Surecolor P5000 DTF notes

[johnson4]

9 hours ago, Vfreaks said:

Thank you bro. I'll be honest with you. I moved to Germany and just got married. With great hope, my l1800 device, which i bought with a great hope, printed very well at first. I also turned this into an opportunity and stocked 300 dtf prints. However, i had a great misfortune. Because the white paint i used was defective. After 2 or 3 washes, i realized that the print on the T-shirt was cracked. This problem was most likely the paint i used. Anyway. This process i went through took 3 months in total and my loss is 2 thousand euros. This is equivalent to 1 month's salary. But I don't want to give up. Nowadays i want to buy a dtf printer that won't let me down. And i have to say that i only have one shot at it. I have to make a very good decision, so i am open to any advice you can give me.
 
As a result; I'll stock up on prints every day with my dtf printer. I'll change the dampers of the printer every 2 months. Other than that, do you think there's anything else i can do?

And I have an extra favor to ask you. Can you tell me the brand of paint and powder you use?

No problem, I hope it helps in some way. 

 

I have never heard of cracking DTF prints, but failures after washing could be multiple things, including the ink, powder, curing and application. 

 

Unfortunately that is just how it goes, we all have to learn from our mistakes, which comes at a cost. Buying 300 12" X 12" transfers outright would cost you under 1000 euros delivered. However, if you are able to figure out what happened and why the machine failed, maybe it will help in future progression. 

 

There isn't a DTF printer that won't let you down, not exactly. It's more/less your experience in keeping it in tip top shape and how to quickly diagnose and repair the issues without doing things that ultimately break the machine. someone could take the cheapest and most expensive DTF printer on the market and both would break pretty quickly without the knowledge to run and maintain them properly. I hope that doesn't sound like I am saying you don't know what you are doing, I am just saying it honestly requires you to make those mistakes to learn from or buying from a supplier who is financially responsible for providing you with accurate use instructions/care. That white ink is killer, mixed with the typical user response to those issues, it breaks stuff. Me personally, I have broken over 10,000 euros worth of stuff in the last 2 years. 

 

The best printer I have used is the P5000, built in suction tray, resilient printhead and is twice as fast as the P800. Native for roll printing and offers a dedicated storage position and can clean each channel independently. 

 

The p800 usually dies from head strikes, which a built in suction tray will fix. Bypassing the OEM white ink system on the P5000 and doing the other things I mentioned, it'll run for a long time without extra costs. But again, It is still subject the mistakes. Do one heavy clean mistaking a partially clogged damper as a nozzle clog, the suction can destroy that channel in one clean. 

 

I understand entirely, this stuff is insanely expensive. When we started out we couldn't even buy a $100 B/W laser printer for order sheets. It's been almost 10 years day and night and I am tired to my core- just when we start to make it. 

 

I hope you end up having it work out for you, It's tough in the beginning for sure. Depending on what happened to your first printer, I would consider looking into maybe fixing it instead of deepening the investment. 

[Vfreaks]

5 hours ago, johnson4 said:

Sorun değil, umarım bir şekilde yardımcı olur. 

 

DTF baskılarının kırıldığını hiç duymadım, ancak yıkamadan sonraki hatalar mürekkep, toz, kürleme ve uygulama dahil olmak üzere birden çok şey olabilir. 

 

Ne yazık ki işler böyle yürüyor, hepimiz bir bedeli olan hatalarımızdan ders almak zorundayız. Doğrudan 300 adet 12" X 12" transfer satın almak, teslim edilen 1000 Euro'nun altına mal olur. Bununla birlikte, ne olduğunu ve makinenin neden arızalandığını anlayabilirseniz, belki gelecekteki ilerlemenizde yardımcı olacaktır. 

 

Sizi yarı yolda bırakmayacak bir DTF yazıcı yok, tam olarak değil. Makineyi en iyi durumda tutma ve nihayetinde makineyi bozacak şeyler yapmadan sorunları hızlı bir şekilde teşhis etme ve onarma konusundaki deneyiminiz aşağı yukarı sizin deneyiminizdir. birisi piyasadaki en ucuz ve en pahalı DTF yazıcıyı alabilir ve her ikisi de onları düzgün bir şekilde çalıştırma ve bakımını yapma bilgisi olmadan oldukça hızlı bir şekilde bozulur. Umarım bu, ne yaptığınızı bilmediğinizi söylediğim gibi gelmiyordur, sadece dürüst olmak gerekirse, size doğru bilgiler sunmaktan finansal olarak sorumlu olan bir tedarikçiden öğrenmek veya ondan satın almak için bu hataları yapmanız gerektiğini söylüyorum. talimatları/bakımı kullanın. Bu beyaz mürekkep öldürücüdür, bu sorunlara tipik kullanıcı yanıtıyla birleştiğinde, her şeyi bozar. Ben şahsen, 10'dan fazla kırdım, 

 

Kullandığım en iyi yazıcı, yerleşik emiş tepsisi, dayanıklı yazıcı kafası ve P800'den iki kat daha hızlı olan P5000'dir. Rulo baskı için yereldir ve özel bir depolama konumu sunar ve her kanalı bağımsız olarak temizleyebilir. 

 

p800 genellikle yerleşik bir emme tepsisinin düzelteceği kafa darbelerinden ölür. P5000'deki OEM beyaz mürekkep sistemini atlayarak ve diğer bahsettiğim şeyleri yaparak, ekstra maliyet olmadan uzun süre çalışacaktır. Ama yine de hatalara konu oluyor. Kısmen tıkanmış bir amortisörü nozül tıkanıklığı sanarak ağır bir temizlik yapın, emiş bu kanalı tek bir temizlikte yok edebilir. 

 

Tamamen anlıyorum, bu şey delicesine pahalı. Başladığımızda, sipariş sayfaları için 100 $ S/B lazer yazıcı bile alamıyorduk. Gece gündüz neredeyse 10 yıl oldu ve ben iliklerime kadar yorgunum - tam da başarmaya başladığımızda. 

 

Umarım sonunda senin için çalışır, Başlangıçta zor olduğu kesin. İlk yazıcınızın başına gelenlere bağlı olarak, yatırımı derinleştirmek yerine onu düzeltmeyi düşünebilirim. 

Thank you again for the information you provided... So what are the procedures to be done to convert the p5000 model printer to a dtf printer? Do any hardware changes need to be made?

[johnson4]

7 hours ago, Vfreaks said:

Thank you again for the information you provided... So what are the procedures to be done to convert the p5000 model printer to a dtf printer? Do any hardware changes need to be made?

The P5000 as-is out of the box, if used everyday, cleaned and ink shaken properly can give you 2-3 months of solid rather stress free use. After that, you have to remove the dampers and clean/replace them and flush the white white ink system. I used empty carts and an ink pump to pump water/cleaner in the cartridge through the air vent when installed. Catch the dirty cleaner from the damper side connection until it flows clean. Put it all back, it’ll work another 2-3 months until you need to do it again. 

modification will make your life easier if done from the beginning, but it’s hard to know what you should do until you see it’s faults first hand.

The printer does not like aftermarket dampers in any form, so that can get expensive at $15 an oem damper. I printed a Jig to flush and backflush OEM dampers. Works perfect. I have extra OEM dampers, new, in the event they wear out. So far, none have. I do have a set pre flushed/cleaned for faster swapping. Takes me about 5 minutes to swap the whole set of dampers start to finish when needed without any mess. 
 

I chose to stick with the OEM damper assembly, instead of removing it and using aftermarket dampers. Again, it doesn’t like aftermarket dampers. Instead I printed an adapter and continue to use the OEM setup for cmyk, and use the adapter I made to inject the white ink from an auto circulation/mixing system into the oem damper. 
 

I get 1-3 months usually on the oem dampers before they need flushed. I run an in-line filter, and pressurize my white ink system to oem specs. All I have to do every morning is clean the wiper and do a head clean before they are good for the day. 
 

I also use the p6000, which is very similar to the P5000, except this machine rarely needs the dampers changed/cleaned due to the angle of the printhead. It’s been working 4+ months with only cleaning the wiper/printhead face as needed. Again, same thing for the white ink on this one. 
 

building a solid white ink system is important and worth the extra time before you get started. Ever since doing mine this way, and keeping everything clean, it’s literally been smooth sailing everyday for a very long time. I haven't had a stubborn clog or drop out in almost 6 months. 
 

It’s insanely relieving I have a setup that just works, but I had to make those mistakes to get here. I’ve been printing over 600 transfers a day this whole time without a hiccup from the printers at all. 
 

but that’s me, my environment, and my custom made parts. Yours will be different. 

[Yellowsugga]

Hey everyone. Just found this forum and it's super helpful. Just got a P5000 and would like to convert it to DTF. Is there a FAQ somewhere regarding best practices to do this conversion? I have the refillable carts. Is it best to just switch the dtf carts in and just print and do nozzle checks until the old ink is gone or is it better to use csrts filled with cleaning fluids to flush the lines? 

[johnson4]

1 hour ago, Yellowsugga said:

Hey everyone. Just found this forum and it's super helpful. Just got a P5000 and would like to convert it to DTF. Is there a FAQ somewhere regarding best practices to do this conversion? I have the refillable carts. Is it best to just switch the dtf carts in and just print and do nozzle checks until the old ink is gone or is it better to use csrts filled with cleaning fluids to flush the lines? 

Hi, The OEM ink system in the P5000 seems to clog/fail from the white ink sediment after about 3 months. It can be flushed out, but will need done monthly after that or else you'll run into constant issues. If you don't and you suck the white ink sludge into the printhead from the damper- that's when it gets really expensive to fix. 

You also need to consider the white ink needs mixed and circulated, if not, that's quite a bit of waste every time you go to use the machine and build up in the damper. Dampers usually get filled with the white ink pigment after 2-3 months as well. 

 

All in all, it's a learning experience and you'll make mistakes. Your question is preference based, so technically you could do either or. 

Other than that, it works well. 

That's my experience with the P5000 anyway. 

Edited July 7, 2023 by johnson4

[Yellowsugga]

Thanks for the quick reply. I have been reading your post about flushing the system to get rid of the white ink sludge buildup and I'll definitely do that once I start printing with this thing. My question was more of what's the recommended solution for converting and flushing out the oem inks of an existing non dtf p5000. I do understand the basic concepts but was wo during if there was any insight regarding the first flush and addition of the DTF inks. From a practical perspective just adding the new carts and printing a bunch of purge files or performing nozzle checks seems the more economical.way vs having a second set of cartridges filled with cleaning solution (piezo flush for example). I'll do some more reading and see if thus has been discussed previously.  Thanks again. 

[johnson4]

11 minutes ago, Yellowsugga said:

Thanks for the quick reply. I have been reading your post about flushing the system to get rid of the white ink sludge buildup and I'll definitely do that once I start printing with this thing. My question was more of what's the recommended solution for converting and flushing out the oem inks of an existing non dtf p5000. I do understand the basic concepts but was wo during if there was any insight regarding the first flush and addition of the DTF inks. From a practical perspective just adding the new carts and printing a bunch of purge files or performing nozzle checks seems the more economical.way vs having a second set of cartridges filled with cleaning solution (piezo flush for example). I'll do some more reading and see if thus has been discussed previously.  Thanks again. 

It's just a preference type of thing. You can do either. Me myself, I wouldn't want a set filled with cleaner for this machine so I would flush the OEM with the DTF straight away. The previous times I flushed with cleaner then aftermarket inks it was generally just a waste of time. 

 

You can do a ink flush in the admin menu on the printer. 1-2 of those will flush out all of the OEM ink and done if you load the DTF ink directly. 

 

Some people swear by flushing the OEM ink first, or the other way around. Either way hasn't shown any ill effect for me. For the P5000 specifically, all of mine have been new. For other models, I just went straight to the ink I wanted to use. I didn't want the extra carts wear and tear on the cap pump or the printhead. Yes, I have done it before, I just found it unnecessary. 

Edited July 7, 2023 by johnson4

[Yellowsugga]

Thanks for the suggestion and clarification. That's the method I was leaning towards too as well. I'll try this tonight. Thanks again. 

[Yellowsugga]

One quick question, I'm using CADLINK Digital Factory 10 and it shows the following colour profile. Should I follow this profile or can I change this in CADLINK? Follow this profile, I would put 

 

Yellow in channel 2 where LLK should be

Cyan in channel 4 where Light Cyan should be 

Magenta in channel 5 where Light Magenta should be

Black where Light Black should be in position 9

White as indicated in the channels indicated.

 

A Few Questions:

1. What do I do with the green and orange channels (Leave them as is or cleaning fluids?)

2. Why is Cadlink using channel 2 for Yellow instead of the OEM Yellow Channel?

3. Should I really fill all 5 channels with white right away as indicated? Or should I leave some empty in case some channels get clogged. Is there a way in CADLINK to turn off some of the channels?

Thanks in advance

 

 

[johnson4]

38 minutes ago, Yellowsugga said:

One quick question, I'm using CADLINK Digital Factory 10 and it shows the following colour profile. Should I follow this profile or can I change this in CADLINK? Follow this profile, I would put 

 

Yellow in channel 2 where LLK should be

Cyan in channel 4 where Light Cyan should be 

Magenta in channel 5 where Light Magenta should be

Black where Light Black should be in position 9

White as indicated in the channels indicated.

 

A Few Questions:

1. What do I do with the green and orange channels (Leave them as is or cleaning fluids?)

2. Why is Cadlink using channel 2 for Yellow instead of the OEM Yellow Channel?

3. Should I really fill all 5 channels with white right away as indicated? Or should I leave some empty in case some channels get clogged. Is there a way in CADLINK to turn off some of the channels?

Thanks in advance

 

 

You can change the ink order. Cadlink only allows you to use 8 channels for this driver. CMYKWWWWXX. Two channels are disabled. You choose which two. You can do 6 white, or 4. I did 4 originally and used cleaner for the other two. 
 

me personally I did the left side white and right side cmyk. You use a cleaner cart in the matte black. 
 

Acro also allows you to set up the ink channels, some other rips do not so I would make sure to commit before having to flush if you decide to change the rip to one that doesn’t support changing the link channels.

 

the original drivers in my side are setup as OEM for CMYK to be CMYK for DTF. The “light” inks are white and Orange/green. Which, of course that can be changed. 
 

Cadlink doesn’t allow you to turn off 3 channels, or 4. It’s kinda weird actually. I can run the P5000 on two white channels, they just don’t let you disable them.

[Yellowsugga]

Thanks so much for the clarification. I think your setup makes the most sense to me as well. Hopefully it works for me as well as it does for you. 

[johnson4]

7 hours ago, Yellowsugga said:

Thanks so much for the clarification. I think your setup makes the most sense to me as well. Hopefully it works for me as well as it does for you. 

Hopefully it does. They’ve been good. I learn something new all the time so don’t beat yourself up if you break something. I do it all the time, it’s how I learn. 

[Yellowsugga]

Sorry I just re read your post and you say you are using the CMYK on the right side. Does this mean you are putting yellow in the LK (middle) slot? Previously, I thought I would use the oem yellow slot for yellow (3rd slot left side). Any benefit from having the left side all white (is it due to nozzle cleaning pairs etc)? Also, when you say you are using a cleaner cartridge for the Matt Black, does that mean you are just filling up a refillable with cleaning solution or is there a specific cleaning cartridge. I do have the OEM carts still, is there any harm in leaving the oem matt black cartridge in there (same as the channels left blank).

Sorry for all the specific questions, as usually I'd just go with my gut instinct and do whatever, but having broken so many DTF printers, I've learned sometimes its best to learn from the pros before trying things on my own since the parts for these things are rare and often expensive. Learned my lesson breaking a 5K Canadian DTF station A3+R which was pure junk and such an over priced POS.

[Yellowsugga]

On 7/8/2023 at 7:09 AM, johnson4 said:

Hopefully it does. They’ve been good. I learn something new all the time so don’t beat yourself up if you break something. I do it all the time, it’s how I learn. 

After tinkering with this all night, I finally got this to work. Thanks again for all your help. This printer is so "smart" compared to the Chinese printers its crazy. One question , I have is even though I'm using the Epson SC-5000 DTV v2 printer profile, I don't seem to be able to print past 1440x720 as that's the only profile in Cadlink. The other option is "Default" with my other printers (1430 and A3+R from DTF Station), I'm able to chose between multiple printing options. Is there a way to do this with this printer?

[johnson4]

9 hours ago, Yellowsugga said:

After tinkering with this all night, I finally got this to work. Thanks again for all your help. This printer is so "smart" compared to the Chinese printers its crazy. One question , I have is even though I'm using the Epson SC-5000 DTV v2 printer profile, I don't seem to be able to print past 1440x720 as that's the only profile in Cadlink. The other option is "Default" with my other printers (1430 and A3+R from DTF Station), I'm able to chose between multiple printing options. Is there a way to do this with this printer?

You can do

multiple resolutions in the printer settings menu in cadlink. I think up up 1440x2880. The “speed” setting is also important to consider. Just leave it at 1440x720 and bump it to production instead of “ fastest”. It’s basically 1440x1440. 
 

it is a good machine, my problem is the speed. Are the Chinese machines faster? 

[Yellowsugga]

Thanks I'll have a look in the settings but I couldn't find any other ones but I'll try the production setting as you suggested. 

The DTF station A3+R was just a 1390 with some added features which all broke. Blew the orinthead and motherboard after less than 2 months of use. Can't believe I got tricked into paying close to 5k CAD for that POS. The Canadian retailer I bought it from stopped selling that model shortly after I bought it because they had too much problems with it and the after sales support was insane. 

It was super slow barely getting 8-10 Sqft per hour. When I took it apart to replace the motherboard I realized how badly made it was. They also sold me the 13 inch shaker for 8k CAD. Luckily I can use it with this p5000. 

They offered to take the printer back and reimburse me 4k for it if I upgrade to the XL2 24" dual.head printer for another 18k CAD. Luckily I learned my lesson and started oing some research before making another huge mistake. I realized how bad that DTF station printer was when I converted my 10 year old 1430 for 60$ in carts and it printer almost as good of not better than that 5k piece of junk. 

Super glad I got this p5000 and if it last me a year I'll be happy and pick up another one or a p6000. At under 3k these are way better options than the 15-25k dtf station crap. 

 

 

[johnson4]

6 hours ago, Yellowsugga said:

Thanks I'll have a look in the settings but I couldn't find any other ones but I'll try the production setting as you suggested. 

The DTF station A3+R was just a 1390 with some added features which all broke. Blew the orinthead and motherboard after less than 2 months of use. Can't believe I got tricked into paying close to 5k CAD for that POS. The Canadian retailer I bought it from stopped selling that model shortly after I bought it because they had too much problems with it and the after sales support was insane. 

It was super slow barely getting 8-10 Sqft per hour. When I took it apart to replace the motherboard I realized how badly made it was. They also sold me the 13 inch shaker for 8k CAD. Luckily I can use it with this p5000. 

They offered to take the printer back and reimburse me 4k for it if I upgrade to the XL2 24" dual.head printer for another 18k CAD. Luckily I learned my lesson and started oing some research before making another huge mistake. I realized how bad that DTF station printer was when I converted my 10 year old 1430 for 60$ in carts and it printer almost as good of not better than that 5k piece of junk. 

Super glad I got this p5000 and if it last me a year I'll be happy and pick up another one or a p6000. At under 3k these are way better options than the 15-25k dtf station crap. 

 

 

Yeah, that’s crazy. I bought one conversion, it was an R2400 about 2 years ago. Not one successful print it was so riddled with problems. 
 

I’ve been doing this since the DTG days so I know Epson, and I know what works. 
 

I considered the XL2, a true Chinese machine and not a conversion. But the print speeds are so inflated and not really described. One video said that machine can do 100+ an hour. 
 

the P5000 does 21+ an hour in the fastest mode in Cadlink. There are more advanced settings available in Cadlink, you may need to enable “ advanced” settings to see them. Resolutions, ICC profiles, all kinds of stuff. 
 

if you haven’t dedicated yourself to a RIP, I would consider Acro or something other than Cadlink, I’ve been selling transfers for over a year now and can’t just swap around, people get angry. Cadlink has more grain to it than other rips at the same settings. It prints great colors, but on the lighter colors isn’t as solid as I’d like. 

 

[Yellowsugga]

Yes that's exactly what I heard about the XL2. One of the biggest problems for us here in Canada is the support for these machines. Also the retail price of almost 30k CAD for the XL2 is insane. 

Id rather buy 10 of these p5000's and throw them away as they break. And like you said needing 2 heads at over 1k each that's like buying a new p5000 each time. 

I'll give Acro rip a try. I haven't used Cadlink much so I'm not vested in it. My priority is quality and speed. Would you say Acro rip.is faster?

On another note, I'm looking for a second/backup printer. Would you recommend a p800 after having both the p5000 and p800? The only drawback of the p5000 is the size vs the p800. In terms and speed and quality of the machine and print, what would you recommend? I'd even consider the p6000 since I can get one brand new for around 3k. Only drawback is the size. 

[Yellowsugga]

On 6/9/2022 at 1:40 PM, johnson4 said:

Here I will just post random information about the P5000, may or may not be useful. With time I will post timings for The P5000 print speeds, how well it works and overall tips and tricks for it's use. 

 

Two things I DO NOT like about this printer- It has an ink system similar to the P600, Meaning it uses a diaphragm pump for the ink. This was a point of failure on the P600's. I was hoping/expecting an actual pressurized ink system like on the P800. It has an actual air pump that pressurizes the ink cartridges with air. This prevents color drop outs, clogs, and many other perks compared to a gravity fed/diaphragm pump system. On my p600's, this was ALWAYS a point of failure on 8+ machines I ran for years. While it was avoidable with 2-3 month cleaning schedule to flush the manifold, it took alot of time to complete and was a pain. To reiterate, the ink pump in the p600 uses diaphram type pumps for each channel that is in contact with the ink, rather than air pushing the ink to the head. These springs and rubber valves and tiny holes eventually get " sludged" and stop working correctly from the white ink pigment. 

 

Hopefully there is a better designed system with in the P5000. 

 

The p5000 has a built in self-feeding roll holder that fits the DTF rolls perfectly. It has a vacuum table to prevent head strikes. The 200 ML carts are resettable with a chip resitter. It's not to me, because it will actually tell me how much ink is remaining instead of guessing or running out like with chipless firmware. for smaller cartridges or CISS systems this is very annoying, but here it plays nicely into the whole idea. 

 

The cartridges themselves are $3.50 each, or $35 per set of 10. The chips are $32 a set, so $67 plus shipping from overseas. if you buy a few sets and some replacement parts it makes them less than $85 a set with chips. Resetters were about $35 each, one for the waste one for the chips. for about $250 you can have yourself two full sets of chipped carts and two resetters- all you need to get started. 

 

After that, Cadlink does 14 12" X 12" prints with this machine per hour. It's not bad at all for cadlink print speeds. I have yet to test anything else but I will have print time and quality comparisons like I have done in the past with cadlink, acro 10.5, ekprint. 

 

I like that is it big and open, it's easy to work on, I feel like Epson will discontinue this model within the next 12 months though, so I'm trying to get my testing out of the way post-haste. 

 

I have high hopes for this machine, I have been asking all of the " top" people around about this printer for about a year. I'm glad they ignored me when what I said upset them ( simply asking for facts from them). Now I have it first hand because of this. I have a feeling this will shock some people, However I have expected it from this machine for over a year. It's not a pissing contest for me. For me, It is the thrill of learning about a new printer and learning any new tricks I can find to better the cause and bringing actual backed-up information to the table. I have a reason for everything I do, and can prove it. I'm not here to make friends, likes, or sell you something. I'm here because this forum brought my idea's and hopes to life years ago. I like helping people with a real effort involved, not blatantly giving out answers without any reason other than an opinion. If I don't have time to explain why or what testing led to my conclusion, I don't say it because this is how misinformation spreads.

 

So anything posted within this thread is from hands on use, and in some cases I may be wrong. While I do test multiple times and look for a repeatable pattern,  Please question me if you like It helps me verify further with more evidence my beliefs from an educated/tested standpoint. I'm not here to make a " win" for myself. I am here to just as a whole, or community, build up the knowledge on things so the people who are involved working from different angles can all reap the rewards as a whole. That's the idea anyway. 

Could you please post the link to where you purchased the refillable cartridges and chips? I'd rather buy from somewhere reputable and where we have first hand experience that it works as advertised.