[kachilda]

Hey all. Newbie here. I bought a epson Stylus C86 from a thrift store for $5.00 bucks. It only has one feed wheel and it's missing the feed assembly that goes in the back for feeding paper. other then that it seems to work. Is it worth fixing are should I consider it a $5.00 lesson and chuck it. and if it's worth fixing where do I buy the parts?

Is the epson 7510 A good printer for T shirt transfers for hobby and some sales if your on a budget? if not then what is a good alternative that won't break the bank?

I have a $1.000 for start up including supplies and products what equipment do you all recommend?

Thank's much your advice and wisdom is greatly appreciated.

 

[North Wind]

Chuck it.

We have a 7520 (exactly the same as a 7510 but with an extra paper tray) with a cobra continuous ink system and love it. I would not even consider either of those printers unless you are going to install an ink system. Normal epson ink costs using cartridges were going to be astronomical considering we print at the highest quality every time. Now, we really don't even think about ink costs anymore. We just make sure we don't run out!

We use it primarily for printing our customers limited run or one off shirts so i'm sure it's enough printer for you.

You will need a heat press as well to transfer your prints. An iron just isn't going to cut it.

Another thing to think about is some sort of vinyl cutter that can trim your designs. Sure, you can do it with a razor knife, but it sucks after the first 5.

You might be able to get all three for your $1000 budget if you can find a used heat press or cutter.

Good luck!

 

[kachilda]

I looked at the Epson 7520 and read about 30 reviews or so on the epson web sight about the 7510 and the 7520 and it seemed people over all weren't happy with the quality of photos with the 7520 but over all were fairly happy with photo quality of the 7510 what is your opinion and how is the scanner quality? I see vinyl cutters for as low as 200.00 on Ebay does that sound about right are should I consider something a little pricer? Thank's again.

 

[North Wind]

That is very weird as they are the EXACT same printer, every bit of it, except for the extra paper tray. We have one tray filled with 8.5x11 for office stuff and faxes, then the other tray we load single pages for transfers. Works perfectly. If you don't need both then save the $50 and get the 7510.

I have only printed a few photos but was impressed. We did some 13x19 borderless prints for a customer and they turned out awesome and they were also impressed. This was at the highest quality setting and with the correct color profiles installed. I think quality paper plays a role in this as well. For shirt transfers the highest quality setting works great.

The scanner works really well, especially scanning my customers hand drawn art to move onto my computer. I would not, however, just use the scanner to make a "copy" onto transfer paper though (tried it). I have been able to make everything come out better by cleaning it up then doing it as a seperate print job.

 

[North Wind]

I see vinyl cutters for as low as 200.00 on Ebay does that sound about right are should I consider something a little pricer? Thank's again.

We bought a gcc 24 lx for around $700. I would highly recommend it. The support we got from the company we bought it from was worth buying a brand new one. From what I read around here that is the lowest priced one I would ever get. I actually can't wait to get a couple more jobs out so I can buy a better one, not because that one doesn't do it's job, but because I will be able to have them both running at the same time making more money.

 

[kachilda]

Vinyl cutters look way cool and I can see the applications but having done some research on them I can see that it's not in my budget and something I will have to wait and see if I grow in to later. for now I think I will spend the extra dollar per garment to go with DTG transfers. I may consider the Silhouette Portrait at around a hundred bucks for etching glass and mirrors though. I think I will spend the extra fifty dollars for the epson 7520 simply because it will do double sided prints copy's and scans.
Thank you for all the good advice I think I'm will on my way to a good hobby and hopefully a little extra spending cash.