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
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.
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.
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. 😊
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.
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!
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.
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.
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. 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.
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?
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.
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.
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 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).
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'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.
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.
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 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.
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.
The method you demonstrated for registering the paper to the 3D print is ingenious but inflexible. If you could incorporate some registration dots into the 3D print, have them print first and then pause, you could then position the paper prior to allowing the 3D print to compete. This would allow you to create a variety of geometries while retaining the registration feature.
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
For increased or decreased ink deposition on a print, we use an HSV or HSL filter in an editor and change the value (V or L). This affects the amount of white in the image, which for a printer without white ink correlates with the amount of ink deposited as white comes from the substrate. Saturation sometimes need to be adjusted slightly too (typically boosted if increasing white or reduced if reducing white), but fundamentally you need to control the white mix.
This doesnt just "bond to the plastic" it enters INTO the plastic in its gas state. You could use sandpaper on that and it wouldnt go away right away. From what ive seen on our sublimation press on plastic its 0.5-1mm~ deep iirc. so this should, on the first layer be spread around the whole first 0.2mm or 0.25mm (whatever your first layer thickness is). Sublimation on prints should be VERY durable :)
Intro: "You dont need a special printer" 2mins in "you need a special printer, or a 2d printer that youre going to dedicate to dye-printing" ... F. Cool technique though. Limited use, but still cool.
@@TeachingTech Still need either a specialised printer, or to ruin a standard printer with ink that will quickly damage it to make the design. You dont need to get upset, its just fact.
I’ve been doing the same thing with a color laser and transparency sheets. I feel that the color laser give a much more saturated result than sublimation does.
*Unlocking Full-Color 3D Printing with Sublimation: A Comprehensive Guide* * *0:59** Sublimation Explained:* Sublimation is the process where a substance transitions directly from a solid to a gas, skipping the liquid phase. This technique is commonly used for transferring dye to polyester fabrics. * *1:35** Affordable Sublimation Printers:* Epson EcoTank printers, specifically the ET-2400 (US) and ET-1810 (Aus), are recommended as cost-effective options for sublimation printing. [From Comments] While EcoTank is a good option, using a cheap older Epson printer with refillable cartridges could be even more economical and mitigate issues with ink settling and clogs. * *2:56** Setting Up Your Printer:* Converting an EcoTank printer for sublimation involves replacing the standard ink with sublimation dye. Various methods for transferring the dye are discussed, including using syringes and custom-printed adapters. * *3:00** Warranty Void:* Be aware that converting your printer for sublimation will likely void the manufacturer's warranty. * *5:37** T-Shirt Example:* A practical demonstration of sublimating an image onto a t-shirt using a heat press. * *7:04** 3D Printing Integration:* The process of integrating sublimation with 3D printing involves printing a design onto sublimation paper and adhering it to the print bed before starting the 3D print. * *8:50** Optimizing Print Settings:* Achieving optimal results requires specific print settings, including a slow first layer speed (5 mm/s) and a significant amount of first layer "squish" to ensure complete dye transfer. [From Comments] On Bambu Lab printers, the first layer squish can be adjusted by modifying the start G-Code. * *9:20** Infill Pattern Considerations:* The choice of infill pattern for the first layer can impact the final sublimated image. Concentric or HBT Curve patterns are recommended. * *11:22** Double Printing for Enhanced Color:* Printing the sublimation design twice can significantly improve color saturation. * *12:34** Glue and Cleaning:* Using a glue stick to adhere the sublimation paper to the print bed is recommended. The glue and any paper residue can be easily removed with warm water and a scraper. * *13:59** Registration Techniques:* Accurate alignment of the sublimation print and the 3D model is crucial. Using a template or drawing registration marks with a Sharpie directly on the print bed are effective methods. * *15:12** Applications:* Sublimation combined with 3D printing opens up possibilities for creating custom merchandise, functional prints with integrated labels, and unique personalized items. * *16:57** Durability:* The sublimated image is highly durable, resistant to scratching, water, and isopropyl alcohol. * *[From Comments] Laser Printer Alternative:* An alternative method using a laser printer and transparency sheets is suggested for black and white images. * *[From Comments] UV Protection:* Applying a UV-blocking coating to the finished print is recommended to prevent fading over time. I used gemini-1.5-pro-exp-0801 to summarize the transcript. Cost (if I didn't use the free tier): $0.11 Input tokens: 29200 Output tokens: 713
I tried this (sub ink/paper) with TPU (220 nozzle, 80 bed). While it "did" transfer color to the TPU, it looked like the ink vaporized "between" the print and the TPU layer and was VERY "fuzzy" (for want of a better word). Perhaps I didn't have enough squish?
I have just bought an Ecotank ET2810 printer! what timing! can it still be used as a regular printer by running out all the remaining sublimation dye and filling with regular ink?
There’s another affordable alternative for folks who don’t want to buy a new ecotank printer. Ecotank is a CISS (Iontinuous Ink Supply System) printer, and you can get conversion kits for ~$90AUD and convert your existing printer (e.g. the cheaper WF-xxxx printers that are so ubiquitous and often being given away on gumtree, or the ones with higher print quality than the ecotanks). Conversion is really easy (there’s plenty of videos on RU-vid), and using CISS saves you so much on ink costs (compared to cartridges).
Fantastic video! 2:40 - not recommended to use a second-hand EcoTank printer because there will be residue of normal ink in the print head? Maybe it would "flush out" with some time.
Just a few days ago, a friend got access to a sublimation printer. I told her that I wondered if it could work with 3D printers. Then, here you are just a few days later putting out a video about how to do that. How do you do it? I was just wondering if it could be printed then ironed onto a print. Looks like the heat needs to be too high for that based on this video, but I hadn't even thought about printing right onto it. Nor about how to convert a cheap printer to be a sublimation one. You are constantly putting out the most useful 3D printing content I have seen. And 3D printing/maker stuff is the majority of what I watch. Thanks for another great video! (*Edit for typos, but not sure I caught them all)
No, you can't do sublimation on the printed part, the pressure and temperature would melt the print or result in delamination. I was trying it for some time with at best (on ABS) some sublimation but warped prints, on TPU I ended up with a mess behind recognition. The technique came as a last resort and came out great from the start (as you can see at the start of the video). Although not recommended you can convert an existing printer to a sublimation one by cleaning the tanks and tubing. (IPA or printer cleaning fluid), then flush the ink till you have the sublimation ink in the system. Important: The printer has to be like Epson, meaning no heated print nozzles.
no. sublimation is the process of turning from a solid to a gas as stated at the beginning of the video. if you 3d print on top of the paper then it is converted to a gas by the hot plastic making contact with the dye. so the process is done at that point. you cant re animate the gas to a solid. make sense? when you understand what sublimation is you understand how it can be used.
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.
If you're looking for a sublimation to PLA project on a flat PLA surface (2.3" x 2.0"), I have one for you, but I need to upload an image....please respond and I'll upload it to you.
Why does your mate look like Keith Lemon? You can convert any standard inkjet printer to sublimation, although you will get varying results. If converting a used printer I would recommend buying new empty cartridges and a new print head, although you can flush a used head by having an extra set of cartridges filled with an Inkjet flush liquid, and run it through a few cleaning cycles.
Highly recommended if you can get an Old Epson R2400 Stylus printer they're essentially the older version of the Ecotank- 8550, but technically better because they also have light majenta and light cyan, and you can mod them with external tank cartridges and external waste tanks and buy after market k3 ink for much less than what you're paying for ink straight from epson. Solid score if you can grab one
Have you tried Mod Podge? You can transfer pretty much anything to anything, and it last forever. Well, my mum have a plastic ruler with a banana transferred from a catalogue from back when she was young, at it's still there in vibrant colours. I'm not sure if that was Mod Podge brand, but it was a similar product.
For me, if I need material to squish into the build plate, in addition to lowering the Z axis a bit, in Cura, I can adjust the Initial Layer Flow which only affects the bottom layer and greatly reduces the line gaps when printing on an Ender 3 v3 SE. I use this when printing on textured build plates. It would work great for sublimation printing also. I have my initial layer flow set to 130%.
Not surprising this works, it's interesting but we'll see how many people actually do it. Eco tanks in general are based on extremely cheap printers as well so the cheaper the printer the more likely it'll die quick, expect if you do this for it to be a money sink unless you know you can make the money back. Also a word of warning to those looking at the ET-1810 specifically, it's an alright printer when it works, printing just normal paper prints. It's reliability is highly questionable, I have one and did less than 100 prints before it started having issues which Epson "apparently" couldn't diagnose, a lot of stuffing around before they would actually look at it under warranty.
Awesome trick! But I should admit that it won't help for the curved surface, and that's what I was looking for to create custom keycaps. However, there are some other inexpensive ways to do sublimation transfer without buying an expensive equipment.
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!
🤔 How about simply using inkjet transfer paper (used to make DIY T-shirts at home)? (Saving a new ink jet printer purchase as well as this special ink!)
I know how to print with mustard on the first print First, spread mustard over the heat plate then print as normal, voila, you can now print with mustard This is just a fancy way of drawing on the print
You are one of the most creative people I know. This is outstanding, Think of all the possibilities. Actually, I don't believe anyone could possibly think of all the possibilities. This certainly is worth the cost of a printer and some ink to get started experimenting. Thank you enormously.
Recently i saw a very simular method but less complicated on YT by Jason Winfield called "How to transfer full color prints on to your 3D printed parts"
