Getting into sublimation

[Scott Shepherd]

Larry, Conde is right in your neck of the woods. Incredible people to work with. They carry that printer as well. I don't think they like the sawgrass powerdriver and have developed their own icc profiles for that printer. I was really impressed with them. I got phone calls after hours and on weekends from the president of the company, wanting to make sure we were doing okay with it.

When your box arrives, you open it, turn your heat press on, call them. They walk you through setting the entire printer up, then loading the icc profiles, etc. They actually want you to print and press something before you get off the phone.

Outstanding company in my opinion.

[Larry Bratton]

Yes, Steve, I was considering them. They are in Mobile which is not far from me. Of course I am fairly close to Atlanta also (Johnson). Which of the Ricoh printers do you have? I am probably going to go with the 3300 just to get my feet wet. If it works out, then I can invest in something else if needed. The 3300 is actually twice as fast as the 7000 but won't handle the larger paper size. How important is it to be able to print 11 x 17 for this operation?

[Scott Shepherd]

I have the 3300. I really like it. It's paid for itself many times over and I've only had it a couple of months. The 7000 has some issues. I think it's a power supply issue. There are a number of people out there that tell the story of how their printer just quit, dead. If it's out of warranty, which is 1 year, then bye bye $1100 for the printer. I've seen a number of people highly recommending the extended warranty from Conde on that model. Then you're covered for a couple of years. I've probably seen 10-15 posts by different people of those dying.

I could probably use the larger printer, but to date, I haven't had the real need for it. I've had the "want" for it, but not the "need". Plus I know a couple of people with that one, so if push came to shove, I'd get them to print me the transfer.

I will say this- none of them will match a pantone color. There's a lot to do to match those, and I've got the technique down fairly well, but you won't print pantone colors out of any of them and have them match.

I'm happy with our 3300. Like I said, it's paid for itself a number of times, so what's not to like about it?

[Larry Bratton]

Thanks for the input. Again the case is made for the 3300.

[Terry Swift]

Keith,

I just got my Ricoh GX7000 and Stahl Maxx 16" x 20" Heatpress. Getting up to speed and if Corian is a great seller - talk to me about shipping some my way. I don't have current capability to carry & cut sheets myself.

[Keith Outten]

Terry,

PM sent.
.

[Gary Malone]

Well add another one to the list of "dead" GX7000's. I was researching this thread to find out what kind of printer to replace it with. I had this one for 2 years, before that I used the small cheap Epsons
with the ink bags, replaced the $80 printers once a year pretty much. Think I'll look at the 3300 also.

[Martin Boekers]

I 've had the Ricoh for 2 years now haven't had an issue (fingers crossed) the Epsons were just a waste of time and money went though a couple of Epsons in a year thanks to bad design by having a CD printer that continiously screwed up the paper feed.
Epson even admited it to be a bad design. Not to mention all the wasted ink and inconsistant color from head cloggs.

Printers have become disposable in this day and age so if you get 2 years out of one (yes even $1000) that may not be too bad ;-(

I don't use the larger paper size as much as I though so I too would lean towad the smaller unit.

Epson, never again.... at least for me.