CenCoastDesigns

Our shop is mainly a screen printing shop, but I have been using JPSS heat transfers on white shirts for short runs or one-off shirts. We have an Epson 1400 printer printing our heat transfers. How difficult would a switch over to sublimation be?
Would it be a matter of getting the sublimation inks and new cartridges from somewhere like inkjetcarts.us and sublimation paper or is it much more complicated.
I have read the sticky at the top and some of the other threads, but I haven't really found a simplified answer. Forgive me if I missed something.

 

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Earl Smith

I run an Epson1400 for my sublimation printing.
You will need to change the cartridges to ones with subli ink or buy a bulk ink system. Bulk ink is much cheaper. Flush the old ink out before you install the subli ink. Very easy to do.
Better still, why not buy another Epson 1400 and run your two systems side by side.
Earl

 

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EnMartian

Important to remember that sublimation ONLY works on 100% polyester or items that are coated with a special polymer coating (tiles, mugs, etc). With that in mind, a switchover is relatively painless. You'll need sublimation ink, paper, and either an ICC profile (for Artainium inks) or the Powerdriver (for Sublijet inks) for that printer. With the powerdriver, you can do a power cleaning, which will in effect flush through a good amount of ink and rid your system of the original ink, thus leaving you with sublimation ink in the system.
If you're looking to get into sublimation though and maybe still do transfers, I'd recommend getting a Ricoh instead of another 1400. The GX5050 does a great job with virtually no maintenance for just a little more than the 1400 and is a whole lot faster. Only drawback is that you are limited to 8.5" x 14". If the print size is an issue, get another 1400 like Earl suggested.

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