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cardudenc

printing vinyl

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ok , so I see this subject brought up a few times on here. someone awhile back posted he had decent luck using an Epson artisan printer. with I take it using the pigment ink cartridges that comes with the printer. then the most recent discussion.  with this last post im unsure if the previous post had the luck he stated. well I have a couple Epson wf 7610s im  messing with , I bought refillable carts, and the pigment ink with Htv yellow . I was hoping to make some heat transfers and maybe start printing some sm decals. but again with reading the last post, seems decals are not possible with this equipment. this past week I found an hp wide format printer, but after researching it, it also uses pigment inks. its model t 770. its been sitting so ive looked up printheads and ink carts, both hp and aftermarket. printheads are cheap compared to other wide format printers. and the co I bought my Epson refillable carts from offer them for this printer. also reasonable. any one ever tried to convert 1 of these printers to latex or any other ink that can be used to print on vinyl? or the same old question of being able to print on vinyl with a pigment or dye ink

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I would think this would be far more trouble than worth.  But I've heard of some that replaced or added the carriage, tubs, inks, heater, curing module, waste tank,  and got a printer not designed for it to spit out latex.  I never heard the whole details.   I suspected BS.  The cost of all that would be about the same as a new printer.  

Short answer.  No.  You can't do it.  I am not even sure with a latex printer they will work with printable HTV.  I have only heard of solvent or eco-solvent working with printable HTV.

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The pigment ink is great for JPSS on white shirts. I use 3G on darks but don't love the feel when done. The pigment inks hold up pretty good compared to dye based inks but won't work on any type of actual vinyl including printable HTV. There is no cheap option out there or I would already be doing it too. As dc mentioned there are a few models that people have converted over but I would be very suspect of trying to do that unless it's a specialist company doing it and even then you are really just polishing a turd and probably going to find in the long run that it was a waste of $$$. 

I think we are both Jeep guys. Think of it as someone spending thousands trying to upgrade a Dana 30 front axle to make it tough enough to rock crawl. Yeah you can buy expensive alloy shafts, put a truss on it and even trade out the tubes but at the end of the day it's not going to hold up with 37's with an ARB as compared to a Dana 60 or even a Dana 44. 

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2 hours ago, Wildgoose said:

I think we are both Jeep guys. Think of it as someone spending thousands trying to upgrade a Dana 30 front axle to make it tough enough to rock crawl. Yeah you can buy expensive alloy shafts, put a truss on it and even trade out the tubes but at the end of the day it's not going to hold up with 37's with an ARB as compared to a Dana 60 or even a Dana 44. 

@Wildgoose well that just reminded me what kind of jeep guy u r. lol. I now rem the specs on your last jeep. just like as u was explaining, most don't get the differences there.   I probably did as usual and put too much info of different things I was looking to do. and on this other printer im looking at . will try to do better

with the Epson printers, I have 1 set up with refillable cartridges that im going to use for make heat transfers.  the 2nd 1 if possible would like to set up to print sm decals and labels.

now for the 1 I was wondering about converting/changing type of ink. its a hp T770.  it seems to b priced cheap enough, but if all I can do is the same stuff as my 7610 just wider, not sure I need to invest in that right now. I started researching cost replacements, printheads, in carts and anything else I could think of since it is a used machine. and that's when I realized it uses the same ink as my 7610. so found out it only had 3 2 color heads. which cost less than $100 ea. and the same co. I ordered my refillable cartridges for my 7610 offered cartridges for it. after discussing printing ink with my friend @Primal Decals realized the issues with trying to print vinyl with this ink. so looked on US cutters site at HP printers they offer and noticed the replacement print heads looked similar and were close to the same cost and that's why I wondered if a conversion is possible.

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