Making Decals and needing a new printer

[Doc Pye]

Well according to my research, these inkjets boast the following resolution:

Epson Photo Expression 5760 x 1440 using 6 cartridges/inks

Canon Pixma MG3650 (as mentioned) 4800 x 1200 with two ink cartridges: B&W and color

Canon Pixma iX6850 9600 x 2400 with 5 cartridges/inks

Epson WF-7830 or 40 4800 x 2400 with 4 ink cartridges

[njee20]

I could knock one up for you quickly if you fancy seeing if the difference is worth it.

Cheers for the offer, it's mainly apathy on my part I think, I have used some vector graphics software for some of the artwork, I just find Powerpoint so much quicker for laying elements out. Better the devil you know. Obviously now I've posted those photos it's made me think I must do them better! 

Well according to my research, these inkjets boast the following resolution:

Epson Photo Expression 5760 x 1440 using 6 cartridges/inks

Canon Pixma MG3650 (as mentioned) 4800 x 1200 with two ink cartridges: B&W and color

Canon Pixma iX6850 9600 x 2400 with 5 cartridges/inks

Epson WF-7830 or 40 4800 x 2400 with 4 ink cartridges

Be great to see a print on each of those! I'm still dubious about the true resolution, it's intriguing they're all different aspect ratios, with fewer lines than horizontal dots.

[Doc Pye]

Be great to see a print on each of those!

Well I am pretty sure my budget won't allow me to buy one of each to test that out...   That said, still looking to see what is best for my needs.

Sadly in the old days - yes, I am dating myself - one could go into one of these big computer superstores that had all these printers and test them out. However, that is a distant memory...

[njee20]

Haha, yes, more a conceptual comment than actually suggesting you buy one of each! I do wonder with UV printing and what not where we'll end up on this. That's producing some interesting results for people like Rainbow Railways, but at a noticeably lower resolution even than my decals, so far more coarse than you'd be after. ALPS/Microdry printers have all but gone. with the proliferation of 3D printing surely a better method of finishing them is out there!

[zwilnik]

The print resolution and final results very much depend on the paper used too. Often an inkjet printer that's designed primarily for super high resolution prints on photo paper will be worse at printing on 'normal' papers (or unusual ones such as decal paper) than a more ordinary one.

[Doc Pye]

The print resolution and final results very much depend on the paper used too. Often an inkjet printer that's designed primarily for super high resolution prints on photo paper will be worse at printing on 'normal' papers (or unusual ones such as decal paper) than a more ordinary one.

Yes, very much aware of this...and reviews on some of the 'photo' printers suggest this might be a problem for decal paper.

[NScaleNotes]

I'm still dubious about the true resolution, it's intriguing they're all different aspect ratios, with fewer lines than horizontal dots.

Don't even go there, it's a rabbit hole of hardware technology, ink drop sizes/patterns and misused terms from the printing industry.   

[njee20]

Yeah, that was rather my interpretation, I filed it in "don't really need to know" bucket! 

[Doc Pye]

Well following further research I finally bought a new color printer...and the winner is:

Epson Expression Photo XP-8700

6 ink cartridges - Black, Cyan, Light Cyan, Yellow, Magenta, Light Magenta

Resolution at 5,760 x 1,440 DPI

1.5 pl, with Variable-Sized Droplet Technology) per nozzle...and doesn't that open up a can of worms! 

More info here: https://www.epson.co.uk/en_GB/products/printers/inkjet/consumer/expression-photo-xp-8700/p/32270

Cost: £103.97

I will try it out and if it doesn't work, well, back to Amazon!  However, hopefully it will do a great job.

My sincere thanks to everyone who offered their thoughts on this, as it was indeed really helpful and informative. I have never bought an Epson product before, so a first time for everything. Of course, I will post up some photos of what this new gizmo can do...again, hoping for the best! 

[ntpntpntp]

Well, even if it turns out not so good for decals I'm sure it'll still do lovely glossy photos and other document printing.

I had Epson printers way back in the 70s and 80s, they were a "go to" brand then.  The first one was a wide carriage dot matrix printer that could use the same continuous tractor-feed multi-part paper we had at work.  Later I had one of their colour inkjets which I ran alongside a simple Samsung mono laser for a while, as the laser was more economical for just knocking out letters and scanned copies etc.

[Doc Pye]

Well, even if it turns out not so good for decals I'm sure it'll still do lovely glossy photos and other document printing.

Well that's positive...I guess... 

[Railwaygun]

Do a test print every few days to keep nozzles clear perhaps?

[Doc Pye]

So an update is in order. Printer arrived from Amazon last week and I got it out of the box and set-up....but wait, it wouldn't set-up....no matter what I did the WiFi wouldn't connect and even with a USB plug in the back none of my computers would recognize it. Okay, not to be deterred from printing something out, I put some materials on a USB stick and plugged it in the front of the printer. The joy kept going, as the printer ONLY recognized JPEG images and none of the Word docs. Still not giving up, I tried a few test prints. I wanted to see how the six color cartridges would deliver the 5760x1440 dpi prints. But wait, it really didn't. I mean, I tried a lot of settings but the output while clearer than my old Lexmark X9575 was sharper the colors were dull. I played around with the saturation levels but wasn't able to get it to deliver what was needed. 

Given all that transpired, I ended up repacking the printer and it will be returned to Amazon tomorrow. The WiFI doesn't work....the USB connection doesn't work...the printer has a number of limitations with what you can actually print without borders (and if you don't do that, then the printer automatically rescales your image to a smaller one to accommodate for the border)....and the colors are rather dull and lifeless, despite trying with a number of different paper types, including photo paper. In regards to photo paper, that prints best but still any lines are jagged and not clear at all. Another point of note, the inks tend to 'over saturate' and that doesn't look good; surprising as when doing decals one usually wants more ink on the page. 

As I also bought some spare printer cartridges, they all go back too (they were never opened).

So all in all not a good experience...but I am still not giving in...I will go back to the drawing board. 

So still open to other suggestions and printer recommendations....

As the saying goes, if first you don't succeed, try, try and try again! Surely there must be a good printer out there that won't break the bank....

[ntpntpntp]

That's a shame. Some thoughts:

Were you trying to use the Wifi as a peer-to-peer with your computer, or trying to get it to join your house WiFi?  Did it need security (WPA or whatever?)  Did it find your Wifi SID and show up on your router as a connection attempt?

Did USB on your computer say unrecognised device - maybe it needed drivers installing first?

I wouldn't expect Word docs to print via the USB stick port, you need Word to render the document through a printer driver to print it.

Was the jpeg photo high enough resolution and quality settings? I'd have tried a TIF image which has less compression.

Anyway, clearly it wasn't for you for various reasons   

[Doc Pye]

Were you trying to use the Wifi as a peer-to-peer with your computer, or trying to get it to join your house WiFi?  Did it need security (WPA or whatever?)  Did it find your Wifi SID and show up on your router as a connection attempt?

Did USB on your computer say unrecognised device - maybe it needed drivers installing first?

We literally tried everything. The drivers installed, but could not get any of our computers in the house to recognize the printer. Tried every possible route....still nothing. I do recall a lot of similar comments on the reviews that the WiFi set-up was a real pain but was hoping this was just a one-off.

Also, the alignment of the cartridges was a rather different approach...it prints a page and then asks you to look at each row and then choose which is the best from a row of 7, then input that into the printer. Regardless, it shouldn't be printing jagged lines....even my old Lexmark doesn't do that.

As I said, the detail was slightly better on photo paper but not nearly what it needs to be....or I want it to be.

As for settings, unless you are using glossy photopaper and high/best quality, it doesn't let you do borderless...which doesn't make sense. So any normal prints resized the JPEG to accommodate for the border area.

In terms of images, I tried simple JPEGs and SVG ones....and still jagged and broken lines.

Anyway, clearly it wasn't for you for various reasons   

So either I got a lemon (possible) or I am the lemon (also possible...but I am not that useless....where am I, where's my ice cream....)