Absolutely brilliant. I just contacted my local print shop (They're about a mile away) and I found out they do dye-sub printing. I can design artwork for my project, email it to them and later in the day nip over there and pick it up. My shop quoted $6.00US for an 8x10 sheet for singles and a sliding scale for multiples. Instead of buying a printer and all that entails just call up your local print shop and see if they do dye-sub. Oh, and my shop can do prints bigger than my Artillery Sidewinder X2 print bed.
$6 for a regular sized sheet of paper?? Thats expensive. I made my own sublimation printer a few years ago like mentiomed in the video and maybe spemt like $200 total on the printer, ink, paper and a few sub blanks
@@animodeoh Yeah, but If you only want to Test it or use this technique ocasionanally it Checks Out. I don't have more space for another printer, but might want to try IT on a Phone Case.
I found some sellers on Etsy who sell prints of your own files as well. Shipping would be the consideration of price comparison of course. I found one for $3/letter size but shipping was $7.95 :( I imagine once one gets into quantities that might become reasonable, so if space for an extra printer is the issue, it could be worthwhile.
@@animodeoh Have you checked how much it will cost you if you are printing a full colour page? If you print full colour it might very well still cost you >2$/page
I wonder if using transparency sheets for inkjet printers would work better than printing on regular paper. They could stick to the 3d printed part - depending on how it works it may be a bug or a feature :)
extra tip! epson sells sublimation ink for there ecotrank printers. and for the best results I advice a very good icc file to have the best colours printed. the normal settings are ok. but with a good icc file results are 10 times better. I have the file for eco tank printers that will greatly improve the quality of the prints. maybe @teaching tech, you can do another video, with high release paper and my icc files, to see the difference. another tip, when you use a eco tank printer for sublimation. you must print 1 page a day minimal, the paint tends to stick to the printhead if not used in a while.
this combined with prints that fold up from being printed flat could be very interesting. no need to paint after you fold it all up. Like an unfolded cube, say. print flat, each face gets it's own section of sublimation imagery. Then take it off the print bed, fold it up and glue together, or model in some snaps. boom, full color printed cube. For low poly models this could be really interesting.
After 28 years of struggling with troublesome printers, I broke down and got an EcoTank last year. I don't use it for sublimation, but its performance has been relatively stellar. Why? It works. I press PRINT and it prints properly, even after not using it for weeks. No extra steps needed. No driver reinstallation required. No fighting with ink cartridges required. No intrusive, periodic demands to set everything up all over again. When you say it's good for this particular 3D printing purpose, I believe you
Our ET (2650) was the worst, because when not used, the print head dried and didn't recover with any number of cleaning cycles. For non-frequent use cheap printers with expensive cartridges (with new, clean print heads) are easier. Cartridges can be stored "forever" :) Also the ET colours were not as and saturated as in HP and Canon, and I didn't find any way to adjust them.
@@kimmotoivanen I can see that being a problem. But I use it every week or three for non-color-critical purposes. For that it's been superior to all my past printers, which managed somehow to quietly break or get a corrupted driver between uses
@@andreamitchell4758 I have one B&W, but it doesn't have scanner. Colour laser printers did fair job even 20 years ago, not sure if they have improved to match ink jets in photo quality (glossy paper, dithering/screening). Laser "ink" is somewhat transfer-able with heat, but I doubt it works like sublimate or even normal jet ink 🤨
@@kimmotoivanen oh I just meant for regular 2d printing not for this use case Yeah I am sure color laser printers are as good if not better than inkjets I know they were even being used for counterfeit US currency so they must be pretty good. But yeah I don't even see the need to own any color printer really 99.9% of prints will be in black and white and color ink is just so ridiculously expensive it is just easier and cheaper to download the big pharmacy chain apps and send it off there. I have a nice Canon PIXMA all in one inkjet photo color printer but I think we have maybe printed a color photo on it twice and as for color prints maybe a bit more but it seems like it needs ink every 5 pages and even the cheapest Chinese ink from Amazon is still way too expensive when you compare it to just ordering prints from the pharmacy chain especially when they always have coupons or deals for free prints.
Interesting and definitely fascinating, but a lot of steps and set-up/calibration for how often it would get used. I used to do a lot of sublimation, but if it's not done daily (or even weekly), the inks in the printer end up drying on the head(s), or if the printer has automatic cleaning/cycling, the ink gets used up in the cleaning cycle and just goes to waste. Sublimation can cost you more than you make if you are not using it on a regular basis... but... I do love this concept!
Hi. I’m a sublimation nerd. My husband is a 3D nerd… so combined we already have the equipment and skills. Firstly, sublimation only works on plastics… so the t-shirts have to be at least 50% polyester for sublimation to work. Yes there are sprays (as shown in the video) but these can be messy and do not always leave a washable image on the cotton garment. An alternative might be a DTF hack … which we shall definitely try … you will need DTF sheets that you print on through either your standard inkjet printer or, if you have one, your sublimation printer, and then you need DTF powder. This powder soaks into the wet ink right after printing, and acts like a plastic glue. If you cure the image and powder with a heat gun then use heat resistant tape to tape it to the print bed, this may provide a stronger transfer. Google DTF sublimation hack … there are a few videos on this. I’ll give it a go later this week and report back. 😊
It would be neat to see you try color laser toner transfer using an over head transparency and see how the process and quality compares using the same source image and 3D printer.
Just buy a cheap older Epson printer for like $50 and use a $20 set of refillable cartridges. Ecotank is fine and all, but the ink tanks are pretty big and vulnerable to ink settling and lots of clogs. You have to refill more often, but also much easier to take the cartridges out and give them a good shake every few weeks as needed. To put down more ink on a page, make sure to use the setting for matte paper, puts down more ink than gloss profiles.
You can most likely get one for free and why does it have to be Epson? It can be any inkjet and you can probably find people who will pay you to remove it.
@@andreamitchell4758 Epson printers use piezo printheads, printers like HP and Canon are thermal heads which are not compatible with most sublimation inks.
@@andreamitchell4758 Heh, good luck getting an HP to print with anything but their brand cartridges unless it's extremely old. They've been doing ink lock-in longer than anyone.
Brilliant video Michael. My wife already has a sublimation printer for her etsy store so will now have to combine that with some of my 3d print designs.
Wow. One could make some amazing front panels for enclosures and great images for keycaps on custom keyboards. I'm not going to run out to purchase a 2d printer for this, but may reconsider some day in the future if an extra wad of cash comes my way.
You could probably pick up a normal ink jet for free or Next to free from. Craigslist or somewhere else arnt just get a cheap refillable cart kit from China and inject the sublimation dye into the carts instead of ink. I really don't see why it needs to be an eco tank specifically other than Epson sponsorship of the video or a very trivial convenience feature That becomes even more trivial when you consider the process of transferring the due to the bottles outlined in the beginning of the video. It is just as easy if not easier to inject the dye into a refillable after market ink cart with a syringe
@andreamitchell4758 I had this thought as well. It seems like a lottt of extra additional costs. I couldn't understand justifying all of the extra purchases for the end result. It seems like you could, like you said, get a cheap printer and refill carts with sublimination dye and get the same effect. Unless there is some sort of chemical interference, why go through the trouble? I also just am not getting the hype for this idea generally though.
What would happen if you were to try this with glow in the dark transparent tpu? What if the first layer was non glow in the dark, and the following layers were glow in the dark?
On an EcoTank printer, if a nozzle clogs, you'll need to buy another printer, because there's no cartridge or replaceable print head you can buy. I will not buy another ecotank epson printer ever again! PS. these printers also have an in-built counter which measures how much ..ink you have used and make your printer unusable after reaching a certain value.
I would totally put some sort of UV blocking coating on the top of your prints. I have noticed that some D-Sub Prints tend to fade out under UV/Sunlight over time. Thanks for sharing an awesome video.
Cool video dude, we bought a sublimation printer (converted Epson) couple of years ago, and have made T-Shirts, Cups, Coasters etc, but being able to something with my 3D printer is awesome :)
The only problem with this is that most people should print lithophanes upright as the 0.2 mm layer height grants really good definition but the 0.4 mm standard nozzle can be used. If you want good flat definition you have to switch your nozzle to 0.1 or 0.2 mm size and then you need very high quality filament and tons of prayers you don't get a clog. 😅 it can be done but it takes longer and there's more opportunity for failure.
I don't have a 2D printer at the moment, if I'll ever need one, I'll definetly get one of these. Is Epson a good Company? All I know is HP really bad and Brother just work/won't fight with you over a subscription like HP
Epson makes very good printers. Not only they are reliable, but also quality is better than competition. Standard inkjet printer have DPI of 600, maybe 1200, most of Epsons printers have max DPI in range of 4000-6000. Thanks to that, with good paper u can print photos that looks like photos. However it all depends on how u want to use your printer. For everyday / everyweek usage they are great, but if u want to print some documents once a month or so, then laser printer is so much more reliable. Inkjets needs to constantly clean nozzles to be operational (and always have pluged in power to do nozzle maintenence).
I've also wondered about heat-gun printed shrink wrapping techniques (similar to bottles of soda). If you can use adhesive to ensure a secure mount of the shrink wrapped plastic, you can technically shrink individual parts for later assembly. This should make it possible to apply a durable full-colour "skin" on nearly any object (given a bit of assembly). A thin single layer of PLA, and a bit of glue may be effectively used with heat gun 'srhinking' to attache the full-colour surface to a separately printed object! Oh, and ECOtank is a blessing in a market of historic gouging. The amount of ink you get is SUBSTANTIAL and is cheap to replace. You get to print as you would with a laser printer: you don't have to think about consumables.
Just wanted to point out that the printer manufacturers are up to their old shenanigans with this type of printer too. Since you've got long lines with "stale" ink in them if you don't run your printer daily the first thing it does is dump a bunch of ink into a sponge. The sponge is not a "user replaceable part" and has an electronic counter on it. Once the counter is exceed, the printer is junk. So yes, still better than the old inkjets, but still some ways to go.
@@jeffreycutler7364Making that sponge non user replaceable is despicable!! But do you know for sure that it's daily? I.e. that you need to print every single day to avoid the cleaning part? I'm asking because I have a similar problem with a regular (i.e. 2d) printer from Canon that has "XL" ink tanks (that's the main reason I chose it). I very rarely print anything on it and so every time I do use it it does its cleaning thing, which wastes a lot of ink, so even though the ink tanks are "XL" size I get few pages out of them. I scheduled a task every Sunday morning to print a page of text, to avoid the cleaning phase. I choose once a week to minimise ink and paper loss but it's too seldom, as the printer still does its cleaning thing. If it needs to print every day to avoid the cleaning then there is no win, as the scheduled task itself would waste 365 pages and the ink for them each year.
@@jeffreycutler7364AFAIK, this is false. If you're referring to the maintenance tank, which it sounds like you are, they're a few bucks on Amazon and one step to replace. If there's some other pad in the printer that I'm not aware of, I guess I'll have to look into it. -- Upon doing some further reading, it seems like this might be dependent on the model you buy/age of the printer. Newer models, like the one I have, the ET-3850, have the easily replaceable maintenance box. Not sure about other/older models. Again, unless there's some other pad I'm not aware of.
@@dan-nutu It probably doesn't have to be daily. That's what one youtube review I read say. You probably don't have to print a whole page, just a quick print with all of the different colors.
Hi everyone, tried this method and got some good result with some added technique, when printing from photoshop there is an option to print with extra ink (no need to run the paper through the printer again), when cleaning the paper from the 3D print don’t use hot water (around 30C), and the final tip is to clear spray the 3D print as a final step makes the colors pop.
Absolutely loved this video! Couldn't have picked a better face 😀. My daughter and I have been doing sublimation with an Epson Ink Tank for years. We have to run test pages basically every week to help prevent nozzle clogs.
You should try modge podge photo transfers. People use them for wood photos. I've tried it and it on pla, works, maybe you can test for best results. With this method wouldn't be limited to base. I've heard transparency sheets are better than paper.
For the Bambu labs, you should be able to get significant first layer squish by setting first layer to .1 mm or even .08 mm and setting first layer line width to 150% of the nozzle width. This technique interests me because I already have sublimation and DTF capabilities. I’ll give it a try with my squish settings as well. I’m wondering if this will work for DTF as well. The powder is PET I think so it may work well with PETG but not PLA. I would expect you would be able to print at a faster speed but there’s a question about whether the film could withstand the process. It should, in theory, since it can withstand the heat of the heat press in normal usage. UPDATE: I tried the DTF print with PETG and it failed completely. The filament wouldn’t adhere to the film at all. It only produced a glob of PETG that stayed with the nozzle. Fortunately I was watching and could cancel before doing any damage. But this should be a good lesson for anyone trying something new. Always watch a new process closely. When it’s been proven, then, and only then can you leave it unattended.
This is so cool! I am tempted to buy a printer and heat press just to make my own t-shirts. If only I had a bit more disposable income and space to put all of this...
This makes me wonder if this wouldn't work with a regular laser printer as well with a few extra steps. There is a process by where you print with a laser printer, glue the print down face down on say wood or plastic, then once dry you wet and rub away the paper leaving the image on the surface. Something similar might be possible using this technique as well since lser printer toner is also heat sensitive.
This doesnt just "bond to the plastic" it enters INTO the plastic in its gas state. You could use sandpaper on that and it wouldnt go away right away. From what ive seen on our sublimation press on plastic its 0.5-1mm~ deep iirc. so this should, on the first layer be spread around the whole first 0.2mm or 0.25mm (whatever your first layer thickness is). Sublimation on prints should be VERY durable :)
The method you demonstrated for registering the paper to the 3D print is ingenious but inflexible. If you could incorporate some registration dots into the 3D print, have them print first and then pause, you could then position the paper prior to allowing the 3D print to compete. This would allow you to create a variety of geometries while retaining the registration feature.
You can do black&white images with a regular laser printer and transparent sheets made for overhead projectors. Printers heat is enough to sublimate the ink (edit: it melts the ink).
That's cool to hear, since I'm not nearly creative enough to make use of full color, but I could use some labels on my prints occasionally. A bit of a nit-pick though: laser toner is actually fine plastic particles, so it's not sublimation anymore, just melting the toner into your print.
@@flagman3116 Thanks for the correction, that makes way more sense. And adding labels to printed lab power supplies etc. is quite important, that is where i found the method.
Ha, great idea, i was actually interested in those printers for normal printing anyway. :-) Is it hard to flush the sublimation paint ? Heck i wonder if you were to mix ordinary black with the subli. one ? I got a feeling it would be usable for both this and some occasional document.
@@DirkLarienthat is when printed on the sublimation paper though. I haven’t printed on ‘normal’ paper with it. guessing it will still be legible enough to print some text, but images I’m not so sure of
Intro: "You dont need a special printer" 2mins in "you need a special printer, or a 2d printer that youre going to dedicate to dye-printing" ... F. Cool technique though. Limited use, but still cool.
@@TeachingTech Still need either a specialised printer, or to ruin a standard printer with ink that will quickly damage it to make the design. You dont need to get upset, its just fact.
For increased or decreased ink deposition on a print, we use an HSV or HSL filter in an editor and change the value (V or L). This affects the amount of white in the image, which for a printer without white ink correlates with the amount of ink deposited as white comes from the substrate. Saturation sometimes need to be adjusted slightly too (typically boosted if increasing white or reduced if reducing white), but fundamentally you need to control the white mix.
My advice for setting up the printer. Don't connect your printer to the internet, much less your phone. Only use the maintenance tools that come installed with the diver. For best results, have a shotgun nearby in case the printer makes any unexpected noise.
*Unlocking Full-Color 3D Printing with Sublimation: A Comprehensive Guide* * *0:59** Sublimation Explained:* Sublimation is the process where a substance transitions directly from a solid to a gas, skipping the liquid phase. This technique is commonly used for transferring dye to polyester fabrics. * *1:35** Affordable Sublimation Printers:* Epson EcoTank printers, specifically the ET-2400 (US) and ET-1810 (Aus), are recommended as cost-effective options for sublimation printing. [From Comments] While EcoTank is a good option, using a cheap older Epson printer with refillable cartridges could be even more economical and mitigate issues with ink settling and clogs. * *2:56** Setting Up Your Printer:* Converting an EcoTank printer for sublimation involves replacing the standard ink with sublimation dye. Various methods for transferring the dye are discussed, including using syringes and custom-printed adapters. * *3:00** Warranty Void:* Be aware that converting your printer for sublimation will likely void the manufacturer's warranty. * *5:37** T-Shirt Example:* A practical demonstration of sublimating an image onto a t-shirt using a heat press. * *7:04** 3D Printing Integration:* The process of integrating sublimation with 3D printing involves printing a design onto sublimation paper and adhering it to the print bed before starting the 3D print. * *8:50** Optimizing Print Settings:* Achieving optimal results requires specific print settings, including a slow first layer speed (5 mm/s) and a significant amount of first layer "squish" to ensure complete dye transfer. [From Comments] On Bambu Lab printers, the first layer squish can be adjusted by modifying the start G-Code. * *9:20** Infill Pattern Considerations:* The choice of infill pattern for the first layer can impact the final sublimated image. Concentric or HBT Curve patterns are recommended. * *11:22** Double Printing for Enhanced Color:* Printing the sublimation design twice can significantly improve color saturation. * *12:34** Glue and Cleaning:* Using a glue stick to adhere the sublimation paper to the print bed is recommended. The glue and any paper residue can be easily removed with warm water and a scraper. * *13:59** Registration Techniques:* Accurate alignment of the sublimation print and the 3D model is crucial. Using a template or drawing registration marks with a Sharpie directly on the print bed are effective methods. * *15:12** Applications:* Sublimation combined with 3D printing opens up possibilities for creating custom merchandise, functional prints with integrated labels, and unique personalized items. * *16:57** Durability:* The sublimated image is highly durable, resistant to scratching, water, and isopropyl alcohol. * *[From Comments] Laser Printer Alternative:* An alternative method using a laser printer and transparency sheets is suggested for black and white images. * *[From Comments] UV Protection:* Applying a UV-blocking coating to the finished print is recommended to prevent fading over time. I used gemini-1.5-pro-exp-0801 to summarize the transcript. Cost (if I didn't use the free tier): $0.11 Input tokens: 29200 Output tokens: 713
I tried this (sub ink/paper) with TPU (220 nozzle, 80 bed). While it "did" transfer color to the TPU, it looked like the ink vaporized "between" the print and the TPU layer and was VERY "fuzzy" (for want of a better word). Perhaps I didn't have enough squish?
Makes me wonder what kind of effect it may have on like silk PLA thats not white or even multi-color silk PLA? Because I know sometimes when printing multi-color, even that first layer can have color shifts, and if you like maybe print out a carbon-fiber pattern to sublimate into a light-colored silk PLA, would it give it a nice subtle color shift to the carbon-fiber pattern? Someone try this out on other filaments!!
There’s another affordable alternative for folks who don’t want to buy a new ecotank printer. Ecotank is a CISS (Iontinuous Ink Supply System) printer, and you can get conversion kits for ~$90AUD and convert your existing printer (e.g. the cheaper WF-xxxx printers that are so ubiquitous and often being given away on gumtree, or the ones with higher print quality than the ecotanks). Conversion is really easy (there’s plenty of videos on TH-cam), and using CISS saves you so much on ink costs (compared to cartridges).
I’ve been doing the same thing with a color laser and transparency sheets. I feel that the color laser give a much more saturated result than sublimation does.
Recently i saw a very simular method but less complicated on YT by Jason Winfield called "How to transfer full color prints on to your 3D printed parts"
If you're looking for a sublimation to PLA project on a flat PLA surface (2.3" x 2.0"), I have one for you, but I need to upload an image....please respond and I'll upload it to you.
Highly recommended if you can get an Old Epson R2400 Stylus printer they're essentially the older version of the Ecotank- 8550, but technically better because they also have light majenta and light cyan, and you can mod them with external tank cartridges and external waste tanks and buy after market k3 ink for much less than what you're paying for ink straight from epson. Solid score if you can grab one
Why does your mate look like Keith Lemon? You can convert any standard inkjet printer to sublimation, although you will get varying results. If converting a used printer I would recommend buying new empty cartridges and a new print head, although you can flush a used head by having an extra set of cartridges filled with an Inkjet flush liquid, and run it through a few cleaning cycles.
Have you tried Mod Podge? You can transfer pretty much anything to anything, and it last forever. Well, my mum have a plastic ruler with a banana transferred from a catalogue from back when she was young, at it's still there in vibrant colours. I'm not sure if that was Mod Podge brand, but it was a similar product.
I wish Brother made these ecotank printers, I bought one for sublimation as well and it is such a struggle to keep in communication with other PCs on the network. I love the ecotank refill system and the print quality is perfectly adequate but the epson software/drivers are atrocious. Thanks for the video on this cool technique, this could be real game-changer for some 3d prints!
Not surprising this works, it's interesting but we'll see how many people actually do it. Eco tanks in general are based on extremely cheap printers as well so the cheaper the printer the more likely it'll die quick, expect if you do this for it to be a money sink unless you know you can make the money back. Also a word of warning to those looking at the ET-1810 specifically, it's an alright printer when it works, printing just normal paper prints. It's reliability is highly questionable, I have one and did less than 100 prints before it started having issues which Epson "apparently" couldn't diagnose, a lot of stuffing around before they would actually look at it under warranty.
For me, if I need material to squish into the build plate, in addition to lowering the Z axis a bit, in Cura, I can adjust the Initial Layer Flow which only affects the bottom layer and greatly reduces the line gaps when printing on an Ender 3 v3 SE. I use this when printing on textured build plates. It would work great for sublimation printing also. I have my initial layer flow set to 130%.
Awesome trick! But I should admit that it won't help for the curved surface, and that's what I was looking for to create custom keycaps. However, there are some other inexpensive ways to do sublimation transfer without buying an expensive equipment.
🤔 How about simply using inkjet transfer paper (used to make DIY T-shirts at home)? (Saving a new ink jet printer purchase as well as this special ink!)
I have just bought an Ecotank ET2810 printer! what timing! can it still be used as a regular printer by running out all the remaining sublimation dye and filling with regular ink?
About this printers.... My canon and also my brother printer come with dye instead of ink. This is used for color-printing like in the T-shirt sheets. Will this work as well? Makes it quite cheap for starting instead of investing in an extra printer. Like the idea!
I made my own sublimation to make stuff like coasters, keychains, magnets and started subbing onto keycaps. Didn't think of using it with my 3d printer
Nice! I've been doing this using a laser printer and transparency paper for about a year now! It even works with regular printer paper when using a laser printer if you rub off the paper with cold water. This is definitely a cheaper method, especially because of the high cost of color laser printers and toner! Nice job! I may replace my current laser printer setup with this just because the ink is so much more affordable.
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Absolutely brilliant. I just contacted my local print shop (They're about a mile away) and I found out they do dye-sub printing. I can design artwork for my project, email it to them and later in the day nip over there and pick it up. My shop quoted $6.00US for an 8x10 sheet for singles and a sliding scale for multiples. Instead of buying a printer and all that entails just call up your local print shop and see if they do dye-sub. Oh, and my shop can do prints bigger than my Artillery Sidewinder X2 print bed.
$6 for a regular sized sheet of paper?? Thats expensive. I made my own sublimation printer a few years ago like mentiomed in the video and maybe spemt like $200 total on the printer, ink, paper and a few sub blanks
@@animodeoh Yeah, but If you only want to Test it or use this technique ocasionanally it Checks Out. I don't have more space for another printer, but might want to try IT on a Phone Case.
I found some sellers on Etsy who sell prints of your own files as well. Shipping would be the consideration of price comparison of course. I found one for $3/letter size but shipping was $7.95 :( I imagine once one gets into quantities that might become reasonable, so if space for an extra printer is the issue, it could be worthwhile.
@@animodeoh Have you checked how much it will cost you if you are printing a full colour page? If you print full colour it might very well still cost you >2$/page
@@ABaumstumpf paper is inexpensive and ink lasts me quite a bit since its an ecotank and not a cartridge
This is fantastic - I can't wait to use the T-shirt making excuse to justify a new printer to my wife :D
better make her some t-shirts
You can’t ever use it for regular printing again. You can also sublimate mouse pads, magnets, coasters, etc. basically anything with a poly base.
I wonder if using transparency sheets for inkjet printers would work better than printing on regular paper. They could stick to the 3d printed part - depending on how it works it may be a bug or a feature :)
I want T-shirts!!!!!
Same
Would be interesting to see the effect with translucent filament
You could possibly do a stained glass effect that way
Another way to do this is to use a laser printer and ohp paper. It's called FDM toner transfer. Like the sublimation method it likes a lot of squish.
That was my thought as well. Classic method to etch circuit boards.
extra tip! epson sells sublimation ink for there ecotrank printers. and for the best results I advice a very good icc file to have the best colours printed. the normal settings are ok. but with a good icc file results are 10 times better. I have the file for eco tank printers that will greatly improve the quality of the prints.
maybe @teaching tech, you can do another video, with high release paper and my icc files, to see the difference.
another tip, when you use a eco tank printer for sublimation. you must print 1 page a day minimal, the paint tends to stick to the printhead if not used in a while.
"Squish" is objectively a funny word. I don't think I've ever heard it as often in as short a time. 😂
this combined with prints that fold up from being printed flat could be very interesting. no need to paint after you fold it all up. Like an unfolded cube, say. print flat, each face gets it's own section of sublimation imagery. Then take it off the print bed, fold it up and glue together, or model in some snaps. boom, full color printed cube. For low poly models this could be really interesting.
The body spray in the face was the best. LOL Great video as always.
13:03
I was looking for a way to produce customised New 3DS facelplates for a few days and you make that video... Thanks! 🥳
After 28 years of struggling with troublesome printers, I broke down and got an EcoTank last year. I don't use it for sublimation, but its performance has been relatively stellar. Why? It works. I press PRINT and it prints properly, even after not using it for weeks. No extra steps needed. No driver reinstallation required. No fighting with ink cartridges required. No intrusive, periodic demands to set everything up all over again. When you say it's good for this particular 3D printing purpose, I believe you
Our ET (2650) was the worst, because when not used, the print head dried and didn't recover with any number of cleaning cycles. For non-frequent use cheap printers with expensive cartridges (with new, clean print heads) are easier. Cartridges can be stored "forever" :)
Also the ET colours were not as and saturated as in HP and Canon, and I didn't find any way to adjust them.
@@kimmotoivanen I can see that being a problem. But I use it every week or three for non-color-critical purposes. For that it's been superior to all my past printers, which managed somehow to quietly break or get a corrupted driver between uses
@@kimmotoivanenjust get a laser printer ink jets are crap
@@andreamitchell4758 I have one B&W, but it doesn't have scanner. Colour laser printers did fair job even 20 years ago, not sure if they have improved to match ink jets in photo quality (glossy paper, dithering/screening).
Laser "ink" is somewhat transfer-able with heat, but I doubt it works like sublimate or even normal jet ink 🤨
@@kimmotoivanen oh I just meant for regular 2d printing not for this use case
Yeah I am sure color laser printers are as good if not better than inkjets I know they were even being used for counterfeit US currency so they must be pretty good.
But yeah I don't even see the need to own any color printer really 99.9% of prints will be in black and white and color ink is just so ridiculously expensive it is just easier and cheaper to download the big pharmacy chain apps and send it off there.
I have a nice Canon PIXMA all in one inkjet photo color printer but I think we have maybe printed a color photo on it twice and as for color prints maybe a bit more but it seems like it needs ink every 5 pages and even the cheapest Chinese ink from Amazon is still way too expensive when you compare it to just ordering prints from the pharmacy chain especially when they always have coupons or deals for free prints.
Interesting and definitely fascinating, but a lot of steps and set-up/calibration for how often it would get used. I used to do a lot of sublimation, but if it's not done daily (or even weekly), the inks in the printer end up drying on the head(s), or if the printer has automatic cleaning/cycling, the ink gets used up in the cleaning cycle and just goes to waste. Sublimation can cost you more than you make if you are not using it on a regular basis... but... I do love this concept!
Hi. I’m a sublimation nerd. My husband is a 3D nerd… so combined we already have the equipment and skills. Firstly, sublimation only works on plastics… so the t-shirts have to be at least 50% polyester for sublimation to work. Yes there are sprays (as shown in the video) but these can be messy and do not always leave a washable image on the cotton garment. An alternative might be a DTF hack … which we shall definitely try … you will need DTF sheets that you print on through either your standard inkjet printer or, if you have one, your sublimation printer, and then you need DTF powder. This powder soaks into the wet ink right after printing, and acts like a plastic glue. If you cure the image and powder with a heat gun then use heat resistant tape to tape it to the print bed, this may provide a stronger transfer. Google DTF sublimation hack … there are a few videos on this. I’ll give it a go later this week and report back. 😊
How did it go?
Props to Johan!
It would be neat to see you try color laser toner transfer using an over head transparency and see how the process and quality compares using the same source image and 3D printer.
Just buy a cheap older Epson printer for like $50 and use a $20 set of refillable cartridges. Ecotank is fine and all, but the ink tanks are pretty big and vulnerable to ink settling and lots of clogs. You have to refill more often, but also much easier to take the cartridges out and give them a good shake every few weeks as needed. To put down more ink on a page, make sure to use the setting for matte paper, puts down more ink than gloss profiles.
You can most likely get one for free and why does it have to be Epson?
It can be any inkjet and you can probably find people who will pay you to remove it.
@@andreamitchell4758 Epson printers use piezo printheads, printers like HP and Canon are thermal heads which are not compatible with most sublimation inks.
@@andreamitchell4758As was mentioned, Epson’s printhead doesn’t heat up. Most other printers do.
@@andreamitchell4758 Heh, good luck getting an HP to print with anything but their brand cartridges unless it's extremely old. They've been doing ink lock-in longer than anyone.
Simply brilliant. Although I have to work on my wife first to make room for another machine :)
btw. EPSON deserves a praise for the design too.
Agreed, cool that the Epson printer works like this in the first place.
I've been wanting a sublimation printer for quite a while. This just gives me another use-case for when I eventually pick one up.
Why not just use Heat Transfer Paper and LASER PRINTER? I did this a LONG time ago.
Brilliant video Michael. My wife already has a sublimation printer for her etsy store so will now have to combine that with some of my 3d print designs.
Wow, this is actually amazing. If I start a 3D print farm, I'll 100% have to add sublimation to supplement the services provided.
This is genius! I already do both sublimation and 3D printing, but never in a million years thought about combining the two! Thank you!
same here, will try this
Likewise! Can't wait to try this!
Wow. One could make some amazing front panels for enclosures and great images for keycaps on custom keyboards. I'm not going to run out to purchase a 2d printer for this, but may reconsider some day in the future if an extra wad of cash comes my way.
You could probably pick up a normal ink jet for free or Next to free from. Craigslist or somewhere else arnt just get a cheap refillable cart kit from China and inject the sublimation dye into the carts instead of ink.
I really don't see why it needs to be an eco tank specifically other than Epson sponsorship of the video or a very trivial convenience feature
That becomes even more trivial when you consider the process of transferring the due to the bottles outlined in the beginning of the video.
It is just as easy if not easier to inject the dye into a refillable after market ink cart with a syringe
@andreamitchell4758 I had this thought as well. It seems like a lottt of extra additional costs. I couldn't understand justifying all of the extra purchases for the end result. It seems like you could, like you said, get a cheap printer and refill carts with sublimination dye and get the same effect. Unless there is some sort of chemical interference, why go through the trouble? I also just am not getting the hype for this idea generally though.
The humor here is deadpan but genius
shaq the sublimation soldier
SQUISH
Great investigation and thanks to Johan!
Very interesting process. I'm not sure if I would ever do it but still, very cool. Thanks
What would happen if you were to try this with glow in the dark transparent tpu?
What if the first layer was non glow in the dark, and the following layers were glow in the dark?
How does adding lacquer affect the color?
Also, can multiple rounds of color be be applied, via some alignment tools, perhaps?
On an EcoTank printer, if a nozzle clogs, you'll need to buy another printer, because there's no cartridge or replaceable print head you can buy. I will not buy another ecotank epson printer ever again!
PS. these printers also have an in-built counter which measures how much ..ink you have used and make your printer unusable after reaching a certain value.
Pretty sure some solvent and maybe a syringe would clear it
I would totally put some sort of UV blocking coating on the top of your prints. I have noticed that some D-Sub Prints tend to fade out under UV/Sunlight over time. Thanks for sharing an awesome video.
Cool video dude, we bought a sublimation printer (converted Epson) couple of years ago, and have made T-Shirts, Cups, Coasters etc, but being able to something with my 3D printer is awesome :)
Someone please combine this with lithopanes! Looking at you @Teaching Tech! Full color lithopanes could be really cool.
The only problem with this is that most people should print lithophanes upright as the 0.2 mm layer height grants really good definition but the 0.4 mm standard nozzle can be used. If you want good flat definition you have to switch your nozzle to 0.1 or 0.2 mm size and then you need very high quality filament and tons of prayers you don't get a clog. 😅 it can be done but it takes longer and there's more opportunity for failure.
Thank you for the amazing content! Your videos always show me incredible things I never thought were possible.
I don't have a 2D printer at the moment, if I'll ever need one, I'll definetly get one of these.
Is Epson a good Company?
All I know is HP really bad and Brother just work/won't fight with you over a subscription like HP
Epson makes very good printers. Not only they are reliable, but also quality is better than competition. Standard inkjet printer have DPI of 600, maybe 1200, most of Epsons printers have max DPI in range of 4000-6000. Thanks to that, with good paper u can print photos that looks like photos.
However it all depends on how u want to use your printer. For everyday / everyweek usage they are great, but if u want to print some documents once a month or so, then laser printer is so much more reliable. Inkjets needs to constantly clean nozzles to be operational (and always have pluged in power to do nozzle maintenence).
There is no amount of money in the world that would convince me to spray glitter in my face while inside my workshop. Oh the horror.
Shaq is all about sublimation. He said so on the podcast.
I've also wondered about heat-gun printed shrink wrapping techniques (similar to bottles of soda). If you can use adhesive to ensure a secure mount of the shrink wrapped plastic, you can technically shrink individual parts for later assembly. This should make it possible to apply a durable full-colour "skin" on nearly any object (given a bit of assembly).
A thin single layer of PLA, and a bit of glue may be effectively used with heat gun 'srhinking' to attache the full-colour surface to a separately printed object!
Oh, and ECOtank is a blessing in a market of historic gouging. The amount of ink you get is SUBSTANTIAL and is cheap to replace. You get to print as you would with a laser printer: you don't have to think about consumables.
Just wanted to point out that the printer manufacturers are up to their old shenanigans with this type of printer too. Since you've got long lines with "stale" ink in them if you don't run your printer daily the first thing it does is dump a bunch of ink into a sponge. The sponge is not a "user replaceable part" and has an electronic counter on it. Once the counter is exceed, the printer is junk. So yes, still better than the old inkjets, but still some ways to go.
@@jeffreycutler7364 Somehow, I am not surprised!
@@jeffreycutler7364Making that sponge non user replaceable is despicable!!
But do you know for sure that it's daily? I.e. that you need to print every single day to avoid the cleaning part?
I'm asking because I have a similar problem with a regular (i.e. 2d) printer from Canon that has "XL" ink tanks (that's the main reason I chose it). I very rarely print anything on it and so every time I do use it it does its cleaning thing, which wastes a lot of ink, so even though the ink tanks are "XL" size I get few pages out of them.
I scheduled a task every Sunday morning to print a page of text, to avoid the cleaning phase. I choose once a week to minimise ink and paper loss but it's too seldom, as the printer still does its cleaning thing. If it needs to print every day to avoid the cleaning then there is no win, as the scheduled task itself would waste 365 pages and the ink for them each year.
@@jeffreycutler7364AFAIK, this is false. If you're referring to the maintenance tank, which it sounds like you are, they're a few bucks on Amazon and one step to replace.
If there's some other pad in the printer that I'm not aware of, I guess I'll have to look into it.
--
Upon doing some further reading, it seems like this might be dependent on the model you buy/age of the printer. Newer models, like the one I have, the ET-3850, have the easily replaceable maintenance box. Not sure about other/older models.
Again, unless there's some other pad I'm not aware of.
@@dan-nutu It probably doesn't have to be daily. That's what one youtube review I read say. You probably don't have to print a whole page, just a quick print with all of the different colors.
Hi everyone, tried this method and got some good result with some added technique, when printing from photoshop there is an option to print with extra ink (no need to run the paper through the printer again), when cleaning the paper from the 3D print don’t use hot water (around 30C), and the final tip is to clear spray the 3D print as a final step makes the colors pop.
Wow nice idea. And also really cool that you used my phone case design on printables 😍 it looked awesome
I saw a guy on reddit that refilled normal ink jet cartridge, do you think that if you refill one of those with sublimation ink could work as well?
Absolutely loved this video! Couldn't have picked a better face 😀. My daughter and I have been doing sublimation with an Epson Ink Tank for years. We have to run test pages basically every week to help prevent nozzle clogs.
I can see this being used for making custom key caps for keyboards!
You should try modge podge photo transfers. People use them for wood photos. I've tried it and it on pla, works, maybe you can test for best results. With this method wouldn't be limited to base. I've heard transparency sheets are better than paper.
Could you use the 3D printers heat bed as a heat press?
no you need approx 195°C to start the sublimation process
For the Bambu labs, you should be able to get significant first layer squish by setting first layer to .1 mm or even .08 mm and setting first layer line width to 150% of the nozzle width. This technique interests me because I already have sublimation and DTF capabilities. I’ll give it a try with my squish settings as well. I’m wondering if this will work for DTF as well. The powder is PET I think so it may work well with PETG but not PLA. I would expect you would be able to print at a faster speed but there’s a question about whether the film could withstand the process. It should, in theory, since it can withstand the heat of the heat press in normal usage.
UPDATE: I tried the DTF print with PETG and it failed completely. The filament wouldn’t adhere to the film at all. It only produced a glob of PETG that stayed with the nozzle. Fortunately I was watching and could cancel before doing any damage. But this should be a good lesson for anyone trying something new. Always watch a new process closely. When it’s been proven, then, and only then can you leave it unattended.
I was having issues with .1 for the top layer, but setting it to .02 worked pretty great
My partner is a digital artist, and I'm so excited to be able to use this to imprint their illustrations on my 3D prints!
This is so cool! I am tempted to buy a printer and heat press just to make my own t-shirts. If only I had a bit more disposable income and space to put all of this...
The Sharpie solution made my day. Thanks for the video.
These are pogs, you've explained how to create pogs.
pog
This is a really awesome technique! Thanks for sharing ❤
You should be able to add vibancy with a clear coat.
This is a game changer, it adds a new dimension to multi colored printing, unlocking new possibilities. Great discovery!
A vivid example of thinking outside the box.
Very cool! Please let us know if the sublimation converted printer faces any issues or needs different maintenance.
This makes me wonder if this wouldn't work with a regular laser printer as well with a few extra steps. There is a process by where you print with a laser printer, glue the print down face down on say wood or plastic, then once dry you wet and rub away the paper leaving the image on the surface. Something similar might be possible using this technique as well since lser printer toner is also heat sensitive.
Acetone will make it transfer. As well heat. But it's a PITA to try to transfer to wood.
Ngl I just thought that was the guy from 1984
This could be very interesting for adding color to laser engravings.
This doesnt just "bond to the plastic" it enters INTO the plastic in its gas state.
You could use sandpaper on that and it wouldnt go away right away.
From what ive seen on our sublimation press on plastic its 0.5-1mm~ deep iirc. so this should, on the first layer be spread around the whole first 0.2mm or 0.25mm (whatever your first layer thickness is).
Sublimation on prints should be VERY durable :)
The method you demonstrated for registering the paper to the 3D print is ingenious but inflexible. If you could incorporate some registration dots into the 3D print, have them print first and then pause, you could then position the paper prior to allowing the 3D print to compete. This would allow you to create a variety of geometries while retaining the registration feature.
Very cool, but can you sublimate on black fabrics or filaments? Since white is not my thing…
Could you also print the image on a sheet of wax paper using a regular inkjet printer? Then place that sheet of wax paper on your print bed?
You can do black&white images with a regular laser printer and transparent sheets made for overhead projectors. Printers heat is enough to sublimate the ink (edit: it melts the ink).
That's cool to hear, since I'm not nearly creative enough to make use of full color, but I could use some labels on my prints occasionally. A bit of a nit-pick though: laser toner is actually fine plastic particles, so it's not sublimation anymore, just melting the toner into your print.
@@flagman3116 Thanks for the correction, that makes way more sense.
And adding labels to printed lab power supplies etc. is quite important, that is where i found the method.
Fantastic and so creative!
I love how you shine light on community projects!!
Oh god putting that glitter pray on... It's gonna be everywhere! What a sacrifice
Ha, great idea, i was actually interested in those printers for normal printing anyway. :-) Is it hard to flush the sublimation paint ? Heck i wonder if you were to mix ordinary black with the subli. one ?
I got a feeling it would be usable for both this and some occasional document.
Sublimation usually prints less vibrant. The colours pop when they adhere to the polyesther or plastic of the 3D print through heat and pressure.
@@baschz i see, thank you for answering
@@DirkLarienthat is when printed on the sublimation paper though. I haven’t printed on ‘normal’ paper with it. guessing it will still be legible enough to print some text, but images I’m not so sure of
Intro: "You dont need a special printer"
2mins in "you need a special printer, or a 2d printer that youre going to dedicate to dye-printing"
... F.
Cool technique though. Limited use, but still cool.
Intro: you don't need a special 3d printer. Please don't misrepresent.
@@TeachingTech Still need either a specialised printer, or to ruin a standard printer with ink that will quickly damage it to make the design. You dont need to get upset, its just fact.
For increased or decreased ink deposition on a print, we use an HSV or HSL filter in an editor and change the value (V or L). This affects the amount of white in the image, which for a printer without white ink correlates with the amount of ink deposited as white comes from the substrate. Saturation sometimes need to be adjusted slightly too (typically boosted if increasing white or reduced if reducing white), but fundamentally you need to control the white mix.
This is awesome! This sparked some new ideas, thanks!
Would make for some cool light box effects
I love the way you say "squish"
My advice for setting up the printer. Don't connect your printer to the internet, much less your phone. Only use the maintenance tools that come installed with the diver. For best results, have a shotgun nearby in case the printer makes any unexpected noise.
*Unlocking Full-Color 3D Printing with Sublimation: A Comprehensive Guide*
* *0:59** Sublimation Explained:* Sublimation is the process where a substance transitions directly from a solid to a gas, skipping the liquid phase. This technique is commonly used for transferring dye to polyester fabrics.
* *1:35** Affordable Sublimation Printers:* Epson EcoTank printers, specifically the ET-2400 (US) and ET-1810 (Aus), are recommended as cost-effective options for sublimation printing. [From Comments] While EcoTank is a good option, using a cheap older Epson printer with refillable cartridges could be even more economical and mitigate issues with ink settling and clogs.
* *2:56** Setting Up Your Printer:* Converting an EcoTank printer for sublimation involves replacing the standard ink with sublimation dye. Various methods for transferring the dye are discussed, including using syringes and custom-printed adapters.
* *3:00** Warranty Void:* Be aware that converting your printer for sublimation will likely void the manufacturer's warranty.
* *5:37** T-Shirt Example:* A practical demonstration of sublimating an image onto a t-shirt using a heat press.
* *7:04** 3D Printing Integration:* The process of integrating sublimation with 3D printing involves printing a design onto sublimation paper and adhering it to the print bed before starting the 3D print.
* *8:50** Optimizing Print Settings:* Achieving optimal results requires specific print settings, including a slow first layer speed (5 mm/s) and a significant amount of first layer "squish" to ensure complete dye transfer. [From Comments] On Bambu Lab printers, the first layer squish can be adjusted by modifying the start G-Code.
* *9:20** Infill Pattern Considerations:* The choice of infill pattern for the first layer can impact the final sublimated image. Concentric or HBT Curve patterns are recommended.
* *11:22** Double Printing for Enhanced Color:* Printing the sublimation design twice can significantly improve color saturation.
* *12:34** Glue and Cleaning:* Using a glue stick to adhere the sublimation paper to the print bed is recommended. The glue and any paper residue can be easily removed with warm water and a scraper.
* *13:59** Registration Techniques:* Accurate alignment of the sublimation print and the 3D model is crucial. Using a template or drawing registration marks with a Sharpie directly on the print bed are effective methods.
* *15:12** Applications:* Sublimation combined with 3D printing opens up possibilities for creating custom merchandise, functional prints with integrated labels, and unique personalized items.
* *16:57** Durability:* The sublimated image is highly durable, resistant to scratching, water, and isopropyl alcohol.
* *[From Comments] Laser Printer Alternative:* An alternative method using a laser printer and transparency sheets is suggested for black and white images.
* *[From Comments] UV Protection:* Applying a UV-blocking coating to the finished print is recommended to prevent fading over time.
I used gemini-1.5-pro-exp-0801 to summarize the transcript.
Cost (if I didn't use the free tier): $0.11
Input tokens: 29200
Output tokens: 713
This is a great technique! Thanks for sharing!
I tried this (sub ink/paper) with TPU (220 nozzle, 80 bed). While it "did" transfer color to the TPU, it looked like the ink vaporized "between" the print and the TPU layer and was VERY "fuzzy" (for want of a better word). Perhaps I didn't have enough squish?
Is it possible to simply print and then use the heat press with lower temp but a bit longer ?
@NIXJulien The process happens around 325/350. Most doing sublimation go between 375-400. 400 tends to be too hot for fabric.
Makes me wonder what kind of effect it may have on like silk PLA thats not white or even multi-color silk PLA? Because I know sometimes when printing multi-color, even that first layer can have color shifts, and if you like maybe print out a carbon-fiber pattern to sublimate into a light-colored silk PLA, would it give it a nice subtle color shift to the carbon-fiber pattern?
Someone try this out on other filaments!!
I have one of these printers already. I wonder if it’s possible to clean out the existing ink sufficiently to be able to use sublimation dye.
I love how you’ve shared this new technique and given us great directions to reproduce! Thank you 🙌🙌
There’s another affordable alternative for folks who don’t want to buy a new ecotank printer. Ecotank is a CISS (Iontinuous Ink Supply System) printer, and you can get conversion kits for ~$90AUD and convert your existing printer (e.g. the cheaper WF-xxxx printers that are so ubiquitous and often being given away on gumtree, or the ones with higher print quality than the ecotanks). Conversion is really easy (there’s plenty of videos on TH-cam), and using CISS saves you so much on ink costs (compared to cartridges).
I’ve been doing the same thing with a color laser and transparency sheets.
I feel that the color laser give a much more saturated result than sublimation does.
Recently i saw a very simular method but less complicated on YT by Jason Winfield called "How to transfer full color prints on to your 3D printed parts"
If you're looking for a sublimation to PLA project on a flat PLA surface (2.3" x 2.0"), I have one for you, but I need to upload an image....please respond and I'll upload it to you.
That is so cool. Indeed a very cool way of making custom merch or other creative things.
I like the Sam jokes in this video... very sublime
Highly recommended if you can get an Old Epson R2400 Stylus printer they're essentially the older version of the Ecotank- 8550, but technically better because they also have light majenta and light cyan, and you can mod them with external tank cartridges and external waste tanks and buy after market k3 ink for much less than what you're paying for ink straight from epson.
Solid score if you can grab one
Why does your mate look like Keith Lemon?
You can convert any standard inkjet printer to sublimation, although you will get varying results. If converting a used printer I would recommend buying new empty cartridges and a new print head, although you can flush a used head by having an extra set of cartridges filled with an Inkjet flush liquid, and run it through a few cleaning cycles.
Have you tried Mod Podge? You can transfer pretty much anything to anything, and it last forever. Well, my mum have a plastic ruler with a banana transferred from a catalogue from back when she was young, at it's still there in vibrant colours. I'm not sure if that was Mod Podge brand, but it was a similar product.
I wish Brother made these ecotank printers, I bought one for sublimation as well and it is such a struggle to keep in communication with other PCs on the network. I love the ecotank refill system and the print quality is perfectly adequate but the epson software/drivers are atrocious. Thanks for the video on this cool technique, this could be real game-changer for some 3d prints!
You can also buy sublimation prints at many online (or ask at a local shirt printing shop) services for single digit dollar prices per sheet
Not surprising this works, it's interesting but we'll see how many people actually do it. Eco tanks in general are based on extremely cheap printers as well so the cheaper the printer the more likely it'll die quick, expect if you do this for it to be a money sink unless you know you can make the money back.
Also a word of warning to those looking at the ET-1810 specifically, it's an alright printer when it works, printing just normal paper prints. It's reliability is highly questionable, I have one and did less than 100 prints before it started having issues which Epson "apparently" couldn't diagnose, a lot of stuffing around before they would actually look at it under warranty.
For me, if I need material to squish into the build plate, in addition to lowering the Z axis a bit, in Cura, I can adjust the Initial Layer Flow which only affects the bottom layer and greatly reduces the line gaps when printing on an Ender 3 v3 SE. I use this when printing on textured build plates. It would work great for sublimation printing also. I have my initial layer flow set to 130%.
Awesome trick! But I should admit that it won't help for the curved surface, and that's what I was looking for to create custom keycaps. However, there are some other inexpensive ways to do sublimation transfer without buying an expensive equipment.
Since you can't get the Engineering Plate from Bambu anymore, what would your next best options be for this process?
Would a smooth PEI sheet work?
🤔 How about simply using inkjet transfer paper (used to make DIY T-shirts at home)?
(Saving a new ink jet printer purchase as well as this special ink!)
I have just bought an Ecotank ET2810 printer! what timing!
can it still be used as a regular printer by running out all the remaining sublimation dye and filling with regular ink?
About this printers....
My canon and also my brother printer come with dye instead of ink. This is used for color-printing like in the T-shirt sheets. Will this work as well? Makes it quite cheap for starting instead of investing in an extra printer.
Like the idea!
Love it! The practical application for instructions just goes to show how useful all of these techniques are. Great video.
I made my own sublimation to make stuff like coasters, keychains, magnets and started subbing onto keycaps. Didn't think of using it with my 3d printer
This is great! And the Czech glue KORES too 🙂
Nice! I've been doing this using a laser printer and transparency paper for about a year now! It even works with regular printer paper when using a laser printer if you rub off the paper with cold water. This is definitely a cheaper method, especially because of the high cost of color laser printers and toner! Nice job! I may replace my current laser printer setup with this just because the ink is so much more affordable.
If a1/mini had extra slot active, we could have 2 ams lite and do affordable 8 color printing