There have been repeated questions about dyesub and printers in this forum. I though I would chime in with our results.
We have the epson 1280 and sawgrass bulk delivery system for dye sublimation.
This printer sits for a couple of weeks and then we use it non-stop for hours/days on end producing transfers. After sitting the printer needs about 4-6 cleanings and then it is good to go and produces flawless results.
We have a lot of orders for coffee mugs/mouse pads/other dye-receptive products and this is just an amazing product.
We were up in Fresno over the weekend and saw one of those carts in the local mall with mug presses, a camera, plate press, etc. They had samples on the cart and I can only say they looked like crap. The images were all washed out. I didn't check the prices but they really looked bad.
Having said that, I can only say that having samples of each product we have produced has done more to generate sales than anything else we can do.
We use the DK3 mug press. I know, I could use mug wraps but I find that while the mugs are cooking I can do other things like print more transfers, trim them and make ready the next mugs for the press. We also work on shirts and other promotional products while the mugs are cooking so it works for us.
I don't think there is anykind of pre treatment to sublimate on 100% cotton shirts. THey do have this new system called chromablast. You can print on cotton shirts without that ugly transfer look and feel, but you have to buy the C88 printer and inks for it. The inks are $75.. YOu can check out novachromeusa.com.
confused with all this ink lingo, can you print 100% cotton t-shirts with your set up ?
There is a way to do this with a paper that is really a fabric. It is called Black Magic Patch Plus. You print right way and press it on the shirt. The 'paper' is white so that will show white for what isn't printed. We got a one sheet sample from NovaChrome but have not tried it yet. Maybe next week.
For 50/50 shirts you can pretreat with CLC paper and then press the image. We will be trying that out this week. We do have some 50/50's that look ok with small prints on them. They are white tshirts and polo's.
I don't think there is anykind of pre treatment to sublimate on 100% cotton shirts. THey do have this new system called chromablast. You can print on cotton shirts without that ugly transfer look and feel, but you have to buy the C88 printer and inks for it. The inks are $75.. YOu can check out novachromeusa.com.
We requested a sample of a printed shirt from Coastal. It looked ok but there are a few things you should know first.
1. They said the paper will leave a film but it will wash away in the first wash. It didn't.
2. After washing the image didn't look so pretty good.
3. If you pull the fabric at all the image cracks like crazy.
My impression is this just puts ink on top of the shirt and doesn't really look as good or perform as well as screen printing or dye-sub. I would have purchased this system right away if the results looked better.
I would encourage you to get a sample of this before buying it.
dyesub results with epson 1280 
