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Cadlink VS EKprint VS Acrorip V9.03


johnson4

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6 hours ago, JOxKxER said:

Do you recommend any brands of USB cables? I use USB like 6ft. Do you know of any videos I can watch to properly clean the nozzles on the p800? Thanks for the help.

There isn’t really any “name brand” anymore. I just buy 4-5 brands on Amazon and return the ones that suck. 
 

I just do a head clean and keep up on maintenance, I don’t have an issue with clogging. If you “manually” have to do it, it’s likely toast. 

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  • 2 months later...

Does anyone happen to know if you can add multiple files onto a single print in acrorip?  Im currently using ekprint demo and trying to decide on a full program to buy, leaning towards acro because of this post.

Also I have never actually used the "rip" button, what exactly does that do?  I usually just load a file, resize, enable white, adjust settings and print

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1 hour ago, AMartinez said:

Does anyone happen to know if you can add multiple files onto a single print in acrorip?  Im currently using ekprint demo and trying to decide on a full program to buy, leaning towards acro because of this post.

Also I have never actually used the "rip" button, what exactly does that do?  I usually just load a file, resize, enable white, adjust settings and print

In acro 11, that hasn't been released yet this "gang" or multiple images per print has been showcased as a new feature. 

It is not a feature on any previous version.

The acro 9 is not from the same people and is a hacked version. Acro 10.X is not updatable to 11. So if you are looking for this feature I would wait for Acro 11 to be released. 

 

 

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15 hours ago, johnson4 said:

In acro 11, that hasn't been released yet this "gang" or multiple images per print has been showcased as a new feature. 

It is not a feature on any previous version.

The acro 9 is not from the same people and is a hacked version. Acro 10.X is not updatable to 11. So if you are looking for this feature I would wait for Acro 11 to be released. 

 

 

Oh man thanks for the heads up, I think that alone makes it worth waiting for, that would definitely improve workflow.

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5 hours ago, AMartinez said:

Oh man thanks for the heads up, I think that alone makes it worth waiting for, that would definitely improve workflow.

I don't think it is that big of deal ganging a 13X19 sheet but man would that save some time on rolls.  I wasn't planning on roll printing but you know, things change...  If you want 10.3 or 10.5 for a stop gap the non us resellers have dongles for as little as $17.. maybe cheaper.

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1 hour ago, kcinnick said:

I don't think it is that big of deal ganging a 13X19 sheet but man would that save some time on rolls.  I wasn't planning on roll printing but you know, things change...  If you want 10.3 or 10.5 for a stop gap the non us resellers have dongles for as little as $17.. maybe cheaper.

When you are doing 20-50 gang sheets a day with sometimes 20 images per sheet and each image needs to be a specific size- it is not ideal. 

The way they showed the 11 being, it seems nice- but again, doesn't really help if it still processes really slow. They show everything BUT how fast it processes.  Last time I tried a 13 X 24 sheet on Acro, I made a sandwich, ate it, got distracted by the tv for a few minutes, came back and it was still processing. 

Cadlink offers this, but it rearranges all the images around so it's hard to keep place of what is what so I stopped using it, among other reasons. 

 

The hacked versions of software I will never recommend. Always something wonky with them. That's the last thing you need when starting up, I went through that with Acro 9 thinking it was my setup. If on a budget, you could also just use acro 9,  It's even cheaper and available just about anywhere you look and will likely work the same way- with the exception of a few additional printers. 

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5 hours ago, johnson4 said:

The hacked versions of software I will never recommend. Always something wonky with them. That's the last thing you need when starting up, I went through that with Acro 9 thinking it was my setup. If on a budget, you could also just use acro 9,  It's even cheaper and available just about anywhere you look and will likely work the same way- with the exception of a few additional printers. 

It is really short sited for acrorip to not offer an upgrade path from 10 to 11, it is a hard pill to swallow to pay $400 for software that is being replaced any day now.  

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1 hour ago, kcinnick said:

It is really short sited for acrorip to not offer an upgrade path from 10 to 11, it is a hard pill to swallow to pay $400 for software that is being replaced any day now.  

Yea, it’s intentional. If you read up on it they didn’t make acro, the picked it up because whoever created it didn’t. 
 

then their 10.x version was cracked almost immediately unshockingly. It’s the same Program with a few differences. 

so they are doing a few changes and supporting the new P700/p900 printers with it, forcing people to buy it again- and they will. Likely with a better crack resistant lock. Doing this once though is enough to scare customers away though. What happens 6 months later when 11 is being replaced. 
 

Most things in this industry are just money grabs. DTF just happened to work well. They have already pushed the release back 1-2 months now. 
 

Cadlink locks you in to a pre made driver, one update and boom- now an issue. They charge for every little thing. I personally find all the built in tools useless, you can’t save or export the image or settings. 
 

 

 

hopefully someone out there in the background is working on something that actually just works- in which they can change and sell. Like a new EKprint but also listen to the top 5-10 wish list of changes from the users instead of money grabs and poor 
 

then I’d be happy to drop however much money they wanted for it. 
 

i just wish I had went to school for this type of thing, I’d just do it myself- it’s galaxies over my head though. 

 

Edited by johnson4
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I am aware of the dubious development of acrorip but its huge advantage is no limits on printers.  I already have 2 different types of printers and I fully plan to get a P5000.  I don't mind paying for a new release of 11 but I wasn't about to pay full price for 10.5 with no upgrade path to 11.   I am going to do the cadlink and ekprint demo's to try them out, I am just waiting on parts and accessories.  Shipping stuff these days is so slow.

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15 minutes ago, kcinnick said:

I am aware of the dubious development of acrorip but its huge advantage is no limits on printers.  I already have 2 different types of printers and I fully plan to get a P5000.  I don't mind paying for a new release of 11 but I wasn't about to pay full price for 10.5 with no upgrade path to 11.   I am going to do the cadlink and ekprint demo's to try them out, I am just waiting on parts and accessories.  Shipping stuff these days is so slow.

Yea, I agree with that. I think I have purchased 5 versions of EKprint which sucks. BUT, I got my monies worth from each one. 

 

i tried that for awhile, it got annoying pretty quickly. I just found one and stuck with it. I hear quite a bit of bad things about the P5000, like being slower than the p800. I don’t believe them though. 
 

whenever all of mine come close to breaking beyond repair I’ll pick one up if they still sell them. It’s hard to get any solid answers from anyone on it, they all seem to break them and move on. 
 

indeed it is, I’m half running on a shaker that is in need of some parts, two weeks out with the fastest shipping available. At least they are coming, lol. 

Edited by johnson4
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Well, if I could just buy a few P800's that is what I would have done!  I still watch the used markets for deals, like the P4880 printer I picked up, I wasn't looking for that printer but I think it will work out just fine.  Hopefully they work out the chip situation and RIP software issues with the P900 so that becomes an option in the future. Out of the new printers you have the XP15000, the P5000 and the P6000 if you want carts, and well the P6000 needs expensive chips every ink change.  The P5000 can be reset and the XP15000 has its drawbacks. 

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ET-8550 is the best budget printer. It puta p400 and p600 to shame. Cheap and avaliable. Print quality with 720*720 print is godlike(if you made detailed head alignment), no pass stains, fast printing, cheap and repairable printhead. Buy a maintaince tank resetter, remove catridges and add lenght to hoses to a bottle. Get inks from there.

Xp-15000 is unrepairable and catridges are poor quality. 

P5000-6000 is Pro version of printer. Fastest, but expensive parts. If you need faster than et8550, it is way to go. But i would always go for cheapest printer and smallest shaker unit if i dont need to produce more than what it is capable each day.

Also just bought a p700, really fancy stuff.

 

 

 

Edited by anum11
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1 hour ago, anum11 said:

ET-8550 is the best budget printer. It puta p400 and p600 to shame. Cheap and avaliable. Print quality with 720*720 print is godlike(if you made detailed head alignment), no pass stains, fast printing, cheap and repairable printhead. Buy a maintaince tank resetter, remove catridges and add lenght to hoses to a bottle. Get inks from there.

Xp-15000 is unrepairable and catridges are poor quality. 

P5000-6000 is Pro version of printer. Fastest, but expensive parts. If you need faster than et8550, it is way to go. But i would always go for cheapest printer and smallest shaker unit if i dont need to produce more than what it is capable each day.

Also just bought a p700, really fancy stuff.

 

 

 

Nice, so you have first hand experience with the eco tank? 

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6 hours ago, kcinnick said:

Well, if I could just buy a few P800's that is what I would have done!  I still watch the used markets for deals, like the P4880 printer I picked up, I wasn't looking for that printer but I think it will work out just fine.  Hopefully they work out the chip situation and RIP software issues with the P900 so that becomes an option in the future. Out of the new printers you have the XP15000, the P5000 and the P6000 if you want carts, and well the P6000 needs expensive chips every ink change.  The P5000 can be reset and the XP15000 has its drawbacks. 

Right, it’s in the “ middle” part where it’s too new to have good support yet all the old versions are gone. 
 

if I had to choose one of them that you mentioned I’d go for the P5000 personally. 
 

xp15000 isn’t great unless you design your own ink system. 
 

p6000 too expensive to maintain with chips, for me anyway. 

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4 hours ago, johnson4 said:


 

xp15000 isn’t great unless you design your own ink system. 
 

 

They are having really good results refilling the OEM carts for the XP15000.  It is solving most of the issues people have with the XP15000.  The drawback is that you only have about 15mL of useable capacity in the OEM cart if you get it 100% full and many people are only getting 12-13mL in them.  I wanted a P5000 but I started looking hard and picked up a 4900 and 4880 for less than a 1/3 of what a P5000 cost.  I will watch the Epson store and pick one up if they hit the refurb shop though.

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14 hours ago, johnson4 said:

Nice, so you have first hand experience with the eco tank? 

Yes Et-8550 is the best printer. Fast, nice quality, easy to find spare parts, cheap spare parts, can be modified into ciss and can remove catridges. Very nice printer.

 

Only thing i did not try, it still counts ink levels as referance. So when it is low i dont know if printer stops or spits out the roll. I will try soon enough thou.

Edited by anum11
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9 hours ago, kcinnick said:

They are having really good results refilling the OEM carts for the XP15000.  It is solving most of the issues people have with the XP15000.  The drawback is that you only have about 15mL of useable capacity in the OEM cart if you get it 100% full and many people are only getting 12-13mL in them.  I wanted a P5000 but I started looking hard and picked up a 4900 and 4880 for less than a 1/3 of what a P5000 cost.  I will watch the Epson store and pick one up if they hit the refurb shop though.

4880 uses dx5 printhead, 4900 uses 10 channel 3600 nozzle printhead. They are diffirent. 4900 is older version of p5000.

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48 minutes ago, anum11 said:

Yes Et-8550 is the best printer. Fast, nice quality, easy to find spare parts, cheap spare parts, can be modified into ciss and can remove catridges. Very nice printer.

 

Only thing i did not try, it still counts ink levels as referance. So when it is low i dont know if printer stops or spits out the roll. I will try soon enough thou.

I’d think at that point though it’s a mute point. You’d have to print quite a bit of imagine for it to do that. 
 

the only 8550 videos I seen were of some guy who had no idea what he was doing, which looked like 1430 speeds. 

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9 minutes ago, johnson4 said:

I’d think at that point though it’s a mute point. You’d have to print quite a bit of imagine for it to do that. 
 

the only 8550 videos I seen were of some guy who had no idea what he was doing, which looked like 1430 speeds. 

Yes possible it could go all day, without needing to reset. When it needs reset you can do easyly on touch screen, so everyday doing it before starting to work should suffice.

The printer is good.

 

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11 minutes ago, kcinnick said:

I know they are different... what is your point?

Hey, so when you do get that all going, do you mind sharing some information about the 4900? 
 

I’m looking for actual print speed comparisons. One person said it’s slower than the p800, which I don’t see how.  Basically just time a cmyk+W 12x12 print at 1440x1440 with EKprint. 
 

360 nozzle head should be able to print faster than a 180 nozzle head and maintain the same resolution. I’ve tested and verified this 90 VS 180 nozzle. I don’t want to spend $1,800 to find out. I would however spend the $1,800 if it did. 

Edited by johnson4
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11 minutes ago, johnson4 said:

Hey, so when you do get that all going, do you mind sharing some information about the 4900? 
 

I’m looking for actual print speed comparisons. One person said it’s slower than the p800, which I don’t see how.  Basically just time a cmyk+W 12x12 print at 1440x1440 with EKprint. 
 

360 nozzle head should be able to print faster than a 180 nozzle head and maintain the same resolution. I’ve tested and verified this 90 VS 180 nozzle. I don’t want to spend $1,800 to find out. I would however spend the $1,800 if it did. 

Johnson can you tell me where did you buy p400 printhead and at what price btw.

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19 minutes ago, anum11 said:

Yes possible it could go all day, without needing to reset. When it needs reset you can do easyly on touch screen, so everyday doing it before starting to work should suffice.

The printer is good.

 

That’s good to hear. Me personally I still liked what I got from the 15000 since it’s cheaper. I consider it disposable, but I feel like you could easily get a good 6+ months from it. I just haven’t entirely finished the new damper adapter conversion yet. 
 

it’s good that things are moving forward though with current models- regardless of their downfalls they’ll work. I’ve realized it’ll probably be awhile before these p800’s die. Knock on wood, I’ve printed over 40 rolls on this one p800 and it’s fine still. Getting ready to need a new capping station though. In the last 3 weeks I’ve printed about 8 rolls on it alone.
 

That’s mainly what I’m worried about with the smaller printers is them overheating. the p400 after a few hours of roll printing would overheat and kick the film until I added a fan to it. 
 

I’ve had an audley mini testing it for a few weeks. I’ve been cut short on it because I can’t seem to get good consistent results from Cadlink with it, but I think it’s still being profiled which would likely fix that. 
 

it seems to be as fast as the p800, a smidgen faster actually. 15 square feet an hour. 

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