AMartinez

Thanks bud, as always I appreciate all of the wisdom!

Oh I gotcha. One last question, what if I were to find a used p800 only ever used as intended as an ink printer, would it be worth buying and converting, for a low-mid volume printer and Are parts readily available for the p800 down the road? Or even a used unconverted p400 for that matter

Ok sounds great, ya we have an et 15000 for sublimation, so far that thing has been a champ, 2 yrs old and no issues other than an occasional clog mostly from sitting. I'll def just stick with an xp for now sounds like the wise idea, maybe I'll check that machine out on here. Thanks again brotha.

Thanks for this break down, I 100% get what you're saying, which aligns with my original thought, that is, that I'm not ready for a big machine yet, the business isn't there yet. So you still think the XP 15000 is a better machine over the et8550?

Hmm ya the p5000 looks enticing, man but I really wasn't looking to drop $2k+ right now, but it looks like my real options are another xp15000 now that at least I definitely know what not to do, or a p5000, I love the roll printing option too. Is the p5000 a pretty easy conversion? So by resettable chips then, I take it that it doesnt have chipless firmware available? So how does that work, you have to reset it before the ink empties, then fill it and slide it back in? Can we use OEM cartridges for p5000?

WELP! I done did it now. After cleaning and flushing and wet capping and more cleaning, I got the dreaded 031001 death code. Mother Father! Unfortunately I don't have $3k for a p800, and only refurbished ones below $2k. I see p900 for about $1200 and a p700, what do you know about these, mainly the p900, will they dtf? I thought about the et8550 but the ecotank makes me hesitant, and I'm not sure that it won't have the same sensitivity issues as the xp15000.

Ok thank you, I'll give it a shot, I really pray that's all it is.

I'm dumbfounded to say the least, not only were the carts only out for about 10 min, they were about 75% full of ink still, so all I really did was top them off. And no Plugs to remove, I'm using OEM carts, that have worked flawlessly up until this issue. I only have regular cleaning fluid not the special labelled "wet capping fluid", do I need that stuff for it to work thoroughly? Also That same video I saw said they cleared their blockage up by wet capping with hot steamy water, what do you think about that method?

I watched a video that suggested forcing air with an empty syringe into to of carts while installed in printer, with a paper towel underneath head to see if ink flows out, seems logical but it's that safe to do, without risk of damaging print head? But that wouldn't help if it's air in the ink system right?

My xp15000 had an almost perfect test print, I didn't want to run out of ink, so I removed carts (OEM Epson carts with dtf ink) refilled them out them back in, and suddenly no ink comes out test after test a couple of head cleanings, nothing, no ink on paper. What could have happened so suddenly? Anything I can do to clear possible air in system or clogged nozzles? But it would have to be every single nozzle clogged which seems improbable.

Holy crap I didn't think it was a serious issue, so what's the protocol for unclogging it figuring out if the nozzles are dead? I've done a few head cleanings with standard cleaning fluid nothing changed. It's in an xp 15000

Started about a week ago, every single nozzle check looks exactly like this, dot for dot, the broken parts of the pattern never change or move, I've done nozzle cleaning with cleaning solution and with ink itself this results refuses to change, however as far as I can tell my prints still look great, if anything is wrong with them, I can't tell. what does it mean?

Yessir! The bane of my existence, and probably all of ours... Bills. Thank you, and to you as well bud!

Ya this had me going for about a week, it was affecting every cure, because the powder was sticking up like hair off of the the ink in spots, so the good cures were sporadic and completely unpredictable. I was close to throwing it all out rather than sell prints I couldn't stand behind. I'm just glad it was a simple resolution in the end.

The weird thing was I have the old bottle of powder and the new and only the new has an insane amount of static. Anyways it turned out to be the plastic bottle it came in, I poured the powder adhesive into another container and all of the static disappeared, And I can still feel the static if I put my hand in that original container, so the plastic itself is charged somehow. Regardless, my issue is resolved, just tossed out that container.

This is the setting I started on, and yes I agree the image looked much more solid and bold color, however this was the actual reason I was asking about icc profile for Andy's ink because the colors were off with this setting, much darker shades. I have another ink coming with an icc profile and I'm hoping this will allow me to use med+lrg with the correct colors. I thought I understood what the dot size was doing, however with acro the dot size changes the colors/shades/brightness of the image so that confuses me a bit.

Oh I didn't catch that, that's good to hear! I'll most likely just hold out for an oem machine, I still have some business building to do before I'm ready anyways.

Or if anyone has actual experience with any of these that would be awesome to hear about. And I'm really only referring to smaller desktop printers up to 17" or so, I realize the standalone wide format printers are a while different beast.

So when it comes to those purpose built dtf printers, or whatever you want to label them, that are made and sold by companies, the best example I can think of is the knight 12 by kingdom dtf, which I don't believe is a conversion, it looks like a completely new printer, and I know there's plenty of others, what's the general consensus on them? Riskier than converting a p series, or could they potentially be a better option?

Gotcha, that clears it up more.

So what would you say is the deciding factor between the p400/600/800? If crazy speed for roll printing isn't factoring into the decision? Besides the p800 being 17", Is it just about initial cost and maintenance cost at that point? Or is there a quality upgrade in sequence from 400 to 600 to 800? Or some other significant factor?

Has anyone had an issue with their powder being fully charged with static? This is only the second bottle of adhesive powder I've purchased, but the first one is totally fine all the way through. This one though, as soon as I opened it anything I put in there the powder clings to it and you can tell it's static. So much so, that if I pour it out of the bottle it actually starts jumping out of the bottle and sticking to the outside of it, and after powdering the print, a lot of it is standing up it almost looks like hair it's not even laying flat on the ink the way it should. Does anybody have any idea how to fix this, how to discharge the whole bottle? or something I could put in the powder to discharge it?

Thank you guys for the tips, I didn't give up lol and I finally got good prints with 35 ink/75 white and mix drops, the color seemed a bit light still, so I will tweak a little more, but it's 90% of the way there now.

Ya I definitely get what you're saying. I personally, because I'm not high volume, yet anyways, I prefer color accuracy and quality over speed. With EK I get perfect quality prints that last forever with no issues whatsoever, but the greens are so dark and ugly, I can't get a bright green to save my life, I do have another brand of ink coming so that I can compare and see if that makes a difference. I Love the user interface and workflow of acro, and the colors are much more accurate and vibrant, BUT I cannot get a perfect print and press like EK. The best smoothest cleanest prints don't have enough ink or white or both to properly cover up the shirt it's on. Then when I do get enough ink and white coverage, the print is pin holes and hairline cracked everywhere. I have tried what it seems like most people do on acro which is 25-35% ink and white, those are the one that come out very smooth and clean, but slightly translucent after cure and press. I guess at this point I will keep producing with EK while tinkering with acro on downtime. I also only have the demo for EK and am not looking forward to spending the money for the full program. Is there much difference between the demo and full program? Besides the watermark, I have a workaround for that, are there any actual functional benefits? By the way the comparison post you made a while back, I found to be dead on accurate between EK and acro, from times to colors to quality.