What special options might I have in Rasterlink 5?

[GunnyJeeves]

My JV3 is all sorted now...

Result - The JV3 printer needs a dongle. The Rasterlink 5 software needs a license. Now I have both.

So I am going to print through my CCMMYYKK setup and then switch to CMYKlclm... and [x][x]...

So my question is this - "What kind of advanced options do I have within those two open channels?

I'm used to thinking out of the box, but my experience with DTG rip, in addition to setting the channels to the new colors (like White) you can control the concept of re-printing.

EX: On a black T-Shirt, you print it twice. Pass 1 lays down "White under every colored pixel"... then you back up the media, and print your CMYK over it. TADA! Full vibrant color on white!

So my real question is digging into if there are options that can be used to handle what is in the other channels to accommodate extraordinary things?

What I want to do: (the crazy stuff)
1. White ink --> Print onto colored vinyl (Just like DTG... print white under all colored pixels, reverse the feed back to origin, then print CMYK over it.) Treating it as a primer is good, band by band overprinting might work too over backing up a 10 foot print to re-print it...

2. Another white ink overprint option... lets print mirrored CMYK image directly onto the plain heat transfer overlay, then overprint it with white... so we can then heat-press onto black, leather, etc without either weeding or having nasty clear overages.

3. Any chance of non-ink options? - Say you had a viscous oil based UV clearcoat you could safely run through the head... then could you print and UV coat (laminate) at the same time?

I'm guessing the key here is a combination of spot colors, how the overprint and delay options work and probably a few other options I don't know about.

Just imagine this: CMYKlclmW and Silver. White and silver are options for underprinting.

 

[Solventinkjet]

White and Silver are the only official options. If you are looking to have a printer that prints high quality colorful prints at production speeds, stick with CMYKx2. It's much faster, easier to maintain and you will get high quality prints fast. Light Cyan and Light Magenta are useless in my opinion so I never recommend going 6 color. If you absolutely need white and silver, think very hard if you are really going to need it as much as you think. They slow the printer down by about half and they clog the head way more often than regular inks.

As for putting other stuff through the heads, I would be interested in seeing what you could come up with. These heads are used with Water Based inks, Solvent based inks, UV based inks and even the printers that print on cakes. Obviously they can print different solutions. It's just hard to experiment when the heads are $$$$.

 

[GunnyJeeves]

Yeah I hear you about the head$...

But conceptually these are the same Epson technology as any of the other "stylus or artisan" piezo heads.

Technically - Just as you can run solvent ink through a $300 Artisan 1430 safely for at least 6 months... your successes with that head would transfer to your DX4/DX5 head too.

The two things I'd like to know how to do in Rasterlink 5 are:

1. Place a channel as an undercoat or primer (even if you overlay two images)

2. Cover the entire print with ink from a channel. (UV coat...)

 

[GunnyJeeves]

CMYKx2 vs 6 color (plus 2 ch experimental ink)

Compelling facts:
1. This business is my daughter's. (She's 13 and this is her learning about business... Vinyl cutting, DTG printing, and solvent printing.)
2. Since we are not spending 20-30k on devices... speed is not a factor. (So print twice as fast is not a direct bonus to us....)
3. Where we CAN compete is going to be quality. Photographic prints on T-Shirts, vinyl, scrim, canvas, and maybe vehicle / hood wraps. Speed and productivity are secondary to us.

That said:

* Is 6 color better quality than 4 color? (Guessing yes... like an 89 vs a 90.. maybe only 1 point difference but it's also B to A.)
* Are there interesting and helpful things that may come from experimenting with the two unused channels? (I'm guessing probably.)

So while I recognize it normally would not make sense, it probably does for us.

Two channels for White? Silver? Clearcoat or UV coating? Or maybe glow / neon / or primer?

Yeah I'll be trying that. If I can see the difference, it's worth it.

 

[Solventinkjet]

If you printed a 4 color and 6 color print, put them side by side, and asked people to say which one looks better, no one would be able to tell the difference. You could even get the top 20 color guys in the world in the same room, and without special equipment and magnifying glasses, they wouldn't be able to tell the difference as well.

 

[GunnyJeeves]

There are a few more sticking points I think (unique to my situation)

1. It's a Mimaki JV3-130spii
2. So it sticks me with the separate dongle, Max of Rasterlink 5, but was the first Mimaki printer to support white ink.

So I'm stuck with RL5, but still can use it to understand spot colors, and I can at least tell the printer it's using 6 color plus white (with just a bit of hassle getting white ink chips.)

Long term, knowing how to print color then plop "ch 8" ink down over all of it, would be awesome as I could use any solvent or oil based UV coating that is similar viscosity to the ss2 ink. If I know the solvent, I could mix it as needed.

I'm a way out of the box thinker so what's cheap and awesome for me is buying bulk ink, $5 440ml cartridges, and a set of permanent resetting chips. (Compared to the $150 each stock, $100 each Nazdar, and others... I pop for about $20 per cartridge to refil.)

Also being able to know the cleaning cartridge is simply a no-chip, $5 cartridge with solvent cleaner in it. ($12 first one... $7 refil) Changing between inks is easy too.

 

[GunnyJeeves]

Oh man... that was actually simple!

Here's how you do it in a video I found (even in older Rasterlink this is possible)

The key is over or under.

EX: For white on colored media or silver under any printed pixels - Under (special color first)
**** This is for a whole image at a time.

For clearcoat or UV coating? You print special color second.

TADA! Done!

 

[GunnyJeeves]

Last bit of questioning on this topic...

What's the situation with chips for white, or how does the official color setting, CMYKcmSS work in a JV3?

Special may not require a chip, or does it? (And if it does can it be any chip? Like another magenta and cyan?)

Just trying to finalize this path before I try it.

Imagine CMYKcm + S1=C chip, for WHITE, then S2=M chip for Metallic Silver.

In rip its still controlled by S1 and S2 but all I need is the printer to not gripe about the color cartridge in those two slots... and if the chips in ch1 and 8 match, not to freely mix them.