this combined with prints that fold up from being printed flat could be very interesting. no need to paint after you fold it all up. Like an unfolded cube, say. print flat, each face gets it's own section of sublimation imagery. Then take it off the print bed, fold it up and glue together, or model in some snaps. boom, full color printed cube. For low poly models this could be really interesting.
Absolutely brilliant. I just contacted my local print shop (They're about a mile away) and I found out they do dye-sub printing. I can design artwork for my project, email it to them and later in the day nip over there and pick it up. My shop quoted $6.00US for an 8x10 sheet for singles and a sliding scale for multiples. Instead of buying a printer and all that entails just call up your local print shop and see if they do dye-sub. Oh, and my shop can do prints bigger than my Artillery Sidewinder X2 print bed.
$6 for a regular sized sheet of paper?? Thats expensive. I made my own sublimation printer a few years ago like mentiomed in the video and maybe spemt like $200 total on the printer, ink, paper and a few sub blanks
@@animodeoh Yeah, but If you only want to Test it or use this technique ocasionanally it Checks Out. I don't have more space for another printer, but might want to try IT on a Phone Case.
I found some sellers on Etsy who sell prints of your own files as well. Shipping would be the consideration of price comparison of course. I found one for $3/letter size but shipping was $7.95 :( I imagine once one gets into quantities that might become reasonable, so if space for an extra printer is the issue, it could be worthwhile.
@@animodeoh Have you checked how much it will cost you if you are printing a full colour page? If you print full colour it might very well still cost you >2$/page
Nice! I've been doing this using a laser printer and transparency paper for about a year now! It even works with regular printer paper when using a laser printer if you rub off the paper with cold water. This is definitely a cheaper method, especially because of the high cost of color laser printers and toner! Nice job! I may replace my current laser printer setup with this just because the ink is so much more affordable.
3 місяці тому
Wow. This looks like the perfect way to make custom key caps for custom/mechanical keyboard with detailed legends.
I made my own sublimation to make stuff like coasters, keychains, magnets and started subbing onto keycaps. Didn't think of using it with my 3d printer
I wish Brother made these ecotank printers, I bought one for sublimation as well and it is such a struggle to keep in communication with other PCs on the network. I love the ecotank refill system and the print quality is perfectly adequate but the epson software/drivers are atrocious. Thanks for the video on this cool technique, this could be real game-changer for some 3d prints!
A cheaper and easier solution could be to go to a document center and get you image printed on heat transfer paper. It's printed on a laser printer and usually offers better quality prints. It should work the same way with the process you used on the 3D printer. Also, maybe a glass on you heat bed will work better to reduce the layer banding/spacing.
This makes me wonder if this wouldn't work with a regular laser printer as well with a few extra steps. There is a process by where you print with a laser printer, glue the print down face down on say wood or plastic, then once dry you wet and rub away the paper leaving the image on the surface. Something similar might be possible using this technique as well since lser printer toner is also heat sensitive.
They are selling the "Ecotank" like it is some kind of new invention but the first inkjet printer I came into contact with back in the late eighties "Xerox 4020" had that system with internal ink tanks you filled with small expensive bottles.
I don't have a 2D printer at the moment, if I'll ever need one, I'll definetly get one of these. Is Epson a good Company? All I know is HP really bad and Brother just work/won't fight with you over a subscription like HP
Epson makes very good printers. Not only they are reliable, but also quality is better than competition. Standard inkjet printer have DPI of 600, maybe 1200, most of Epsons printers have max DPI in range of 4000-6000. Thanks to that, with good paper u can print photos that looks like photos. However it all depends on how u want to use your printer. For everyday / everyweek usage they are great, but if u want to print some documents once a month or so, then laser printer is so much more reliable. Inkjets needs to constantly clean nozzles to be operational (and always have pluged in power to do nozzle maintenence).
Looks great. But. What about washing that t-shirt? Will the image be preserved or is it just a one time thing? The same issue for plastic. Please share your experience.
About this printers.... My canon and also my brother printer come with dye instead of ink. This is used for color-printing like in the T-shirt sheets. Will this work as well? Makes it quite cheap for starting instead of investing in an extra printer. Like the idea!
lol he looks familiair think its the most worldwide 3d printed face from the uk Omg what a cool way to print it is very smart thanks for the clear explanation
Also just to get started you don't need to buy a printer. Many places will be happy to sell you a sublimation transfer sheet imprinted with your design on it.
Ha, great idea, i was actually interested in those printers for normal printing anyway. :-) Is it hard to flush the sublimation paint ? Heck i wonder if you were to mix ordinary black with the subli. one ? I got a feeling it would be usable for both this and some occasional document.
@@DirkLarienthat is when printed on the sublimation paper though. I haven’t printed on ‘normal’ paper with it. guessing it will still be legible enough to print some text, but images I’m not so sure of
My advice for setting up the printer. Don't connect your printer to the internet, much less your phone. Only use the maintenance tools that come installed with the diver. For best results, have a shotgun nearby in case the printer makes any unexpected noise.
I wonder if it's possible to make the image Pop better. like it appears faded, so what if we could add a different color layer to the back, almost how primer works. or maybe be able to do the process twice?
Sublimation ink prints out dull, and not even the colors you wanted. Once it goes through the heat process, the magic happens…colors become correct and bright.
Maybe I missed but was the paper used in video plain or glossy? And like someone commented, to have even more color, maybe saying to printer it's plain paper, but actually using glossy and hoping that these isn't not too much ink.
It's sublimation paper. It's designed to hold the dye but then release it to the garment. I used what came in my kit, not sure how much variation there is.
I wonder if using transparency sheets for inkjet printers would work better than printing on regular paper. They could stick to the 3d printed part - depending on how it works it may be a bug or a feature :)
extra tip! epson sells sublimation ink for there ecotrank printers. and for the best results I advice a very good icc file to have the best colours printed. the normal settings are ok. but with a good icc file results are 10 times better. I have the file for eco tank printers that will greatly improve the quality of the prints. maybe @teaching tech, you can do another video, with high release paper and my icc files, to see the difference. another tip, when you use a eco tank printer for sublimation. you must print 1 page a day minimal, the paint tends to stick to the printhead if not used in a while.
After 28 years of struggling with troublesome printers, I broke down and got an EcoTank last year. I don't use it for sublimation, but its performance has been relatively stellar. Why? It works. I press PRINT and it prints properly, even after not using it for weeks. No extra steps needed. No driver reinstallation required. No fighting with ink cartridges required. No intrusive, periodic demands to set everything up all over again. When you say it's good for this particular 3D printing purpose, I believe you
Our ET (2650) was the worst, because when not used, the print head dried and didn't recover with any number of cleaning cycles. For non-frequent use cheap printers with expensive cartridges (with new, clean print heads) are easier. Cartridges can be stored "forever" :) Also the ET colours were not as and saturated as in HP and Canon, and I didn't find any way to adjust them.
@@kimmotoivanen I can see that being a problem. But I use it every week or three for non-color-critical purposes. For that it's been superior to all my past printers, which managed somehow to quietly break or get a corrupted driver between uses
@@andreamitchell4758 I have one B&W, but it doesn't have scanner. Colour laser printers did fair job even 20 years ago, not sure if they have improved to match ink jets in photo quality (glossy paper, dithering/screening). Laser "ink" is somewhat transfer-able with heat, but I doubt it works like sublimate or even normal jet ink 🤨
@@kimmotoivanen oh I just meant for regular 2d printing not for this use case Yeah I am sure color laser printers are as good if not better than inkjets I know they were even being used for counterfeit US currency so they must be pretty good. But yeah I don't even see the need to own any color printer really 99.9% of prints will be in black and white and color ink is just so ridiculously expensive it is just easier and cheaper to download the big pharmacy chain apps and send it off there. I have a nice Canon PIXMA all in one inkjet photo color printer but I think we have maybe printed a color photo on it twice and as for color prints maybe a bit more but it seems like it needs ink every 5 pages and even the cheapest Chinese ink from Amazon is still way too expensive when you compare it to just ordering prints from the pharmacy chain especially when they always have coupons or deals for free prints.
Interesting and definitely fascinating, but a lot of steps and set-up/calibration for how often it would get used. I used to do a lot of sublimation, but if it's not done daily (or even weekly), the inks in the printer end up drying on the head(s), or if the printer has automatic cleaning/cycling, the ink gets used up in the cleaning cycle and just goes to waste. Sublimation can cost you more than you make if you are not using it on a regular basis... but... I do love this concept!
Hi. I’m a sublimation nerd. My husband is a 3D nerd… so combined we already have the equipment and skills. Firstly, sublimation only works on plastics… so the t-shirts have to be at least 50% polyester for sublimation to work. Yes there are sprays (as shown in the video) but these can be messy and do not always leave a washable image on the cotton garment. An alternative might be a DTF hack … which we shall definitely try … you will need DTF sheets that you print on through either your standard inkjet printer or, if you have one, your sublimation printer, and then you need DTF powder. This powder soaks into the wet ink right after printing, and acts like a plastic glue. If you cure the image and powder with a heat gun then use heat resistant tape to tape it to the print bed, this may provide a stronger transfer. Google DTF sublimation hack … there are a few videos on this. I’ll give it a go later this week and report back. 😊
Just buy a cheap older Epson printer for like $50 and use a $20 set of refillable cartridges. Ecotank is fine and all, but the ink tanks are pretty big and vulnerable to ink settling and lots of clogs. You have to refill more often, but also much easier to take the cartridges out and give them a good shake every few weeks as needed. To put down more ink on a page, make sure to use the setting for matte paper, puts down more ink than gloss profiles.
You can most likely get one for free and why does it have to be Epson? It can be any inkjet and you can probably find people who will pay you to remove it.
@@andreamitchell4758 Epson printers use piezo printheads, printers like HP and Canon are thermal heads which are not compatible with most sublimation inks.
@@andreamitchell4758 Heh, good luck getting an HP to print with anything but their brand cartridges unless it's extremely old. They've been doing ink lock-in longer than anyone.
It would be neat to see you try color laser toner transfer using an over head transparency and see how the process and quality compares using the same source image and 3D printer.
Wow. One could make some amazing front panels for enclosures and great images for keycaps on custom keyboards. I'm not going to run out to purchase a 2d printer for this, but may reconsider some day in the future if an extra wad of cash comes my way.
You could probably pick up a normal ink jet for free or Next to free from. Craigslist or somewhere else arnt just get a cheap refillable cart kit from China and inject the sublimation dye into the carts instead of ink. I really don't see why it needs to be an eco tank specifically other than Epson sponsorship of the video or a very trivial convenience feature That becomes even more trivial when you consider the process of transferring the due to the bottles outlined in the beginning of the video. It is just as easy if not easier to inject the dye into a refillable after market ink cart with a syringe
@andreamitchell4758 I had this thought as well. It seems like a lottt of extra additional costs. I couldn't understand justifying all of the extra purchases for the end result. It seems like you could, like you said, get a cheap printer and refill carts with sublimination dye and get the same effect. Unless there is some sort of chemical interference, why go through the trouble? I also just am not getting the hype for this idea generally though.
Brilliant video Michael. My wife already has a sublimation printer for her etsy store so will now have to combine that with some of my 3d print designs.
What would happen if you were to try this with glow in the dark transparent tpu? What if the first layer was non glow in the dark, and the following layers were glow in the dark?
The only problem with this is that most people should print lithophanes upright as the 0.2 mm layer height grants really good definition but the 0.4 mm standard nozzle can be used. If you want good flat definition you have to switch your nozzle to 0.1 or 0.2 mm size and then you need very high quality filament and tons of prayers you don't get a clog. 😅 it can be done but it takes longer and there's more opportunity for failure.
I would totally put some sort of UV blocking coating on the top of your prints. I have noticed that some D-Sub Prints tend to fade out under UV/Sunlight over time. Thanks for sharing an awesome video.
On an EcoTank printer, if a nozzle clogs, you'll need to buy another printer, because there's no cartridge or replaceable print head you can buy. I will not buy another ecotank epson printer ever again! PS. these printers also have an in-built counter which measures how much ..ink you have used and make your printer unusable after reaching a certain value.
Cool video dude, we bought a sublimation printer (converted Epson) couple of years ago, and have made T-Shirts, Cups, Coasters etc, but being able to something with my 3D printer is awesome :)
I've also wondered about heat-gun printed shrink wrapping techniques (similar to bottles of soda). If you can use adhesive to ensure a secure mount of the shrink wrapped plastic, you can technically shrink individual parts for later assembly. This should make it possible to apply a durable full-colour "skin" on nearly any object (given a bit of assembly). A thin single layer of PLA, and a bit of glue may be effectively used with heat gun 'srhinking' to attache the full-colour surface to a separately printed object! Oh, and ECOtank is a blessing in a market of historic gouging. The amount of ink you get is SUBSTANTIAL and is cheap to replace. You get to print as you would with a laser printer: you don't have to think about consumables.
Just wanted to point out that the printer manufacturers are up to their old shenanigans with this type of printer too. Since you've got long lines with "stale" ink in them if you don't run your printer daily the first thing it does is dump a bunch of ink into a sponge. The sponge is not a "user replaceable part" and has an electronic counter on it. Once the counter is exceed, the printer is junk. So yes, still better than the old inkjets, but still some ways to go.
@@jeffreycutler7364Making that sponge non user replaceable is despicable!! But do you know for sure that it's daily? I.e. that you need to print every single day to avoid the cleaning part? I'm asking because I have a similar problem with a regular (i.e. 2d) printer from Canon that has "XL" ink tanks (that's the main reason I chose it). I very rarely print anything on it and so every time I do use it it does its cleaning thing, which wastes a lot of ink, so even though the ink tanks are "XL" size I get few pages out of them. I scheduled a task every Sunday morning to print a page of text, to avoid the cleaning phase. I choose once a week to minimise ink and paper loss but it's too seldom, as the printer still does its cleaning thing. If it needs to print every day to avoid the cleaning then there is no win, as the scheduled task itself would waste 365 pages and the ink for them each year.
@@jeffreycutler7364AFAIK, this is false. If you're referring to the maintenance tank, which it sounds like you are, they're a few bucks on Amazon and one step to replace. If there's some other pad in the printer that I'm not aware of, I guess I'll have to look into it. -- Upon doing some further reading, it seems like this might be dependent on the model you buy/age of the printer. Newer models, like the one I have, the ET-3850, have the easily replaceable maintenance box. Not sure about other/older models. Again, unless there's some other pad I'm not aware of.
@@dan-nutu It probably doesn't have to be daily. That's what one youtube review I read say. You probably don't have to print a whole page, just a quick print with all of the different colors.
Hi everyone, tried this method and got some good result with some added technique, when printing from photoshop there is an option to print with extra ink (no need to run the paper through the printer again), when cleaning the paper from the 3D print don’t use hot water (around 30C), and the final tip is to clear spray the 3D print as a final step makes the colors pop.
You should try modge podge photo transfers. People use them for wood photos. I've tried it and it on pla, works, maybe you can test for best results. With this method wouldn't be limited to base. I've heard transparency sheets are better than paper.
For the Bambu labs, you should be able to get significant first layer squish by setting first layer to .1 mm or even .08 mm and setting first layer line width to 150% of the nozzle width. This technique interests me because I already have sublimation and DTF capabilities. I’ll give it a try with my squish settings as well. I’m wondering if this will work for DTF as well. The powder is PET I think so it may work well with PETG but not PLA. I would expect you would be able to print at a faster speed but there’s a question about whether the film could withstand the process. It should, in theory, since it can withstand the heat of the heat press in normal usage. UPDATE: I tried the DTF print with PETG and it failed completely. The filament wouldn’t adhere to the film at all. It only produced a glob of PETG that stayed with the nozzle. Fortunately I was watching and could cancel before doing any damage. But this should be a good lesson for anyone trying something new. Always watch a new process closely. When it’s been proven, then, and only then can you leave it unattended.
This is so cool! I am tempted to buy a printer and heat press just to make my own t-shirts. If only I had a bit more disposable income and space to put all of this...
Absolutely loved this video! Couldn't have picked a better face 😀. My daughter and I have been doing sublimation with an Epson Ink Tank for years. We have to run test pages basically every week to help prevent nozzle clogs.
You can do black&white images with a regular laser printer and transparent sheets made for overhead projectors. Printers heat is enough to sublimate the ink (edit: it melts the ink).
That's cool to hear, since I'm not nearly creative enough to make use of full color, but I could use some labels on my prints occasionally. A bit of a nit-pick though: laser toner is actually fine plastic particles, so it's not sublimation anymore, just melting the toner into your print.
@@flagman3116 Thanks for the correction, that makes way more sense. And adding labels to printed lab power supplies etc. is quite important, that is where i found the method.
Check out part 2 here: ua-cam.com/video/eElO5aso8kY/v-deo.html
This is genius! I already do both sublimation and 3D printing, but never in a million years thought about combining the two! Thank you!
same here, will try this
Likewise! Can't wait to try this!
this combined with prints that fold up from being printed flat could be very interesting. no need to paint after you fold it all up. Like an unfolded cube, say. print flat, each face gets it's own section of sublimation imagery. Then take it off the print bed, fold it up and glue together, or model in some snaps. boom, full color printed cube. For low poly models this could be really interesting.
Another way to do this is to use a laser printer and ohp paper. It's called FDM toner transfer. Like the sublimation method it likes a lot of squish.
That was my thought as well. Classic method to etch circuit boards.
Absolutely brilliant. I just contacted my local print shop (They're about a mile away) and I found out they do dye-sub printing. I can design artwork for my project, email it to them and later in the day nip over there and pick it up. My shop quoted $6.00US for an 8x10 sheet for singles and a sliding scale for multiples. Instead of buying a printer and all that entails just call up your local print shop and see if they do dye-sub. Oh, and my shop can do prints bigger than my Artillery Sidewinder X2 print bed.
$6 for a regular sized sheet of paper?? Thats expensive. I made my own sublimation printer a few years ago like mentiomed in the video and maybe spemt like $200 total on the printer, ink, paper and a few sub blanks
@@animodeoh Yeah, but If you only want to Test it or use this technique ocasionanally it Checks Out. I don't have more space for another printer, but might want to try IT on a Phone Case.
I found some sellers on Etsy who sell prints of your own files as well. Shipping would be the consideration of price comparison of course. I found one for $3/letter size but shipping was $7.95 :( I imagine once one gets into quantities that might become reasonable, so if space for an extra printer is the issue, it could be worthwhile.
@@animodeoh Have you checked how much it will cost you if you are printing a full colour page? If you print full colour it might very well still cost you >2$/page
@@ABaumstumpf paper is inexpensive and ink lasts me quite a bit since its an ecotank and not a cartridge
Great investigation and thanks to Johan!
Fantastic and so creative!
I love how you shine light on community projects!!
Nice! I've been doing this using a laser printer and transparency paper for about a year now! It even works with regular printer paper when using a laser printer if you rub off the paper with cold water. This is definitely a cheaper method, especially because of the high cost of color laser printers and toner! Nice job! I may replace my current laser printer setup with this just because the ink is so much more affordable.
Wow. This looks like the perfect way to make custom key caps for custom/mechanical keyboard with detailed legends.
The Sharpie solution made my day. Thanks for the video.
This is an awesome technique! Love it!
A vivid example of thinking outside the box.
This is seriously awesome.
Awesome technique! I think it opens a big world of possibilities. Thanks for sharing!
This is awesome! Thanks for sharing!
I made my own sublimation to make stuff like coasters, keychains, magnets and started subbing onto keycaps. Didn't think of using it with my 3d printer
Very complete video!!! Amazing
Oh god putting that glitter pray on... It's gonna be everywhere! What a sacrifice
You can also buy sublimation prints at many online (or ask at a local shirt printing shop) services for single digit dollar prices per sheet
I JUST bought my first 2d printer a week ago. Considered the eco tank but I cheaped out lol.
I wish Brother made these ecotank printers, I bought one for sublimation as well and it is such a struggle to keep in communication with other PCs on the network. I love the ecotank refill system and the print quality is perfectly adequate but the epson software/drivers are atrocious. Thanks for the video on this cool technique, this could be real game-changer for some 3d prints!
A cheaper and easier solution could be to go to a document center and get you image printed on heat transfer paper. It's printed on a laser printer and usually offers better quality prints. It should work the same way with the process you used on the 3D printer. Also, maybe a glass on you heat bed will work better to reduce the layer banding/spacing.
This is a really great idea, i didn't think of just putting the paper directly in the 3D printer lol 🤦♀️
This makes me wonder if this wouldn't work with a regular laser printer as well with a few extra steps. There is a process by where you print with a laser printer, glue the print down face down on say wood or plastic, then once dry you wet and rub away the paper leaving the image on the surface. Something similar might be possible using this technique as well since lser printer toner is also heat sensitive.
Acetone will make it transfer. As well heat. But it's a PITA to try to transfer to wood.
Shaq is all about sublimation. He said so on the podcast.
Holy crap! That is AMAZING!
Not sure I would use it enough to make the printer worth it but still very cool idea !
You can increase saturation by using the high detail photo mode
I have done this, it is a bit tricky to get right the first few tries but it works well.
Very cool project.
They are selling the "Ecotank" like it is some kind of new invention but the first inkjet printer I came into contact with back in the late eighties "Xerox 4020" had that system with internal ink tanks you filled with small expensive bottles.
I can't believe you actually sprayed that glitter spray on your face! LOL
I don't have a 2D printer at the moment, if I'll ever need one, I'll definetly get one of these.
Is Epson a good Company?
All I know is HP really bad and Brother just work/won't fight with you over a subscription like HP
Epson makes very good printers. Not only they are reliable, but also quality is better than competition. Standard inkjet printer have DPI of 600, maybe 1200, most of Epsons printers have max DPI in range of 4000-6000. Thanks to that, with good paper u can print photos that looks like photos.
However it all depends on how u want to use your printer. For everyday / everyweek usage they are great, but if u want to print some documents once a month or so, then laser printer is so much more reliable. Inkjets needs to constantly clean nozzles to be operational (and always have pluged in power to do nozzle maintenence).
Amayzing 😮
Could you also print the image on a sheet of wax paper using a regular inkjet printer? Then place that sheet of wax paper on your print bed?
Looks great. But. What about washing that t-shirt? Will the image be preserved or is it just a one time thing? The same issue for plastic. Please share your experience.
About this printers....
My canon and also my brother printer come with dye instead of ink. This is used for color-printing like in the T-shirt sheets. Will this work as well? Makes it quite cheap for starting instead of investing in an extra printer.
Like the idea!
lol he looks familiair think its the most worldwide 3d printed face from the uk Omg what a cool way to print it is very smart thanks for the clear explanation
Also just to get started you don't need to buy a printer. Many places will be happy to sell you a sublimation transfer sheet imprinted with your design on it.
I wonder what it would be like on a transparent or translucent print, if the colors light up or block light entirely.
Design Prototype Test will now release a video saying this was his idea
pretty amazing !
So great. I have to try it
I might have missed it but did you try boosting the saturation and reducing the gamma or brightness in Photoshop before printing?
Ha, great idea, i was actually interested in those printers for normal printing anyway. :-) Is it hard to flush the sublimation paint ? Heck i wonder if you were to mix ordinary black with the subli. one ?
I got a feeling it would be usable for both this and some occasional document.
Sublimation usually prints less vibrant. The colours pop when they adhere to the polyesther or plastic of the 3D print through heat and pressure.
@@baschz i see, thank you for answering
@@DirkLarienthat is when printed on the sublimation paper though. I haven’t printed on ‘normal’ paper with it. guessing it will still be legible enough to print some text, but images I’m not so sure of
My advice for setting up the printer. Don't connect your printer to the internet, much less your phone. Only use the maintenance tools that come installed with the diver. For best results, have a shotgun nearby in case the printer makes any unexpected noise.
People make macro pads, how about custom key caps to remember what those buttons do?
I wonder if it's possible to make the image Pop better. like it appears faded, so what if we could add a different color layer to the back, almost how primer works.
or maybe be able to do the process twice?
Did you try to heat transfer sublimation paper on a flat 3d print? Like the tshirt.
You should give it a try, it should work the same. I'm going to try this with easysubli and maybe regular htv
yooo a car focused second channel? sign me up!
Looks like once transfered part of the ocoor is lost. Have you tried to print the pictures with higher saturation and contrast?
Sublimation ink prints out dull, and not even the colors you wanted. Once it goes through the heat process, the magic happens…colors become correct and bright.
will you be at opensauce next year
Maybe I missed but was the paper used in video plain or glossy? And like someone commented, to have even more color, maybe saying to printer it's plain paper, but actually using glossy and hoping that these isn't not too much ink.
It's sublimation paper. It's designed to hold the dye but then release it to the garment. I used what came in my kit, not sure how much variation there is.
Does any epsom sublimation inks work with the epsom 1810 printer or there is a specific one?
This is fantastic - I can't wait to use the T-shirt making excuse to justify a new printer to my wife :D
better make her some t-shirts
You can’t ever use it for regular printing again. You can also sublimate mouse pads, magnets, coasters, etc. basically anything with a poly base.
I wonder if using transparency sheets for inkjet printers would work better than printing on regular paper. They could stick to the 3d printed part - depending on how it works it may be a bug or a feature :)
I want T-shirts!!!!!
Same
Would be interesting to see the effect with translucent filament
You could possibly do a stained glass effect that way
extra tip! epson sells sublimation ink for there ecotrank printers. and for the best results I advice a very good icc file to have the best colours printed. the normal settings are ok. but with a good icc file results are 10 times better. I have the file for eco tank printers that will greatly improve the quality of the prints.
maybe @teaching tech, you can do another video, with high release paper and my icc files, to see the difference.
another tip, when you use a eco tank printer for sublimation. you must print 1 page a day minimal, the paint tends to stick to the printhead if not used in a while.
"Squish" is objectively a funny word. I don't think I've ever heard it as often in as short a time. 😂
After 28 years of struggling with troublesome printers, I broke down and got an EcoTank last year. I don't use it for sublimation, but its performance has been relatively stellar. Why? It works. I press PRINT and it prints properly, even after not using it for weeks. No extra steps needed. No driver reinstallation required. No fighting with ink cartridges required. No intrusive, periodic demands to set everything up all over again. When you say it's good for this particular 3D printing purpose, I believe you
Our ET (2650) was the worst, because when not used, the print head dried and didn't recover with any number of cleaning cycles. For non-frequent use cheap printers with expensive cartridges (with new, clean print heads) are easier. Cartridges can be stored "forever" :)
Also the ET colours were not as and saturated as in HP and Canon, and I didn't find any way to adjust them.
@@kimmotoivanen I can see that being a problem. But I use it every week or three for non-color-critical purposes. For that it's been superior to all my past printers, which managed somehow to quietly break or get a corrupted driver between uses
@@kimmotoivanenjust get a laser printer ink jets are crap
@@andreamitchell4758 I have one B&W, but it doesn't have scanner. Colour laser printers did fair job even 20 years ago, not sure if they have improved to match ink jets in photo quality (glossy paper, dithering/screening).
Laser "ink" is somewhat transfer-able with heat, but I doubt it works like sublimate or even normal jet ink 🤨
@@kimmotoivanen oh I just meant for regular 2d printing not for this use case
Yeah I am sure color laser printers are as good if not better than inkjets I know they were even being used for counterfeit US currency so they must be pretty good.
But yeah I don't even see the need to own any color printer really 99.9% of prints will be in black and white and color ink is just so ridiculously expensive it is just easier and cheaper to download the big pharmacy chain apps and send it off there.
I have a nice Canon PIXMA all in one inkjet photo color printer but I think we have maybe printed a color photo on it twice and as for color prints maybe a bit more but it seems like it needs ink every 5 pages and even the cheapest Chinese ink from Amazon is still way too expensive when you compare it to just ordering prints from the pharmacy chain especially when they always have coupons or deals for free prints.
The body spray in the face was the best. LOL Great video as always.
13:03
I was looking for a way to produce customised New 3DS facelplates for a few days and you make that video... Thanks! 🥳
Props to Johan!
Interesting and definitely fascinating, but a lot of steps and set-up/calibration for how often it would get used. I used to do a lot of sublimation, but if it's not done daily (or even weekly), the inks in the printer end up drying on the head(s), or if the printer has automatic cleaning/cycling, the ink gets used up in the cleaning cycle and just goes to waste. Sublimation can cost you more than you make if you are not using it on a regular basis... but... I do love this concept!
Hi. I’m a sublimation nerd. My husband is a 3D nerd… so combined we already have the equipment and skills. Firstly, sublimation only works on plastics… so the t-shirts have to be at least 50% polyester for sublimation to work. Yes there are sprays (as shown in the video) but these can be messy and do not always leave a washable image on the cotton garment. An alternative might be a DTF hack … which we shall definitely try … you will need DTF sheets that you print on through either your standard inkjet printer or, if you have one, your sublimation printer, and then you need DTF powder. This powder soaks into the wet ink right after printing, and acts like a plastic glue. If you cure the image and powder with a heat gun then use heat resistant tape to tape it to the print bed, this may provide a stronger transfer. Google DTF sublimation hack … there are a few videos on this. I’ll give it a go later this week and report back. 😊
How did it go?
Just buy a cheap older Epson printer for like $50 and use a $20 set of refillable cartridges. Ecotank is fine and all, but the ink tanks are pretty big and vulnerable to ink settling and lots of clogs. You have to refill more often, but also much easier to take the cartridges out and give them a good shake every few weeks as needed. To put down more ink on a page, make sure to use the setting for matte paper, puts down more ink than gloss profiles.
You can most likely get one for free and why does it have to be Epson?
It can be any inkjet and you can probably find people who will pay you to remove it.
@@andreamitchell4758 Epson printers use piezo printheads, printers like HP and Canon are thermal heads which are not compatible with most sublimation inks.
@@andreamitchell4758As was mentioned, Epson’s printhead doesn’t heat up. Most other printers do.
@@andreamitchell4758 Heh, good luck getting an HP to print with anything but their brand cartridges unless it's extremely old. They've been doing ink lock-in longer than anyone.
It would be neat to see you try color laser toner transfer using an over head transparency and see how the process and quality compares using the same source image and 3D printer.
Simply brilliant. Although I have to work on my wife first to make room for another machine :)
btw. EPSON deserves a praise for the design too.
Agreed, cool that the Epson printer works like this in the first place.
Wow. One could make some amazing front panels for enclosures and great images for keycaps on custom keyboards. I'm not going to run out to purchase a 2d printer for this, but may reconsider some day in the future if an extra wad of cash comes my way.
You could probably pick up a normal ink jet for free or Next to free from. Craigslist or somewhere else arnt just get a cheap refillable cart kit from China and inject the sublimation dye into the carts instead of ink.
I really don't see why it needs to be an eco tank specifically other than Epson sponsorship of the video or a very trivial convenience feature
That becomes even more trivial when you consider the process of transferring the due to the bottles outlined in the beginning of the video.
It is just as easy if not easier to inject the dye into a refillable after market ink cart with a syringe
@andreamitchell4758 I had this thought as well. It seems like a lottt of extra additional costs. I couldn't understand justifying all of the extra purchases for the end result. It seems like you could, like you said, get a cheap printer and refill carts with sublimination dye and get the same effect. Unless there is some sort of chemical interference, why go through the trouble? I also just am not getting the hype for this idea generally though.
Why not just use Heat Transfer Paper and LASER PRINTER? I did this a LONG time ago.
I've been wanting a sublimation printer for quite a while. This just gives me another use-case for when I eventually pick one up.
The humor here is deadpan but genius
shaq the sublimation soldier
SQUISH
Brilliant video Michael. My wife already has a sublimation printer for her etsy store so will now have to combine that with some of my 3d print designs.
Wow, this is actually amazing. If I start a 3D print farm, I'll 100% have to add sublimation to supplement the services provided.
What would happen if you were to try this with glow in the dark transparent tpu?
What if the first layer was non glow in the dark, and the following layers were glow in the dark?
How does adding lacquer affect the color?
Also, can multiple rounds of color be be applied, via some alignment tools, perhaps?
Someone please combine this with lithopanes! Looking at you @Teaching Tech! Full color lithopanes could be really cool.
The only problem with this is that most people should print lithophanes upright as the 0.2 mm layer height grants really good definition but the 0.4 mm standard nozzle can be used. If you want good flat definition you have to switch your nozzle to 0.1 or 0.2 mm size and then you need very high quality filament and tons of prayers you don't get a clog. 😅 it can be done but it takes longer and there's more opportunity for failure.
Very interesting process. I'm not sure if I would ever do it but still, very cool. Thanks
I would totally put some sort of UV blocking coating on the top of your prints. I have noticed that some D-Sub Prints tend to fade out under UV/Sunlight over time. Thanks for sharing an awesome video.
On an EcoTank printer, if a nozzle clogs, you'll need to buy another printer, because there's no cartridge or replaceable print head you can buy. I will not buy another ecotank epson printer ever again!
PS. these printers also have an in-built counter which measures how much ..ink you have used and make your printer unusable after reaching a certain value.
Pretty sure some solvent and maybe a syringe would clear it
Cool video dude, we bought a sublimation printer (converted Epson) couple of years ago, and have made T-Shirts, Cups, Coasters etc, but being able to something with my 3D printer is awesome :)
Thank you for the amazing content! Your videos always show me incredible things I never thought were possible.
There is no amount of money in the world that would convince me to spray glitter in my face while inside my workshop. Oh the horror.
I've also wondered about heat-gun printed shrink wrapping techniques (similar to bottles of soda). If you can use adhesive to ensure a secure mount of the shrink wrapped plastic, you can technically shrink individual parts for later assembly. This should make it possible to apply a durable full-colour "skin" on nearly any object (given a bit of assembly).
A thin single layer of PLA, and a bit of glue may be effectively used with heat gun 'srhinking' to attache the full-colour surface to a separately printed object!
Oh, and ECOtank is a blessing in a market of historic gouging. The amount of ink you get is SUBSTANTIAL and is cheap to replace. You get to print as you would with a laser printer: you don't have to think about consumables.
Just wanted to point out that the printer manufacturers are up to their old shenanigans with this type of printer too. Since you've got long lines with "stale" ink in them if you don't run your printer daily the first thing it does is dump a bunch of ink into a sponge. The sponge is not a "user replaceable part" and has an electronic counter on it. Once the counter is exceed, the printer is junk. So yes, still better than the old inkjets, but still some ways to go.
@@jeffreycutler7364 Somehow, I am not surprised!
@@jeffreycutler7364Making that sponge non user replaceable is despicable!!
But do you know for sure that it's daily? I.e. that you need to print every single day to avoid the cleaning part?
I'm asking because I have a similar problem with a regular (i.e. 2d) printer from Canon that has "XL" ink tanks (that's the main reason I chose it). I very rarely print anything on it and so every time I do use it it does its cleaning thing, which wastes a lot of ink, so even though the ink tanks are "XL" size I get few pages out of them.
I scheduled a task every Sunday morning to print a page of text, to avoid the cleaning phase. I choose once a week to minimise ink and paper loss but it's too seldom, as the printer still does its cleaning thing. If it needs to print every day to avoid the cleaning then there is no win, as the scheduled task itself would waste 365 pages and the ink for them each year.
@@jeffreycutler7364AFAIK, this is false. If you're referring to the maintenance tank, which it sounds like you are, they're a few bucks on Amazon and one step to replace.
If there's some other pad in the printer that I'm not aware of, I guess I'll have to look into it.
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Upon doing some further reading, it seems like this might be dependent on the model you buy/age of the printer. Newer models, like the one I have, the ET-3850, have the easily replaceable maintenance box. Not sure about other/older models.
Again, unless there's some other pad I'm not aware of.
@@dan-nutu It probably doesn't have to be daily. That's what one youtube review I read say. You probably don't have to print a whole page, just a quick print with all of the different colors.
Could you use the 3D printers heat bed as a heat press?
no you need approx 195°C to start the sublimation process
I saw a guy on reddit that refilled normal ink jet cartridge, do you think that if you refill one of those with sublimation ink could work as well?
Hi everyone, tried this method and got some good result with some added technique, when printing from photoshop there is an option to print with extra ink (no need to run the paper through the printer again), when cleaning the paper from the 3D print don’t use hot water (around 30C), and the final tip is to clear spray the 3D print as a final step makes the colors pop.
I can see this being used for making custom key caps for keyboards!
Wow nice idea. And also really cool that you used my phone case design on printables 😍 it looked awesome
You should try modge podge photo transfers. People use them for wood photos. I've tried it and it on pla, works, maybe you can test for best results. With this method wouldn't be limited to base. I've heard transparency sheets are better than paper.
These are pogs, you've explained how to create pogs.
pog
For the Bambu labs, you should be able to get significant first layer squish by setting first layer to .1 mm or even .08 mm and setting first layer line width to 150% of the nozzle width. This technique interests me because I already have sublimation and DTF capabilities. I’ll give it a try with my squish settings as well. I’m wondering if this will work for DTF as well. The powder is PET I think so it may work well with PETG but not PLA. I would expect you would be able to print at a faster speed but there’s a question about whether the film could withstand the process. It should, in theory, since it can withstand the heat of the heat press in normal usage.
UPDATE: I tried the DTF print with PETG and it failed completely. The filament wouldn’t adhere to the film at all. It only produced a glob of PETG that stayed with the nozzle. Fortunately I was watching and could cancel before doing any damage. But this should be a good lesson for anyone trying something new. Always watch a new process closely. When it’s been proven, then, and only then can you leave it unattended.
I was having issues with .1 for the top layer, but setting it to .02 worked pretty great
This is so cool! I am tempted to buy a printer and heat press just to make my own t-shirts. If only I had a bit more disposable income and space to put all of this...
You should be able to add vibancy with a clear coat.
My partner is a digital artist, and I'm so excited to be able to use this to imprint their illustrations on my 3D prints!
This is a really awesome technique! Thanks for sharing ❤
Absolutely loved this video! Couldn't have picked a better face 😀. My daughter and I have been doing sublimation with an Epson Ink Tank for years. We have to run test pages basically every week to help prevent nozzle clogs.
You can do black&white images with a regular laser printer and transparent sheets made for overhead projectors. Printers heat is enough to sublimate the ink (edit: it melts the ink).
That's cool to hear, since I'm not nearly creative enough to make use of full color, but I could use some labels on my prints occasionally. A bit of a nit-pick though: laser toner is actually fine plastic particles, so it's not sublimation anymore, just melting the toner into your print.
@@flagman3116 Thanks for the correction, that makes way more sense.
And adding labels to printed lab power supplies etc. is quite important, that is where i found the method.
Very cool! Please let us know if the sublimation converted printer faces any issues or needs different maintenance.
This is a game changer, it adds a new dimension to multi colored printing, unlocking new possibilities. Great discovery!
This could be very interesting for adding color to laser engravings.