Ok, I'll admit it, the iPhone cases lit a fire under my ass to jump into the sublimation game.  I know there are others doing it, but not it my area, the sales potential and markets are huge...

Scored an 1100 at Staples for $80!  Display model, last one, never been printed, even a test sheet from what I can tell.  If you are even remotely interested in picking up an 1100, call around to your local stores.  Staples had this one on clearance and said they weren't "discontinued", but they couldn't even get me a new one if they wanted.  I have a good feeling that they are discontinued, or at least will be to the general consumer market.  None of the other stores have them (officemax, office depot, walmart, etc.).  I can't believe the price of 1400's hasn't dropped and has maybe increased since I bought mine 2 years ago..

Ordered some blanks from Conde.

Ordered some sample ink from Korea, lol.  I figure if this doesn't work out, there is always dyesub4u and a few other places on ebay and the net.  Probably going to go crazy waiting for this shit to show up.

Going to be ordering some empty carts from Richard and possibly paper too.

Any recommendations on paper?

Enough rambling, I'm a bit wound up..

So, it's been a little more of a pain in the ass than I expected, but I did finally crank out some iphone covers tonight, so all is well.

The display model 1100 I bought from Staples had the black nozzles hopelessly clogged.  I pretty much ran what was left of the stock cartridges dry doing head cleanings, soaked the heads in alcohol for ~2 days, tried to squirt alcohol through the nozzles with a DIY cleaning kit, nada.

Called Epson, after quite a run-around I have a brand new 1100.  The tech tried to tell me the unit was out of warranty, because the warranty starts from the manufacture date, not the sale date...lol.

New 1100, put the stock carts in to initialize it per the instructions.  Everything works great on nozzle check.  Swap out Cobra carts filled with Korean sub ink.  Black continuously gets worse and worse until it no longer prints any black at all on the nozzle checks.  Every cleaning cycle made it worse!  I'm thinking wtf...I had a second set of empty carts, so I figured what the hell, might as well try them.  The odds of 2 black empty carts from Cobra both being bad is very low, but I was at a loss.  Swapped out, made no difference, still no black printing on nozzle checks.   At this point, I'm starting to question whether this black ink will even work with desktops, despite my Korean supplier saying it is exactly the same ink as is used in both desktops and wide-format, in addition to being Sawgrass licensed (for wide-format, a different story for a different thread).

I'm about to get pissed and just order some different black ink (never had a problem with the CMY), when I decide to go ahead and load the ICC profile for the ink and see if that makes a difference.  I felt like an idiot.  My knowledge of exactly what an ICC profile does is limited, but how it will make it print black when the nozzle check will not, I don't understand at all.   Having said that, the solid black prints weren't exactly black if you look at them in the right light, more of a dark cranberry color, which makes me wonder if it is printing black, or just overprinting CMY.

Overall I'm extremely impressed with the results.  I posted some photos of the covers in the Show Your Work forum.  There is some color correction to be done still, but I haven't used a great set of baseline images, nor am I terribly worried about 100% true-to-screen color for a lot of the designs I plan to sell.

Now I'm going to have to order a bunch of other crap to try from Conde...

The WF1100 is disconintued. The new one is the 7010 think and the All in one wide is the 7700 or 7070 can't recall. MSR is gonna be like 199.99 on them. Both are wide format and I think the 7010 is wireless.  Can't recall. But anyways the 1100 is being replaced.

Links to the new ones.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/839313-REG/Epson_C11CB59201_Workforce_7010_Printer.html

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/839314-REG/Epson_C11CA96201_Workforce_7510_Multifunction_Prin%20%20ter.html

Damn I forgot to check that out, about the carts. Sucks they won't be the same ones. My C120 and WF1100 used the same carts so was nice not having to buy different carts.

I just hate that if I have the WF1100 and then get a new one that its two different carts. And lose one then your stuck with carts that don't fit into the other. I'm not a fan of CISS's and refillable one are a pain too. Tho I am hoping my Cobra ones are easier and less messier than the last ones I had.

I was wondering if you had problems sublimation the inserts if you got them from conde. whenever i try to sublimate them, the inserts stick to the paper. what are your settings?

i use like no pressure at all 400 degrees, press for 35 secs n they come out all dull if i immediately remove the paper within like 5 secs of opening the press. if not the paper sticks and its wasted.

conde told me light to med pressure 400 degrees and 35 secs. im stumped

any insights would be appreciated!

When I did my plates for the cases I trimmed around the design and taped the paper to the plates. I pressed at 400 for about 45 to 60 seconds then let the plate cool before peeling the paper way.

Only things I can think of....
Sticking: Are you pulling the protective plastic off before subbing?
Dull: Printing on the correct side of the paper?
Dull: Not pressing long enough or with enough pressure.