New Home Decal Printer?

[GrahamF]

I've got two Alps printers and I find the finish very close to screen printed decals, the only issue is that you need a range of other colours which are available in Japan. You have to keep your wits about you when printing as each colour is a separate 'spot print' and your artwork has to be black for each colour that is selected. Don't forget that you can run Windows XP inside Windows 7 professional but you will need to fit a parallel port for the printer. Loading the driver for that was a bit of a trial as my PC is a 64bit machine but I managed it by letting the computer find the driver via the web. 

Graham

[MikeMaben]

https://www.amazon.com/parallel-usb-cable-bi-directional/s?k=parallel+to+usb+cable+bi-directional

 

For those interested, you'll need a bi-directional one.

 

 

[GrahamF]

10 hours ago, MikeMaben said:

https://www.amazon.com/parallel-usb-cable-bi-directional/s?k=parallel+to+usb+cable+bi-directional

 

For those interested, you'll need a bi-directional one.

 

 

Those USB to Parallel cables won't work trust me, I've been down that road three times. The only way to get your old Parallel centronics connected  printer to work is to install the card. Apart from anything else the driver software will only look for an LPT1 connection and not USB.

Graham

Edited September 1, 2019 by GrahamF
Typo

[nichenson]

As much as there is a market for printing white for the home hobbyist and even many small businesses, I have been puzzled why no one has bothered to really try and step in to make something other than OKI.

[LSP_Ray]

On 8/31/2019 at 4:46 AM, GrahamF said:

I've got two Alps printers and I find the finish very close to screen printed decals, the only issue is that you need a range of other colours which are available in Japan. You have to keep your wits about you when printing as each colour is a separate 'spot print' and your artwork has to be black for each colour that is selected. Don't forget that you can run Windows XP inside Windows 7 professional but you will need to fit a parallel port for the printer. Loading the driver for that was a bit of a trial as my PC is a 64bit machine but I managed it by letting the computer find the driver via the web. 

Graham

I use an old custom XP Pro machine. I belong to the Alps yahoo group and have done artwork and decals which required up to 14 passes to make a single decal. The problem is even the ALPS white isn't opaque if you use a single layer. You have to stack two or three layers then layer the colors over that. Like Graham says, you need to do layers in spot mode and with black artwork, select the color you want to print to get good decals without obvious dithering. You have your choice of CYMK + White, also photo red, photo blue, photo green, metallic silver, bright silver, gold, metallic CYM, and a clear finishing ribbon. It worked for awhile, but with the later aftermarket ribbons and aging ribbons, it is getting more difficult getting good adhesion when layering. It is a little frustrating when you are needing to print 10 layers and the fifth layer shows streaks and tearing as it isn't sticking properly. Plus, after all those layers the decals are a bit thick.

It is really too bad someone didn't run with the technology and update and better it, because it was a really cool system.

[MikeMaben]

Hey Ray , I can''t imagine printing that many spot colors. I've only printed metallics

or white on layers, white when I need 2 layers for better opacity (works for me).

Multi color stuff I just print like any other image. Even colors like purple, the printer

will mix the blue and red to get very close to what I need in one pass. You're right

everything needs to be backed with white (except black) to aquire any opacity.

That's why white cartridges are a little more expensive.

Like you guys , I wonder why someone doesn't produce a white inkjet cartridge.

How hard could that be ??