gcextreme

Looking to get into Sublimation..

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Cobra builds the printers, if you ordered with the CIS tanks.

I got concerned on mine after a couple days and emailed them.
They replied the next day that they will ship and email me the tracking when they get it built.

A couple days later, the emailed me the tracking and a few days after that, I got my printer.

 

It was a little over a week from the time I ordered, to the time I got mine.

 

As Wildgoose said, they lack on the notification, but I have no complaints about getting my orders from them.

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They're just a little more relaxed about life over there. On the upside you can call and actually talk to Richard and he will walk you through things if you are having any kind of trouble. Great guy. 

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gave him a call... it shipped this afternoon, according to the UPS tracking number i should have it Friday.

 

i have a few more sublimation questions....

 

1. What program do you use for printing? and printing to size, like for a coffee mug or dog tag, etc. I know you have to Mirror the image.

 

2. Where do u get your phone case blanks from? and what heat press do u use? just a shirt press or what? 

 

3. For shirts, are polyester shirts the only ones u can use??

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For me (and I'm new at sublimation)

 

1. I use Adobe Illustrator for printing and AI is easy to design for size.

 

2. I have gotten my blanks from Conde but they aren't cheap and their shipping cost is high.

 

3. 100% poly is best but I have done some on a little lower percentage that were ok. The nice part is I have used all kinds of poly shirts with success so I haven't felt like I have been constrained to a supplier like the blanks. I will say that the Vapor apparel is really thick and feel more like cotton that most you will find elsewhere but I have a hard time selling white shirts to most of my clients so the sublimation thing hasn't been what I'd hoped for my apparel line. I have done some sports jerseys for a couple clients who loved them but regular people don't usually pick 100% poly white shirts.

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Thanks Wildgoose...working on setting up my Adobe CS6 for it.

So do i just import jpgs, or bmp, or even png files, and it will print it..or must i vector them?

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No need for vectors with printing in fact vectoring most high color images usually look funky. You will want to have images that are high resolution so they are big enough to print without having to scale them up. Scaling down is no problems but up will pixelate and look bad. 

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Got my printer setup, but having color issues..

Not sure how to fix this.

20150603_105801_zpssxplwutp.jpg

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I did a head cleaning, it helped some.

What paper/ink setting should I use for this paper?

I have options like plain paper, glossy, semi-gloss, etc..

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For sublimation you want matte finish and you want to use the boarderless size choice which will tell the printer it's a pic and puts more ink out. At least mine does. 

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Turn the quality up to it's highest setting

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GC- I have the 7620 so not sure that they are exactly the same but when you load the paper set the printer should ask the size and type. Make the type matte then in CS6 you will have the option for Matte finsh best quality or something worded like that (Am not at my workstation to look) and also in CS6 you will have the size setting in the general part of the Print dialog box that comes up when you go to print. You will want to choose the size in CS6 that says 13"x 19" Borderless (Or whatever size you are using). Choosing the borderless definitley made a huge difference in the output for mine. You will also have option in one of those pages of that print dialog that let you choose the profile and you can print mirrored from there in one page where it asks for upright or downright reading. I wish I was at home to give you more perfect instructions.

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I have the printer paper set to matte.

But in CS5 in the Print settings, theres alot of different options, but none that u listed

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It will be in the box that comes up when you press print. Pulls up a box that has tabs that are listed Color management will be the one that lets you select your color profile and it will have some number visible but when you click the pull down it will open and let you see the profiles you installed from Cobra.

 

The Output page is where you can choose up of down for mirroring 

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Right below the color profile box is the rendering intent and there are a few choices there too. I think relative is default and it seems to do pretty good most of the time. once in a while I will try one of the others out if I'm having color issues but I have not had to do this on Dye-Sub only occasionally with regular transfers over on my other printer. 

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Ok i havent installed any profiles from Cobra..all i did was install the software fr the printer that came on the epson disk.

Also the print head seems to be clean now..

20150603_114957_zpsmiiekjim.jpg

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You will have to get the profiles from Cobra and they don't post them online the same as they used to because people were sniping them. I have a mac so I needed a different set than you will. It has different settings for different substrates too. If you print off a windows there is a good chance everything I told you could be totally different process for setting it up. Mac's interact with printers differently from what I understand. You can call and talk to Richard in person and he'll get you squared away. 

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Ok i went to their website, and their profiles page, filled out their form.

I gotta close up and head to my other job, hopefully i can get this all tuned in and working great soon. Already have a few people wanting coffee mugs.

Thanks

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Got my color profiles, got it setup and after about 15 attempts of printing i finally found the right setup.

Ok my first full color photo attempt on a mug...got a little bleeding at the bottom...is this due to pressure in the heat press?

20150604_113731_zpszvwqgjcd.jpg

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Can't print that close to the bottom when using a press. Heat gets sucked into the base and the mug doesn't get hot enough there

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Can't print that close to the bottom when using a press. Heat gets sucked into the base and the mug doesn't get hot enough there

 

You'll get the same issue when imprinting too close to the handle, too.  The handle and the bottom of the mug act as heat sinks and draw heat away from the rest of the mug.

To get edge-to-edge coverage, you need a thermal wrap and to put it in an oven where the whole thing can come up to temp.

 

I see it's wet in the picture - please tell me you didn't dunk it water to help it cool...

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Yeah i dunked it in room temp water...the videos i watched on youtube said to do it.

The ink was already bleeding like that as soon as i took the paper off.

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That's not bleeding. More likely it's not hot enough at the bottom to fully sublimate and don't dunk mugs. I know it used to be recommended but it tends to cause crackling in the finish and is generally frowned upon now.

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