[kylerogers]

I have an Epson 1400 on the way and looking at different film. The printer is supposed to come with dye based ink.

I took the Lawson two day class and the woman told us that Epson printers require more expensive film.

Lawson sells 4 mil film for Dye based inks only. It seems reasonably priced.

They also sell a premium 5 mil "water proof" film for pigment and dye based that is twice as expensive.

I know there are a lot of Epson 1400 users on here. What kind of film do you guys use?

 

[treadhead]

I'm using the R-Film from Ryonet with my 1400 and my C88 so it works just as well with pigment and dye based inks. It runs about $1.00 per sheet for the 11"x17" sheets in 100 packs at www.silkscreeningsupplies.com (forum sponsor).

 

[kylerogers]

Do you use the 4 mil WP film, or the 5 mil WP+ film from Ryonet?

 

[n.signia]

from what I was told, if your running the 1400 you need waterproof film.

 

[treadhead]

Do you use the 4 mil WP film, or the 5 mil WP+ film from Ryonet?

Yes...I use the 4 mil R-Film from Ryonet.....

 

[kylerogers]

I just figured out what a big part of my confusion was.

There are actually three different grades of R-film that ryonet sells. I've been looking at the Lawson and Atlas catalogs and they only have two grades available each.

R-film comes in 4 mil standard, 4 mil with a waterproof coat, and premium 5 mil with a waterproof coat.

Lawson has 4 mil standard, a premium 5 mil with a waterproof coat.

Atlas doesn't give the thickness, but I' guessing it's 4 mil. They have a standard and a waterproof coat, but not a thicker premium.

So I was going back and forth between the two catalogs and the Ryonet websites and getting more and more confused.

The Epson 1400 comes with dye based ink, not pigment, but based on what the Atlas catalog says, you should use waterproof film if your using a RIP to get a dense layer of dye based ink. The Ryonet website also includes the film with the waterproof coat in their epson 1400 package deals.

I think between the three companies, the waterproof 4 mil R-film is definately the most economically priced film with the coating.

The Atlas film is exactly 10% more. With Lawson you can only get the coating with premium 5 mil stuff. It's about 18% more exspensive than the premium R-film.

 

[treadhead]

The Epson 1400 comes with dye based ink, not pigment, but based on what the Atlas catalog says, you should use waterproof film if your using a RIP to get a dense layer of dye based ink.

I don't use a RIP...

I just do basic seperations in CorelDraw and haven't gotten into halftones yet. But, I guess Ghost Script can take care when I'm ready for it.

 

[RichardGreaves]

I have an Epson 1400 on the way and looking at different film. The printer is supposed to come with dye based ink.

I took the Lawson two day class and the woman told us that Epson printers require more expensive film.

Lawson sells 4 mil film for Dye based inks only. It seems reasonably priced.

They also sell a premium 5 mil "water proof" film for pigment and dye based that is twice as expensive.

The Epson 1400 is a dye printer. The micro porous coating required for pigment ink particles usually doubles the cost of the film as you wrote.

Epson dye printers do not require micro porous coating for pigment ink. She may have been referring to all the new printers Epson has made (except the 1400), since 2001.

The 4 and 5 mil is the polyester backing, not the coating.

Even though 'water proof' has crept into the screen printing lexicon like 'Kleenex' and 'Xerox', as a generic term, all Epson inks are water based, so when micro porous films were introduced, I wish they would have called them 'bleed resistant', because pigment films don't bleed like 'swellable' films designed for 100% liquid dye inks that swell and absorb the ink, when they get wet.

http://www.ulano.com/ijf/inkjetfilm.htm