currently we are digitally printing with a 54 roland. What i am not clear about with my printer epson 9000 is this. I have been talking to a rep for a large sub materials supplier. He said that inks for my printer are all the same for both pigmented and dye sublimation. doesnt make sense to me. Also, when I do change out inks, say in my 1400, do I have to bleed the system. Lots of questions. I know its simple, just havent got there yet.
Is there just one type of ink for the epson stylus 9000.
Glad to hear you find benefits with rotory heat presses
Rick,
in order to do dye sublimation with your EPson 9000 you will need the following:
Since the 9000 is a pretty old model I am assuming it was used and it is probably loaded with epson inks so you will need to flush it. The easiest way is to get a set of refillable cartridges or a bulk ink system for that printer and load them with distilled water.
Once the printer is clean, load it with dye sublimation ink. Most wide format suppliers sell bottles, however some like westar systems (westarsystems.com) sell prefilled cartridges as well. Ask the ink supplier for profiles.
Now that your printer is ready and since you mentioned that you want to print flags you will need a roll of high release paper such as texrpint or jettran hr us sublimation sells both.
With high release papers the paper will not be dry as it comes out of the printer so handle carefully.
Finally you will need to press the paper and the fabric you will use for the flag in a heat press. You can use either a flat bed or rotary press.
Latelly some printers have come on the market that can print on the fabric directly adn sublimate it all at once without needing a heat press. Us sublimation has one for a pretty good price, another popular one is the dgen.
In my experience the ink and paper make a huge difference, secondly I would seek a supplier with experience in wide format dye sublimation... they can be very helpfull while most sign supply type dealers have no clue.
You mentioned that you have a Roland, don't put dye sublimation ink in your roland... dye sub ink is water based and it is not compatible with solvent based ink and will screw up the heads.
I hope this helps,
Milabix