Discuss the various aspects of heat press technology. Transfer paper, inks, plastisol transfers, vinyl cutters, printers, commercial usage, durability, suppliers, etc.
Just thought I'd share this. I bought an Oki C3400 and am using for the first time at a show this weekend. I'm not impressed. It has melted the DuracottonHT paper twice and the color reproduction is nothing like my C8800. Reducing the paper weight setting fixes the melting issue, but then the toner does not stick to the paper properly. I'll be taking this printer back and taking advantage of staples 30 day exchange policy. I think I'll go with the C5800 instead. It's only $200 more. If I understand correctly, The C5800 is basically a smaller version of the C8800, so it should produce similar results.
Correction...It's the C5500 I'll be upgrading to. I'm unclear as to whether the 3400 and 5500 use the same print technology and toner. Same as the C8800 that is.
Last edited by rrc62; September 29th, 2007 at 03:03 PM.
the oki 3400 and 5500 are different.. the 5500 and 5800 are basically the same except the 5800 will do autoduplexing if you want to print brochures etc.
Maybe Big Ed will chine in he has a 3400 and it is work just fine for him.
My biggest complaint is the color reproduction. I have to set the saturation in Photoshop to -60 or flesh tones come out red, whites come out blue, etc. Basically colors are just way over saturated. This happens on plain paper as well, so it's definitely the printer. My C8800 prints photo quality without changing anything in Photoshop. It prints what I see on the screen.
Well, I took the 3400 back and got a 5500 and I'm having the same color saturation problem. Basically, I have to set the saturation in Photoshop to -40 to make reds look right, but then blues look a little washed out. Color reproduction is just horrendous.
Are you printing from Photoshop on a PC? What are your print settings. I've tried "Let printer determine colors" and "Let Photoshop determine colors" with a few different color profiles. Nothing makes a difference.
I'd bet money that the 5500 and 5800 use a different print technology and/or toner. I'll bet the 5800 and 8800 use the same technology. My 8800 prints picture perfect white the 5500 prints the same file on the same computer way, WAY oversaturated. I can get marginally acceptable results by reducing saturation. Prints with vivid highly contrasting colors are a real problem on the 5500/3400.
I think I will call Oki solutions...ask them about the difference in ink/technology of the 5500/5800. will post the results
I talked to them today, but I think I knew more than they did. I think the C5500 has a driver issue. I need to lighten the image by +30 to get good color reproduction. This can be done in the driver, which means the image does not need to be lightened in PS, which would make it un-printable on any other printer. So....I set up two presets in the driver, one for landscape and one for portrait. In these presets I set the brightness manually to +30.
Problem is that when you go to print a image and select that preset, the brightness setting of +30 is not applied. That setting is evidently not being saved in the preset so when you print, the default is used regardless of the brightness setting. If you select "default", then go through and set all of the driver setting again manually, it works.
Since I don't want to go through all of the driver setting every time I print, when I create an image, I save one for the C5500 with a +30 brightness setting and one for the Oki C8800/Epson 1400, both of which print perfectly with no special color adjustments.
I just got a C3400n today, I have the same problem, skin tones come out red, like a bad sun burn. I found upping the brightness to 20 to 30 helps, 20 looks best. I've been messing with the saturation values too, but 0 seems to be fine. I also set the color matching to Vivid.
Does anyone have some good tested settings for this printer?
I couldn't get a decent photo print out of the 3400 or the 5500. If you lighten and desaturate to get the bright colors to print correctly, the light colors wash out. For instance, you have a burgundy car against a pale light blue sky. If you adjust for the car, the sly will be totally washed out.
I took them both back. I just use my C8800 for everything now.
Ah crap, with all the talk of Duracotton and the Oki printers I thought it was a good purchase. I needed a new printer to replace my old ink jet as well as attempting to do some transfers.
Thanx, just need my Duracotton HT now. When I get that I'll test the printer with it, if I don't like it send the printer back. I'm getting a used paint dried up T Jet 2 (should be here tomorrow) so I have little cash to spend on a higher grade laser printer.
Has anyone else played with the color correction software that comes with the Okidata c3400n?
Oh, and what is the default administrator username and password for the web interface for this printer?
Oki C3400 
CorelDRAW macro author
