Recommended A3 photo printer with CISS?

[jodyflorian]

Hi,

I bought an Epson R285 with CISS, and have been thoroughly impressed. It cost me 80 and I must have made a good 200 prints with only having used half the ink. The quality is brilliant once I'd done a bit of fiddling with settings. Installation of the CISS was pretty easy, a bit nerve-wrecking but still, no problems.

Can anyone recommend an A3 printer with CISS system? Something that is trouble free setting up, has similar quality, and all that kind of thing - but primarily low price.

I looked up the Epson 1400 but couldn't find any CISS dedicated to it, let alone a package which is sold with both the printer and CISS system.

Can anyone point me to such a package? Or recommend a different make of printer?

Thanks!

 

[Mad McAdder]

:| I'm also looking at the Epson A3 1400 as it is recommended for t-shirt printing with the CISS system. I have been looking but no one seems to do the CISS for this printer and I cant understand why. I have read the cheaper Epson printers are unreliable, and all Epson printers guzzle ink are there any alternative manufacturers?

 

[websnail]

:| I'm also looking at the Epson A3 1400 as it is recommended for t-shirt printing with the CISS system. I have been looking but no one seems to do the CISS for this printer and I cant understand why. I have read the cheaper Epson printers are unreliable, and all Epson printers guzzle ink are there any alternative manufacturers?

I tend to recommend Rihac so be sure and check around for alternatives... Either way they have a kit for that printer here:
http://www.rihac.co.uk/product_info.php?cPath=26_27_39&products_id=344

As to why it and other A3 printers are not supported so well... my guess would be that the tube length is an issue as well as a few other counter CISS approaches that Epson and other printer manufacturers have started putting into their printer case designs.


... and yes as to cheaper... it's the same the world over... Pay peanuts, get monkeys.

 

[Mad McAdder]

:| I'm also looking at the Epson A3 1400 as it is recommended for t-shirt printing with the CISS system. I have been looking but no one seems to do the CISS for this printer and I cant understand why. I have read the cheaper Epson printers are unreliable, and all Epson printers guzzle ink are there any alternative manufacturers?

I tend to recommend Rihac so be sure and check around for alternatives... Either way they have a kit for that printer here:
http://www.rihac.co.uk/product_info.php?cPath=26_27_39&products_id=344

As to why it and other A3 printers are not supported so well... my guess would be that the tube length is an issue as well as a few other counter CISS approaches that Epson and other printer manufacturers have started putting into their printer case designs.


... and yes as to cheaper... it's the same the world over... Pay peanuts, get monkeys.

Many thanks for your advice. I did find a CISS supplier for the 1400 A3 eventually but the CISS system was out of stock and they had no idea when they would get new stock in. I can only conclude that its not a popular printer! However your Rihac supplier looks good again many thanks.

 

[tsiya]

Try here, it is listed as in stock. I bought my CISS from them, it's good quality.

http://www.supersmartelectronics.com/servlet/the-55/Continuous-Bulk-Ink-CIS/Detail

 

[Mad McAdder]

:| I'm also looking at the Epson A3 1400 as it is recommended for t-shirt printing with the CISS system. I have been looking but no one seems to do the CISS for this printer and I cant understand why. I have read the cheaper Epson printers are unreliable, and all Epson printers guzzle ink are there any alternative manufacturers?

I tend to recommend Rihac so be sure and check around for alternatives... Either way they have a kit for that printer here:
http://www.rihac.co.uk/product_info.php?cPath=26_27_39&products_id=344

As to why it and other A3 printers are not supported so well... my guess would be that the tube length is an issue as well as a few other counter CISS approaches that Epson and other printer manufacturers have started putting into their printer case designs.


... and yes as to cheaper... it's the same the world over... Pay peanuts, get monkeys.

Just to follow up. :/

I tried to contact Rihac via their web contact page and then by email and then by phone via two contact numbers. They never relied or picked up the phone. Have they gone bust?

 

[SpideRMaN]

I didn't manage to get them on the phone but got a reply using this mail - info@rihac.com.au

 

[websnail]

Just to follow up. :/

I tried to contact Rihac via their web contact page and then by email and then by phone via two contact numbers. They never relied or picked up the phone. Have they gone bust?

The .co.uk site is a satellite service/store and if I'm honest I don't know a heck of a lot about the person/people running it... The main store is based out in Australia though and I've given Sam a quick heads up so he can address this directly.

Bear in mind he's in Oz time so it may take a day or so for the round robin of emails and time lag to catch up... He hasn't gone belly up though.

 

[rihac.com.au]

Hi guys, websnail just notified me about the forum message and just wanted to address the question regarding the 1400 printer/ciss.

In relation to rihac, we certainly haven't gone belly up. To the contry we are growing at a rapid rate and although based in Australia we have satelite operations in the UK, Latvia, South Africa and are negotiating to open a large base in Canada for the US side of things. Whilst we did not invent CISS units we have become a leader in the field. We R&D new printers as they come out to develop units/ink profiles etc. Whilst it can be extremely frustrating we often find our work exploited particularly out of china, even to the extent where we find companies openly distributing our manuals and duplicaing our products. Flatering but frustrating, particularly considering the money we invest. This is not to say we are the best but we aim to have a reliable product which we constantly improve and develop. Our product is a premium product and often the most expensive, but we make no excuses for that.

I must apologise if there have been contact issues with our UK office (www.rihac.co.uk), I spoke with them this morning and we are working on a few issues as they don't appear to have received the above email enquiries. But please feel free to address any queries direct to our AU office at info@rihac.com.au or via www.rihac.com.au as we have a number of staff here and emails are dealt with daily.

Alright, now that we've got over the minor stuff on with the issues at hand.

In relation to t-shirt printing, it depends on what type of inks you are using. T-shirt printing generally requires the use of sublimation inks (dye subs). These inks are very special in that they turn into a gas when heated. The image is printed onto a special paper and then a heat press is used. In relation to t-shirts, sublimation process can only be used on materials that are man made fibres or contain on more than 30% cotton. The reason is that the pores of man made fibres open up when heated. So the heated ink turns into a gas which enteres the open pores, then as they cool the pores close trapping the colour more or less permanently. Cotton and natural fibre pores do not open and hence cannot hold the sub ink gas.

So, having explained that we move on to printers. Sub inks can only be used in printers using Micro Peizo (electronic heads) so Epson. You cannot use them in thermal head printers like Canon, HP etc. The reason is pretty obvious, that being that the inks gas inside the heads and do not print onto the perp correctly. So in A3 that leaves us with Epson printers being the 1400 in the UK, 1390 in the US and the 1410 in Australia (all the same printer just using different chips). There is a new T1100 in Australia but this is not as suitable as the 1400/10/1390 etc.

Now sub inks.... They are a patented product and legally you can ONLY buy them from Sawgrass (UK company) who trades as Roxcell in some countries. China produces copy inks which fade quicker and also breach the legal patent. The legal inks are around $140AU per 100mls, chinese inks are $20AU upwards. The patent is due to expire in Australia early 2010 and I think in other countries around the same time from memory.

Now to complicate things.... T-shirt printing has evolved these days and you can get transfer style prints which can be use normal dye or pigment inks. These transfer sytle prints DO wash off over time depending on the ink and transfer. Pigment inks are a better choice for this but are more expensive and can have issues if not used regularly due to settlement issues. Pigment inks (true pigment inks, not hybrid mixes like Epson Durabrite) use pigment particles which are minerals. Minerals are insoluble so they are like sand in water. Great whilst sheaken but prone to settlement which in a CISS leads to blocked lines, and blocked/damaged heads. This is the reason why we and many other comapnies use dye inks as they are completely soluble. The disadavantage is that dye inks fade far quicker than pigment. Having said that higher grade dye inks use a base dye which has a higher DIN 54004 rating (this is an internationaly accepted fade rating based on testing the dyes fade life). Also higher quality inks use base carrier fluids which are non corrosive and do not lead to head damage. High quality inks are expensive and form experience I can tell people that regardless of where they get their inks you would expect to pay at least 5 pounds/$10AU per 100mls. Inks cheaper than this almost definitely come from china, regardless of creative advertising used. Remember you get what you pay for. I see a product listed earlier and I will not comment on that product directly except to say it is is identical to a product sold out of china by a company called microtec.

Now getting a CISS unit and printer combination is unlikely. The reason for this is that generlly speaking freight becomes an issue. Printer companies DO NOT deal with CISS manufacturers and distributors as they compete directly with the printer companies income. An example is that we have tried in the past to purchase printers directly from the major brands. In fact we went direct to one major brand with a view of purchasing 1,000 units a month for a specific printer. When that company found out who we were they refused to supply us. They also have a rebate system which they provide to major sellers (chain stores) which make it impossible to compete with the retail pricing. In our case we were able to buy small qty's of the printer but at a higher price than other sellers were selling them at!

Another issue to be aware of is that Epson change the firmware coding at factory level roughly every 6 months to stop aftermarket cartridge sales. What this means is that you may buy a ciss for a 1400 and it may or may not work on your printer depending on when the chips were made and when the printer was made. And the chips may work on a friends older 1400 but not on a new one for example. This is not an issue for us as we ensure the chips we use are the latest and we actually supply other CISS manufacturers with the latest chips.

Hopefully this answers some of the questions in the forum. I used to jump onto forums and answer queries but it ended up getting out of hand and unfortunately it seemed to attract a few people who simply wanted to use the forums to just be negative. But having said that do feel free to email us or websnail who does a great job jumping around the forums and helping people out.

we do quite literally (rihac) receive hundreds of emails a day and we do endeavour to answer everything but from time to time we do miss things from time to time (particularly our junk mail filter).

 

[websnail]

Hopefully this answers some of the questions in the forum. I used to jump onto forums and answer queries but it ended up getting out of hand and unfortunately it seemed to attract a few people who simply wanted to use the forums to just be negative. But having said that do feel free to email us or websnail who does a great job jumping around the forums and helping people out.

... well I jump around a lot (usually in frustration)... but in terms of emailing... please try to post instead, I'm up to my eyeballs with spam filter nonsense too..

Anyway, thanks for the compliment... I do try, between nappy/diaper changes.