Smoke_Jaguar
Man who touches printers inappropriately.
Finally bit the bullet and decided to get a dedicated UVDTF Haolic branded printer instead of printing films on the JFX200. Holy hell, buying a used, rusted Chinese printer was a saga. Took a gamble at $500 and it looks like it spent a few days outside. Control board kit alone was worth that price, but not having the USB drive with the original software was a MASSIVE headache. Took about a month of figuring out who to yell at to get a copy of the printer configuration files and get things running. The unit is based on the older Epson 6 channel TX800 head, which tends to be in the sub $100/head range. Not as amazing as an i3200, but 4 dodgy heads only cost me about $120.
The printer is controlled by a knockoff of the HosonSoft controller made by Better Printer, and it seems pretty capable so far. They took a lot of effort to laser off the Xilinx Spartan 6 FPGA on the boards, but the manual showed a nice clean picture of the board with the information intact. Just silly. The control software is ROUGH in terms of translation, and documentation is pretty scant. Managed to pester a tech into giving me an internal design document to help get into the calibrations and so forth. After getting the official configuration files, I turned 3 heads into 4, as there was an empty slot in the head carriage, controller and capping station. Surprisingly easy to configure in firmware and having 2 color heads, a white and a clear head works great for this application. Still dialing in calibration and alignments, but almost there. Started re-translating the English language pack in an effort to save my sanity and keep from having to keep a dossier on what all words really mean.
For the RIP, I am using the latest build of RIIN, works pretty well. Took all of 30 minutes to bypass the dongle, so things are easier. I have the thing, but I hare carrying crap around to use software. As I get things all buttoned up, will get some pictures of the thing. Needs some mods, the white tank has a stirrer, but there is no white ink circulation system. The power supplies are also all 220V, so I might swap those to 100-240V multi-voltage units if I can find a good deal on them. For now, just using a dodgy space-heater looking transformer that came with the thing.
For ink, I just had STS send me some 445 series UVDTF ink, pricey stuff. Seems to feed well in the heads but might add line heaters to improve performance. These heads, like the XP600 heads on cheap DTF/UV printers tend to be pretty dodgy on UV ink long-term and the warmer ink flows better.
The printer is controlled by a knockoff of the HosonSoft controller made by Better Printer, and it seems pretty capable so far. They took a lot of effort to laser off the Xilinx Spartan 6 FPGA on the boards, but the manual showed a nice clean picture of the board with the information intact. Just silly. The control software is ROUGH in terms of translation, and documentation is pretty scant. Managed to pester a tech into giving me an internal design document to help get into the calibrations and so forth. After getting the official configuration files, I turned 3 heads into 4, as there was an empty slot in the head carriage, controller and capping station. Surprisingly easy to configure in firmware and having 2 color heads, a white and a clear head works great for this application. Still dialing in calibration and alignments, but almost there. Started re-translating the English language pack in an effort to save my sanity and keep from having to keep a dossier on what all words really mean.
For the RIP, I am using the latest build of RIIN, works pretty well. Took all of 30 minutes to bypass the dongle, so things are easier. I have the thing, but I hare carrying crap around to use software. As I get things all buttoned up, will get some pictures of the thing. Needs some mods, the white tank has a stirrer, but there is no white ink circulation system. The power supplies are also all 220V, so I might swap those to 100-240V multi-voltage units if I can find a good deal on them. For now, just using a dodgy space-heater looking transformer that came with the thing.
For ink, I just had STS send me some 445 series UVDTF ink, pricey stuff. Seems to feed well in the heads but might add line heaters to improve performance. These heads, like the XP600 heads on cheap DTF/UV printers tend to be pretty dodgy on UV ink long-term and the warmer ink flows better.