Can EPSON L360 do pigment ink ?

[viethungdoan]

Dear guys,

I'm planning to have my own t-shirt printing business. I have been researching this field for weeks and found out that pigment ink is a good choice for 100% cotton shirts. Unfortunately, finding a proper printer is really a pain. Then I came up with the L360 model, is that possible to fill its tank with pigment ink ? Will that print out on transfer paper smoothly ? If not, would you mind giving me any advice on other models that work well with pigment ink ?

My sincere thanks,

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Those tank system printers work with pigment inks, I'm doing that as well with a L310. But I'm skeptical that regular pigment inks are very suitable for texile printing. If you use a transfer sheet and a heat press you better should go for the well established process using special dye sublimination inks which are made for this purpose, but then you would need a fabric with 50% PE, and not pure cotton. Or you go for a dedicated DTG printer - direct to garment - which uses special inks as well depending on the type of fabric you want to print on.

 

[viethungdoan]

Dear sir,

Thank you for your insightful reply. Could you please rate your print quality when using your L310 with pitment ink ? Is it a trustful printer ?

I got the idea of sublimation printing but as i mentioned, my shirts are 97-100% cotton hence i cannot apply sublimination inks in this case. I did a research about DTG method but those printers go over my budget. They are way too exspensive for me

Those tank system printers work with pigment inks, I'm doing that as well with a L310. But I'm skeptical that regular pigment inks are very suitable for texile printing. If you use a transfer sheet and a heat press you better should go for the well established process using special dye sublimination inks which are made for this purpose, but then you would need a fabric with 50% PE, and not pure cotton. Or you go for a dedicated DTG printer - direct to garment - which uses special inks as well depending on the type of fabric you want to print on.

ar s

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I'm afraid that regular pigment inks are not very durable on cotton fabrics and will wash out rather soon, but o.k. - you need to test how good prints will look that way and which quality you'll get. I just can tell you that I printed more than 10 000 pages with pigment inks with the L310 so far. You need to select either normal paper or matte paper so that the driver is utilitzing as well the black ink, if you switch to glossy papers the printer will not print with the black ink.

 

[INKJET ARTIST]

Dear guys,

I'm planning to have my own t-shirt printing business. I have been researching this field for weeks and found out that pigment ink is a good choice for 100% cotton shirts. Unfortunately, finding a proper printer is really a pain. Then I came up with the L360 model, is that possible to fill its tank with pigment ink ? Will that print out on transfer paper smoothly ? If not, would you mind giving me any advice on other models that work well with pigment ink ?

My sincere thanks,

If you want to go with pigment ink then it should be some kind of polymer formulation. Or you can add that polymer later in a way of some suitable and verified powder. But as far I have tried the best result you would get with sublimation or some kind Acryl DTG ink jet ink. But all these ink would stay on surface of fabrics and this make T shirt stiff.

So if you are looking at the best possible result than it is DTG print with reactive ink on cotton. Or Soft Hand transfer process with sublimation ink + Soft Hand powder + fixative.
Here below you can see an Soft hand sublimation sample. It is very similar reactive ink., since the print is build IN fabrics not ON fabrics
1. Image is Soft Hand transfer
2. Image is DTG ink transfer
3. Sublimation imagine on fabrics

PS Epson L360 is not suitable for pigment ink since it use generic Dye ink. So ICC profile is not suitable for pigment ink. There is the same problem with Epson Photo printers but in that case you can find some RIP software and made your own adjustments. Here you can only try to compensate that issue with TWO PASS process. But L360 paper feed system is to flimsy tor that process. So if you are looking at pigment inks than some Epsom XP255 is a way to go. Since it generically use pigment inks. Or consider some Canon Pro 10. Or Canon iP 1600

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

PS Epson L360 is not suitable for pigment ink since it use generic Dye ink.

Epson is using the same printheads in printers with dye inks - typically models for home use - and printers with pigment inks for office type applications. Just to give an example - the WF2010W with pigment inks uses a printhead with 180 bk and 3x59 color nozzles, and this printhead is used in a wide range of products - WF- XP - L - ET series models with dye inks or pigment inks or a mix of pigment black and dye color inks - and is running as well in a XP-255 or an L310 or many simlar models.. There may be other reasons that an L360 is not well suited for the intended purpose, and printing on fabric would require some color adjustments anyway regardless of the type of ink. The main question remains which type of ink and processs results in the best durability of the prints on cotton fabric.



Edit:

 

[INKJET ARTIST]

Yes you are right the L360 is not the best way for pigment ink unless you do not use XP255 driver on it.
That is why people have to by suitable RIP software and suitable printer. And they are limited to certain number of printers. But if you adopt two or three PASS process then you are emulating RIP with these a multiple PASSes. But all new consumer Epson printers are not suitable for Multi PASS print. The Canon printers are a way to go.
Here below is an illustration how Canon paper feed system may be perfect solution and superior to Epsons.
This sample is prepared as illustration for Cromalin multi pass print for transfer on Ceramic tiles for grave images. In fact we are using transparent ink. But then it would not be so obvious how some simple Canon MP 260 can be the right thing to go