About Printers
What is the best printer for sublimation?
The favorites seem to be C88, C88+, 1280 (much more expensive), 200, 220. The C86, no longer in production – and which preceded the C88 was popular, and is still popular. I have heard nothing about the new ones that Epson is releasing about now – it will be a few months before the reviews are in.
New printers for which I don’t have CISS include R260 and R380. They simply have features that nobody doing sublimation seems to care about.
Most people look at just 4 things. Here they are, and this is why they look at them:
Price of Printer: Sublimation ink is rough on print heads. Some people buy a current model, and if they like it, they watch for it to be discontinued and then buy them really cheap – they keep a bunch on hand and when they all die, then start the process again. This doesn’t mean that you will go through a lot of printers – some people just find that it makes no sense to work for hours to resurrect a cheap printer when the cost of the printer is small compared to the cost of time.
Also related to price is the size of paper. That is the main reason for the popularity of the 1280. It can print to 13” wide. You need to figure out the size of your product and if you care. From my experience – there are 3 times as many C88/C88+ as 1280s being used.
Cost to run: Conventional wisdom is that it costs less to run a 6-color printer than a 4-color printer (because you need less ink to make all shades of the colors). This is not always true! The cost of sublimation ink inventory is an important consideration. Having inventory of ink is expensive, and the 1280 is A LOT more expensive.
Frequency of use: If you don’t use your printer at least weekly, you still need to print a test pattern using all colors – weekly. If you don’t, you will get clogs. People say this about other inks, but get religious about it in sublimation – its no joke – you have to run it or you will clog. The cost of running test patterns weekly isn’t huge, but the more ink colors you have, the more you are spending on it, making it hard to justify a lot of additional expense. But, if you aren’t running it frequently, you always run a greater risk of clogs, so you wouldn’t want to have a 1280 because the printer costs so much more than the alternative. (Note – you only want to clean printheads when they need it. The practice of running the printhead cleaner weekly instead of test patterns is believed to cause premature death of the printer – some believe Epson has programmed them to last for some number of cleanings – after which they say “printer maintenance required)
Color Sensitivity: You can make a pretty certain bet that a person with 6-color (or more) printers comes from a print background. Most of us cannot tell the difference from a 4 color printer and a 6 color printer.
Heavy Use:
So, for the people who use their printer daily and do very heavy volume– its almost always a good choice to have a 1280. (often, they have a C88 as backup or for when they have a lot to print to speed things up). For these people the cost of ink used in volume will probably be lower and they often come up with creative ways to use the bigger paper.
Light – Medium Use:
These people will choose the C88/C88+ or the R200, R220, or similar (R300, R320, R340). The C88/C88+ has 4 colors and is popular because it’s so cheap. (You might find a lot of merchants have C88s but the C88+ is out now – I don’t know the difference – I suspect it’s small). However, the color perfectionist or those on the heavier use side who don’t want to invest in the 1280 pick the R220, which has been gaining ground – but still isn’t nearly as popular as the others.
Summary. Heavy users almost always go with the 1280. If you need to print larger than 8.5x11 – you need to look at the 1280.
If you are a heavier user and want the smaller investment OR you really can see the difference between a 4 and 6 color printer R220 or similar is good. If you are just starting, and aren’t sure, or plan light use, or you aren’t certain.
C88/C88+ are 4 color
R200/R220/R300, 1280 are 6 color
More than a 6 color printer is highly unusual for a home based business. They are almost always run in a commercial printing store but even they often use the 1280. Don’t get the R1800. You may not be able to get sublimation ink for it.
OK...All that is my opinion, based on what customers tell me. And, it is my website. And this is the most commonly asked question ever!
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