Dye Sublimation printers vs. injet?

[ichiu]

Hi,


My friend and I are shopping for a professional quality printer. At this point he feels that something like an Epson 2200 or even a 7600 is the way to go. I am leaning more towards dye sublimation printers like the kodak 8500 because of speed and costs less per print (I think). We'll be using this commercially. So, here's our criteria (in no particular order):

1) print quality (resolution, color reproduction, print durablilty)
2) costs per print (lower the better)
3) ease of maintenance
4) versitility (print different sizes, paper)
5) portablilty (not very important)
6) print speed

There's probably more but I can' t think of it now. Also, am I trying to compare apples to oranges? Thanks in advance.


Ivan

[Sebastian]

Well, my P-400 is ust the same or cheaper per print than a comparable inkjet. The 8500 is even cheaper. But I think you're missing the most important thing about the costs of both, the dye-sub is fixed. You know exactly how much each print will cost you, and it's easy to prepare with enough supplies for a commercial event. With Inkjet, there is really no way of telling which colors will get used up since that depends on coverage, so your costs are all over the place and you are never quite sure how much of what you'll need. Obviously you can just stock up since cartridges are small, but it's till soemthing to think about.

Quality - the 2200 prints I have seen are continuous tone to my eyes, I was not able to make out any dots. However, I am not sure if those were printed on highest quality or not, something that you would not want to do ifprinting on site or if you want to keep costs down. And the quality greatly affects the speed of printing.

The Dye-Subs are fast, always pushing out an 8x10 in two minutes or less, no matter what the coverage. And since they only have one level of quality, you have to factor in one less thing when doing the math for cost and time.

Inkjets are definitely more versatile, dye-subs only give you the paper and ribbon they work with, you have no other choice.

As for durability, the dye-subs last as long as 35mm prints, inkjet might last longer. But if doing prints on-site, the fact that the prints come out dry is much more important. Not only do inkjets have to dry, they have to dry before the true colors start appeaing, some models with some papers exhibit color shifts until the ink has properly dried. THe last thing I need is a customer bitching about the red skin tones of their kid while I'm trying to sell to someone else. I could convinve them that it'll be ok, but I don't want to waste my time.

Maintenance, there is nothing to maintain with dye-subs. You put in ribbon and paper, and if you get streaks you gently wipe down the heating element. No clogged nozzles, no priming cycles, no ink-wasting head cleaning.

Those are my thoughts on the matter. Inkjets make gorgeous prints, don't get me wrong, I would love a 2200 for my home. But when out at an event printing and selling, I just see too many potential problems with the inkjets. IMO simpler is better, fewer things to go wrong, and the dye-subs are simpler.