Ricoh 3110DN Sublimation Printer (Bella)
The Ricoh 3110DN is a gel inkjet printer which can also take special sublimation ink cartridges for printing onto t-shirts, mugs and similar items. Also acrylic- or polyester-based fabrics such as satin and faux suede, and acrylic sheet.
The inks are expensive.
Current pricing is:
- £0.50. Printing onto up to half of one A4 page (including ink + paper)
- £1.00. Printing onto up to one complete A4 page (including ink + paper)
If you print multiple pages, e.g. for front and reverse then multiply costs accordingly.
MUGS - blank mugs are available from DoES for £3. Instructions about using the mug press and where to obtain mugs here Mug Heat Press (Hettie)
T-SHIRTS - We have a limited number of plain white t-shirts available at £6 each, or you can supply your own blank T-Shirts (these can be obtained at a good price from http://www.mdpsupplies.co.uk/categories/dye-sublimation.asp For sublimation printing to work the t-shirts MUST be high polyester content, NOT cotton. Suitable T-shirts on the MDP site are marked with "Dye Sub" and cost about £6 T-shirts need to be a pale colour or the sublimation dye won't show up. White is generally best. If you use another colour tee shirt you may need to adjust the print colour (e.g. if you want green and are printing on a blue tee shirt you may need the print to be more yellow).
The printer commissioned at DoES is set up for sublimation printing (i.e. sublimation inks and sublimation printer are loaded into the paper). As such it is not suitable for non-sublimation printing, but there are plenty of other office printers around for that!
The printer driver is now set up on Gerald, so it's probably easiest to copy your design and print it from there. At present (03/08/2017) the printer is on the DoES internal network at IP address 192.168.0.15.
Download a PC driver from the Ricoh site and install the PCL6 driver http://support.ricoh.com/bb/html/dr_ut_e/re2/model/sg3110dn/sg3110dn.htm?lang=en
This may or may not be necessary. However it should not be the driver used for actual printing as there is a better driver available...
Next download the PowerDriver from this site
This link is no longer working. The product has been updated to Virtuoso http://www.sawgrassink.com/Products/Software/PowerDriver https://www.sawgrassink.com/Portal/Tech-Support/Tech-Support-Pages/VPM/SG400-800-SubliJet-HD/Color-Management-Download.aspx
You will need to register on the site, install the driver, then register with the site to obtain a registration key for the driver.
There are manuals available you may wish to look at e.g.
I found I needed to enter the IP address for the printer rather than allow the installation to scan the network.
With this installed successfully you can move to the next step - printing!
The PowerDriver printer driver appears to only support certain applications or a "product not found" error message pops up.
I tried Inkscape and GIMP 2 and both print attempts failed. This needs to be investigated further.
Word however does work. Also works with Microsoft Paint and Photos.
Edit the graphic in an editor of choice, e.g. Inkscape. I've been doing this on an A4 landscape document size. You can export the graphic in .png format.
You can print .bmp, .png, or .jpeg files from programs such as Microsoft Photos or Paint. Make sure that the print options are set up correctly so that it doesn't reduce the size of the print to A5, for example.
It is also possible to print from Word: First create a new document. I found it best to create an A4 page size and reduce the margins to zero so I can then copy and paste an image from Inkscape.
It may be that the 3110DN needs a minimal margin or not. This needs investigating but I haven't yet had problems.
Ensure you've sized the image in Word as appropriate bearing in mind A4 size is relatively small for a T-Shirt.
Then print using the PowerDriver printer driver.
It may be useful to change the driver preferences preset from Default to Polyester T-Shirt.It may also be useful to change the orientation to landscape if you are using a landscape image.You should set the print mode to superfine under the 'Paper' tab in the preferences dialogue and Best Quality in the 'Print quality' tab.
As of 21/10/2021 it seems a different printer driver is installed. It prints just fine, but the instructions crossed out like this no longer apply.
What is important is that the image must be reversed in in the horizontal direction as the paper is flipped over for heat-pressing. The PowerDriver takes care of this automatically by default so you do not need to reverse your design yourself
Once printed you are ready to press onto the T-Shirt.
As above t-shirts must be high polyester content for this to work.
Advice is that the pressing should be at about 200 degrees C for about 60 seconds. This seems to work for me.
IMPORTANT WARNING
The heat press is HOT. The press can cause SERIOUS BURNS. It should not be used without a FORMAL WORKSHOP INDUCTION. If you have any uncertainty whatsoever about this, please speak with a DoES Organiser before using the heat press.
The heat press currently doesn't seem to match the input temperature setting (by pushing the buttons on the left hand side) to the thermostatically controlled temperature. I found I needed to set about 225C to achieve 200C for pressing. Set the counter time on the right hand side in a similar manner.
Orient your t-shirt so it is straight in the press and the print area is appropriate for where you wish the design to display on your chest.
We were advised to do a quick 5 second press to iron out any wrinkles in the t-shirt.
There an under sheet and an over sheet which should go beneath and above the t-shirt in the press (do we need these??)
After ironing the t-shirt place the transfer sheet ink side down in the appropriate position on the t-shirt, place the over sheet on top, and press down for the 60s period.
Lift up and hey presto... A printed t-shirt!
JP: Printed on acrylic satin using the same settings. Use Kapton tape to keep the transfer sheet in place and avoid blurring. Printing on acrylic sheet also works well (see settings below).(http://sawgrasseurope.indigofiles.com/education/EN07_-_How_to_Sublimate_Acrylic_Panels_In_A_Flat_Heat_Press.pdf) and wood (using spray on coating: http://www.digicoat.com).
Ensure to turn off the heat press after use. Close the heat press after use and warn anybody in the workshop that it will remain hot for some time
| Material | Temperature (C) | Time (s) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Polyester t-shirts | 200 | 60 | |
| Polyester Satin | 200 | 60 | |
| Acrylic felt | 200 | 50 | |
| 3mm Acrylic sheet | 180 | 120 | NEEDS MORE EXPERIMENTATION - Some started melting; also would be good to cool down in machine to prevent warping |