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I have owned a WF 7010 inkjet printer for months.  I haven't even taken it out of the box yet because I am not sure how to use it to print on vinyl.  I mainly want to 'print' decals, then contour cut it using my Graphtec CE5000-60.  Both of which I have no clue on how to accomplish this.  Is there anyone here that I could PM to ask some really dumb questions, without ridicule?  I have watched numerous videos and I have read everything that I can before asking for help here.  Any and all help would be greatly appreciated. 

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Are you looking for outdoor durability or just indoors. I read on here somewhere about a special vinyl you can print on with your type of printer but outdoor durability is an issue. Epson doesn't say you can print on vinyl with printer.

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Paper Types:

Plain paper

EPSON® Bright White Paper

Brochure & Flyer Paper Matte Double-sided

Presentation Paper Matte

Premium Presentation Paper Matte

Premium Presentation Paper Matte Double-sided

Ultra Premium Presentation Paper

Photo Paper Glossy

Premium Photo Paper Glossy

Ultra Premium Photo Paper Glossy

Premium Photo Paper Semi-gloss

Photo Quality Adhesive Sheets

Iron-on Cool Peel Transfer paper

The link for Epson is

http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/jsp/Product.do?sku=C11CB59201

If I find the name of the vinyl you need I will post a link.

Jay

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Papilio is the name of this product I think. Can't help with the contour cut as I don't have a graphtec , yet. Sure someone will chime in on this for you.

Jay

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Thank you Jay for the information.  I have an idea of what type of vinyl to purchase to print on. (Sihl Inkjet Vinyl & Papillo) I would like to create indoor and outdoors decals.  From my understanding, for outdoor decals, I will have to over laminate (eg. Oraguard Film Clear) or use spray laminate them on them so they will last.  I have soooo many questions that are probably easily answered, but I cannot for the life of me find them online.  I am concerned about the ink clogging or drying out should this printer not be used daily.  Although I just read that I can use it daily to print up documents etc. (duh)  What I don't understand is, should the graphic be vectorized before I print it or just a JPEG?  I really haven't tried contour cutting with my cutter.  So I have to learn this also.

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As long as quality is high enough you shouldn't vector graphics. As far as drying I have had 4 epsons and they don't like to sit idle. My most recent is an all in 1 workforce 435 set up with pigment ink mainly for shirt transfers but I use it for invoices etc. just so it doesn't sit idle. I never let it go more than a few days without printing something. This is why I've had so many epsons, i was slow to learn about head clogs.

Jay

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Thank you once more Jay.  I think that it is time to just unpack this thing and play with it.  Can't figure out why this is so intimidating to me!  But if anyone else would like to jump in with their information/opinions it would be greatly appreciated.

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What kind of ink do you have for your printer?  When it comes to standard inkjet printers there are 3 major types, dye-based, pigment-based and high-temp inks.

 

Dye-based are best for printing color photographs and ordinary office work and sadly, that is about it.  They can be used to print on inkjet t-shirt transfers but the colors tend to run and wash out when the shirts are laundered and don't last as long.  They do not hold up well under direct sunlight and will fade.

 

High-temp inks, also called Dye Sub inks, are used exclusively for dye sublimation work and shouldn't be used for anything else.  For one thing they're expensive and for another, the colors won't be very good as they need to be heat pressed so the dye particles can sublimate (convert from a solid phase to a gaseous phase without going through a liquid phase first) and chemically bind to a polyester surface before they achieve their full brilliance.  A picture printed with dye sub inks will look very drab and dreary while it's still on the paper.  Once the image transfers to polyester it is almost impossible to remove, although they can be faded away by long term exposure to direct sunlight.

 

Pigment-based inks are used for ordinary office printing and also for printing t-shirt transfers.  The colors in pigment-based inks consist of microscopic particles of color rather than liquid dyes. Once the carrier liquid evaporates the pigment particles will stay lodged in the fibers of paper or fabric and are not as easily removable as dyed colors.

 

Because the pigment particles are suspended in the liquid, they can settle to the bottom of an ink cartridge and cause blockages over time (see Richard's support notes for pigment users at http://www.cobraink.com/supportphotos/support.htm).  This same issue can apply to high-temp (dye sub) inks because they also contain tiny particles suspended in liquid.  Dye based inks are all liquid and do not suffer from this issue and don't need to have daily/weekly printing done to prevent clogging, but they can still eventually dry out and so regular use is recommended.

 

If you're planning to put images on vinyl for cutting, you have two choices and each one depends on what kind of ink you have:

 

If you have high-temp (dye sub) ink, then you will need to purchase a vinyl product like SubliDecal or SubliWrap, but with either of those you will not be able to print directly onto the vinyl.  You must first print your image (mirrored) on a sheet of transfer paper and then heat press the image directly onto the vinyl and discard the transfer sheet - you can watch a

of the lovely Brittany demonstrating the process.  These can then be contour cut if desired and/or laminated.

 

If you have dye-based or pigment-based inks, then your only option* is to buy an adhesive vinyl that accepts aqueous inks, like the Papilio vinyls previously mentioned in this thread.  These can be directly printed on to and laminated, then contour cut if needed.  You do not need to laminate, but if you plan to use the stickers outdoors or in direct sunlight they will not last long. Note, that even laminated they will not last very long.  Aqueous inks are not intended for long term UV exposure and will fade with dye-based inks fading before pigment-based inks.

 

The Papilio website says this. "This will be entirely dependent upon the ink used to print the image. Pigment and solvent inks last much longer than dye-based inks and coupled with a laminate, may last for months at a time." - remember the words "may last months" if you're planning to sell this with any sort of warranty.

 

I have ordered a 10 pack of both the Contouring White and the White Waterproof vinyls and plan to conduct a test.  I'm going to print a sample small color image (with pigment-based inks) multiple times and leave one copy unprotected, one copy protected with Oracal 651 transparent and a 3rd copy protected with Oraguard 2100 and put them on the top edge of the tailgate on my truck so they are facing straight up and take photographs on a regular basis to see how they hold up.

 

If anyone with a solvent printer would like to participate in this experiment, I will send you a copy of the image file and one of each of my samples if you will send me two copies in return - one with laminate and one without-  printed with your solvent printer.  We can each put our samples out and see how they hold up in different parts of the country.  I am not expecting great results out of the aqueous printed stickers, but I want to be fair and test under real world conditions.  Anyone up for it?

 

*You could also print on to something like Avery brand adhesive label material and laminate that - I have done that for two customers who wanted a full color image that was cheap and they didn't care about how long it lasted - one was a gag gift and the other was exclusively for indoor use.  I do not advertise this as a product line nor do I recommend that others do - it is possible, but it is not high quality and will not last.

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You don't always have to print anything just clean the heads through the printer utilities. Technically it's a waste of ink though, but if you have nothing to print its an option. I print on mine daily so no issues. I use it for inkjet transfers and everyday use. Mines the epson wf7510 I also have an Epson C88 for sublimation and an Epson R200 for printing on CDs DVDs. You could say I'm an Epson man which is true I tried liking HP printers but couldn't.

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OWJones, thank you so much for all of the above information.  Thank you to Kissfan76 for your input.

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I had to switch to Ricoh for sublimation because my sub printer sometimes sits idle for long periods of time and my epsons didn't like that one bit. The Ricoh does automatic maintenance and hasn't given me any problems in the 2 years I've had it.

Jay

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The Papilio products are good but you might look at INKPRESS Adhesive Vinyl as they carry several great vinyl products..I have ordered and am still using AV131920 13 x 19 sheet when doing print-to-contour cuts...Hope this may help as well..

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Thanks to all for the info. and suggestions.  Wish me luck!

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Can you schedule a head cleaning on a regular basis or is there software that will print something on a schedule to keep the print heads clean?

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Can you schedule a head cleaning on a regular basis or is there software that will print something on a schedule to keep the print heads clean?

 

There is a program that does it, but I can't for the life of me remember what it's called - it was around $35-40 as I recall, which I thought seemed high for what it does.  They make different versions of the program depending on how many colors of ink your printer has and what brand it is - as I recall the 4 varieties were Epson 4 ink, Epson 6 ink, All other brands 4 ink and All other brands 6 ink - but I wouldn't swear to that...

 

I just added a recurring weekly notice to my Google Calendar and it pops up on my phone to remind me to print something.  I usually print a sheet of my dye-sub business cards so I'm not wasting ink on something I'll never use...

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I wonder if I couldn't set something up in Scheduler to print something small.

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Thanks, I will check it out. I bought the WF1100 that was listed on here and I'm anxious to try it out.

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Hey Jones Ill help with your experiment. I have an 1100 and avery vinyl. I can laminate with frog juice. 

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I realize this is an old thread, and apologize. I was trying to find out if Ow Jones did the test and if so, does anyone have a link to it? I searched but cannot find it (on my phone for a couple hours). Thd

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No, I never got around to doing that test.

 

I did do a dye vs. pigment test on photo paper and hung them both in a window that gets plenty of sunlight.  I covered the outer thirds of each page with two different laminates, one being Oracal 651 clear and the other OraGuard to see what impact they would have.

 

They hung for several weeks and it was clearly obvious that the dye print was failing fast.  Even with the UV protection from the laminate, it wasn't going to last long.   The pigment ink held up well with and without the laminate.

 

Unfortunately I kind of forgot about the experiment and the sun cooked the masking tape I was using to hold the prints in the window and when I found them on the floor behind some furniture, I had no idea how long it had been since they had fallen down, but there was still no distinct difference between the laminated vs. un-laminated pigment print.

 

I have already converted the printer from dye to sublimation ink, so no way to go back and re-start the test. :-(

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