Canon make a ink sublimation printer like Alps printers, maybe we can use it for decals?
http://www.canon.ca/digitalphotography/english/product_article_f.asp?id=1319&cid=1
It shares the same print technology as the Alps (dye sub), but external reviews indicate that it does not print white ink, like the Alps.
It amazes me that more printers dont print white ink. You would think a company would come out with one that does it, cheap, and make a TON of cash fromus
let me do some searching on this as I think I saw Epson white ink for their “R-Series” printers (glossy white tobe exact).
gary
As far as I know the Dye Sublimation won’t work on decal paper, and it doesn’t print white ink.
There are high end Sign printer/cutters that use white ink, however, they aren’t for the casual hobbiest. Those machines cost about $25,000.00 each.
You can still buy an Alps printer from here.
Alps Supplies has a good track record for shipping.
This is the latest model of the Alps printer. Includes 1 year warranty.
here is an interesting discussion on ALPS…
The Cannon printer in the earlier post does not use the same technology as the Alps does other than it is a dye sublimation capable printer. Not all Alps printerers are Dye sub capable either. The basic print function of an alps is similar to a dot matrix printer. The print head passes over a ribon. When it is in the position for the image it has small pins that press down on the ribon and transfers the wax “ink” onto the paper. There is a small amount of heat involved but, no where near the amount needed to sublimate the “ink”. The dye sub capable alps printers have a setting that allows the head temp to go higher when the dye sub inks are loaded. Unfortunatly the temps produced in dye sub mode are way too high for decal paper and will melt the carrier film creating a mess in the machine. The dye sub cannon machine uses a liquid ink that is sublimated onto the paper. How they are doing this is unclear to me as I have never messed with one.
The whole white ink issue is one that has been beat around on the web for years. I doubt that anyone is going to comercially produce a suitable white ink for the inkjet/laser market any time soon. The coment about someone producing it and making a killing is wishfull thinking at best. Think about the numbers. There are over 300,000,000 of us in the States alone. How many of that number do you think would want to buy a printer capable of printing white. The only ones I can think of are us Car, Plane, Truck, Wargame, Train, Etc modelers that want to produce their own decals. Maybe 100,000 of us and I think that is a fairly generous number. As a manufacturer I can’t think that is a very enticing number.
Now lets get to the biggest problem with white ink for printers. It needs to opaque. The entire inkjet/laser industry has designed their equipment to work with transparent ink formulas over white paper. The technology to print white ink over a color is not there. The ink would have to be a heavy bodied material with enough fillers to make a solid opaque coating. This is the achillies heel of inkjets. They can’t move that viscous a fluid thru the spray heads.
If, someday, this problem can be overcome, the next hurdle would be the driver software for the printers. The alps printers, with their unique printing method, have a feature that is imperative to printing a white layer under color s. It is the overlay feature. This feature allow the paper to be fed back into the machine in perfect registration so a second, third or more layers can be printed.
FYI there was at one time white toner for the Okidata 5200 printer. It used white toner in all the cartridges. Seems they had very good results using this method. You can read more at: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/okidatadecal/
I’m not sure if the printers or toner are available any more as I don’t see much activity on that forum latley.
There is also a Roland sign printer and cutter for only $35,000.00 that will print white.
http://www.rolanddga.com/color/products/printcut/xc540/default.asp?menu=OVERVIEW
Ink: http://www.rolanddga.com/color/products/inks/white/default.asp
The white toner is still available for the Oki 5200 lasers. to use the system requires 4 white carts to load the machine with and a new, never been used, 5200 laser printer to load them into. You also have to purchase 4 clean empty toner carts to have filled with the toner. I hav enot priced this system out yet but have heard by time you get everything you need it will cost upwards of $3000. This is an old number mind you and the prices may have come down. The biggest problem is still the multi pass registration should you need to add color to the image. Basic lettering in white is still posible on this though. to be able to use it as an white underlay for color decals on clear film will take some trial and error.
I don’t think the roland printer will work on decals. I don’t have all of the information on these machines but, from my research on these machines they use a solvent based ink that is heat cured on the vinyl it is intended to print on. I don’t think the solvents will react too well with the decal paper. The good thing about the roland printer though is the ability to do overlay printing on it. This feature allows the paper to be fed back into the machine is perfect registration to the image.