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Move over Latex, Resin is in town?

L

LenR

New Member
IMHO
In the late 90's when the www was taking shape Helmuth was one of the first to address our industry with his .org.
In all my life I have never seen anyone use so many words and so say so little.
Always a big headline with a story that peters out.
His biggest contribution is demonstrating to manufacturers that the web is the largest marketing/PR tool in history.
The method is to whip up hysteria about how what's next will change humanity (even though it doesn't exist).
Drives us all into a "spending" mode when we should be in a "selling" mode.
Sorry if that was a rant.
I'll have my martini now:)
 
artbot

artbot

New Member
his pdf's do have a lot of fluff. i saw that some of them can cost thousands. "get all three pdf's for the low low price of $3895.00!!!" surely those are comprehensive? for the longest time he had this insane obsession with HP thermal all the while 95% of the industry was piezo and still is.
 
SightLine

SightLine

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From what I've seen Sepiax has been around for several years now. For a while they were offering conversion kits for Mimaki's and a few other machines. I've seen it print at a trade show great. In the real world I've seen the overwhelming majority that have tried to use it - nothing but problems and usually a disaster requiring switching the machine back to what it originally ran. I have seen a couple of posts though of people getting it to work good. I want to think someone posted just in the past week or so about a printer they just bought from Graphics One that is an Epson converted to run Sepiax inks and they were having problems with it.

I do think the ink has huge potential though and they are getting it worked out. I see it as ultimatley beating out latex once it really takes off since it does not require nearly melting your materials to cure it.
 
Robert M

Robert M

New Member
Sepiax inks

I think what has been keeping the Sepiax from gaining market share is that most all the small format printers (64" and under) all run Epson heads. Epson will not work with equipment manufactures unless they are going to be receiving revenues from the sale the ink. (the ink Tax)
Before Roland had Eco solvent inks (made by Epson or one of their subcontractors) they would look the other way at their dealers installing heaters in their printers and setting them up with Lyson inks, before reselling them. They knew Epson would come down on them, but they wanted to sell printers so they back doored them
You will notice that Mimaki is running Ricoh print heads in their new Latex offering. With Epson out of the picture the ink prices may come down, we will see.
 
ProColorGraphics

ProColorGraphics

New Member
jkdbjj said:
First one is just a marketing issue. Technically it is not very enviro friendly with the machine running at such temperatures, the sepiax does not need that. Yes, my HP L25500 is "more" friendly in someways, but push come to shove, it almost cancels out with the energy consumption.
Click to expand...

I don't how much you are using yours, but my runs for several hours everyday at least and my electricity bill has hardly changed. What is nice is that it helps keep my shop warm so my heat bill ain't squat. So I can't say it is an electricity hog. Just because it takes (2) 220's, doesn't mean it's a power hog.
 
dreko

dreko

New Member
I contacted Graphics One about a possible purchase of the 9700 converted Sepiax system... they had NO customers I could speak with about their purchase... I only heard glowing reviews from the sales staff.

At the end, they suggested I wait until it progressed a bit further and I agreed. I think Sepiax is vaporware, and I have a idea that the inks are Epson's ultrachrome inks just melted at the 100C temp
 
artbot

artbot

New Member
the technical side of it is that sepiax is a resin ink. but since the beginning the dx4 and dx5 were horrible candidates for the low viscosity that those heads require. it was a technical breakthrough choked by the existence of pre-installed hardware. epson has done everything they can do to make sure they bilk all major OEMs with an ink tax. if you plan on running a non-taxed ink, you will not get a print head purchasing contract. strangely though chinese printer builders are usurping the whole system buying heads by the pallet load not paying the tax. thus keeping the print factory at maximum production allowing for the oems to purchase at cheaper prices. yes that is right. most of the dx5 and dx4's sold go into chinese printers.
 
L

luehrslogistics

New Member
I own the 24" version of the EcoMax based on the Epson 7700. Print quality is good and prints generally come out dry. I read about dull blacks before purchasing but black output looks good to me. So far I've only run banner material, poster paper and a few different vinyls. Dialing in media settings is a little bit of a pain. Too little heat, especially on thicker materials and you don't get full adhesion but too much and it warps causing head strikes. I'm thinking I might have to play with tension settings if I don't want to babysit it.

I was hoping borderless would work, but I end up with ink underneath the print. I might give it another go but it doesn't look promising.

I've got a sheet of .020 polystyrene I will be testing this week. Anyone know of a source for .020 white polystyrene in a 24" roll?
 
artbot

artbot

New Member
i have one question about the nature of the cure. would you say that adhesion issues from low heat are from lack of crosslinking which could be cured by post heating? ie. there is a underheated sample with low adhesion. heat that material up minutes later and the adhesion is improved?

also what is the range of dot gain when dealing with under heating or no heat? is the image terrible or does this ink have some ability to retain an image with little or no heat? i'm assuming that depends on the surface energy of each individual substrate.
 
L

luehrslogistics

New Member
Porous materials like matte paper need little to no heat, but non-porous materials that are under heated show splotchiness or puddling, particularly on areas of solid color, so in that case heating after the fact wouldn't help.

On the other hand, I've had underheated prints with less ink coverage, come out not completely dry but cure in ambient temperatures within 24 hours.
 
artbot

artbot

New Member
the reason i ask is i print on wood veneer, petg (.030), and aluminum (.030-.060). all these materials will not tolerate heating while being constrained with pinch rollers. so i'm able to get away with no heat, solvent ink, and a solvent receptive coating. that is changing because i'm building a flatbed. i'm pretty sure i can control low warping issues with a vacuum hold down due to heat. but at best the sheet will be lightly warmed. and would probably need to be posted heated. currently i'm planning on using a 3rd party encad latex ink. i understand that these are two different inks but generally the same dyne issues apply across all inks. what would be the minimum substrate temp that could retain some image quality for the sepiax ink? (i'm aware that the sepiax will not work in the encad heads. i'm just gathering info in case i choose to go piezo. strangely, there is a dx5 printer built on an encad frame out there. so worst case scenario, i could gut my encad post attaching it to a table and just port the dx5 stuff to it. it's called a starjet neo).

also, the prints that dry with ambient temp. do those have adhesion issues? or is there a specific difference in dry ink vs. cured ink?
 
L

luehrslogistics

New Member
On underheated prints, without heavy ink coverage that "puddled", dry ink and cured ink were visually the same, at least to my naked eye. They survived the fingernail test after 24hrs but were laminated so I can't comment as to abrasion resistance long term.

For non-porous materials I've only gone down to 55c for the main heater (50 on the pre/post). Cranking up the heat from there is probably more about the thickness of the material as it is heated from underneath. I don't have one of those IR thermometers so I don't know that translates to for surface temps, but I suspect there is a lower minimum and tighter range of necessary temps if we're talking surface temp.

Heating from above like the first halogen rigged sepiax hacks is probably the best approach as most materials should be able to take the heat if you're putting the heat where it matters.
 
artbot

artbot

New Member
mutoh went (at first, not sure of the current design) with a heater blower right to the substrate. this arrangement means that the ink is shocked right after lay down with an ambient temp that is much higher than the substrate would tolerate over time. which i figure would shut down dot gain until full cure is achieved. i think i can easily get this rigged up with a heat gun and a ceramic hose attached to the carriage.

really appreciate all the info!
 
J

jhanson

New Member
The Mutoh hybrid flatbed worked well with SEPIAX. Not perfect, since the machine wasn't designed for it and ink didn't flow through the stock system perfectly (too many valves and fittings, and not enough positive pressure).

The same sort of hot air curing setup, with a rigid flatbed table and newer, higher-flow Epson heads like the 9700 head, would be the best bet. Assuming somebody was willing to sink the R&D into it, that is.
 
briankb

briankb

Premium Subscriber
Does Wasatch support the EcoMax 24?

I was looking at the Roland BN-20 when I remembered this post and saw an add in Digital Output magazine for the GO printers.

I've read the Sepiax ink doesn't do well on PVC/Vinyl. I'm assuming this is standard caladered or cast vinyl used for vinyl decals like Oracal 651 or 951, is that correct?
 
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briankb

briankb

Premium Subscriber
I just did some quick math after reading the brochures and comparions PDF's on the GO website for the EcoMax 24.

From what I understand the ink costs are:
Epson 220cc (0.22 liter) $69.99 or $318.14 per Liter
Sepiax 1 Liter $197.50 or $26.54 per 220cc

That's saves $120.64 per liter of ink using Sepiax and from what I've been reading the Sepiax is easier to maintain than EcoSolvent inks.

If anyone has experience with the GO EcoMax 24" my primary use would be to do t-shirt transfers, labels, banners, and some contour cut PSA for windows.

I have Wasatch SoftRIP but I see that the EcoMax includes a version of it already. I wonder if I can use my existing copy of SoftRIP and have them discount that off or give me the contour cut option instead.
 
J

jhanson

New Member
Luehrs has an EcoMax 24, as they already stated above. PSA and vinyl will work, if you're using a good material and have the heater settings dialed in. Cheaper PSAs and vinyls may have issues at temperature.

Basically, Graphics One's goal with the EcoMax system was to provide an out of the box package. They stock T-shirt transfer material, banner and PSA that's already tested and profiled with the machine. If you want to use other materials, most of them work as well but you may need to try different profiles and/or heat settings.
 
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