Isn’t the point of wet capping to keep the printhead wet? Won’t it dry out with the DTF inks if we don’t wet cap?

That's what I do...but when I power on, it sometimes does a cleaning automatically so my fluid on the capping station gets sucked in. That's what I'm trying to figure out how to prevent. I did come here a few times and all my ink was drained...but that hasn't happened in a few weeks. So I shouldn't be wet capping a P400? How do we know which printers we should or shouldn't wet cap?

So I do the basic turn on the printer, let the printhead move and then unplug it to freely move the printhead. I then clean the wiper blade, capping station and fill it up with the solution. Park the head back to the capping station and then turn the printer back on. Randomly, the printer sometimes does a cleaning when I turn it back on. Yesterday it happened 3 times before it finally just turned on and parked itself the fourth time. Does anyone have a way to prevent this from happening? Every time it does this I have to go through the whole process again. Also while on the subject of wet capping. I just have a couple of other questions. 1. I've seen some videos where people soak the sponges and spend a few minutes trying to get as much of the ink out as possible, and some videos where they just remove a little bit before parking the printhead. It's pretty difficult to remove much. Does it matter if I'm unable to remove most of the ink? 2. When the printhead moves away from the capping station the next day, it doesn't really look like the liquid on the capping station was actually touching it. I may be misunderstanding how it all works...does the printhead actually touch the liquid?

I tried what you said here and used both the same exact input and output profiles, taken directly from the Cadlink folders and for some reason the colors are even worse. I don't understand what's going on here. EKPrint does something else that affects the colors. And it's definitely not the ink density...the colors are simply still VERY off regardless of what I adjust in any setting.

Yes in the Chicago area.