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Comparison Epson Workforce 1100 to Epson stylus photo 1400 for heat transfer work

Article Number: 13 | Rating: 5/5 from 1 votes | Last Updated: Sat, Dec 19, 2009 7:51 AM

I am trying to decide between the Epson 1400 or the Epson WF 1100 printers. I want refillable cartridges with the proper ink for heat transfer to t-shirts. Which is the easiest and which is the best quality?

Thanks for the question and this is a comparison of the Workforce 1100 versus the Stylus Photo 1400.

Epson Workforce 1100

4 color pigment ink printer, Epson Durabrite Ultra inks, with two black positions ( you need a printer already firing pigment inks for BEST color matched inks ). InkJetCarts oem matched ink is ChromiumPro UltraIII. The variant inks for heat transfer work are ChromiumPro UltraIII HEAT and the only change is the yellow pigment. If you want to continue to use the printer for dual purposes (office work, photos and transfers) use the straight pigments and live with, tweak for or play with the occasional problems with transferring stock yellow pigments.
No more colors than necessary to produce excellent output with high dpi printhead.
13x19 inch wide format
Built and designed for business. The case, frame and quality is for business.

Epson Stylus Photo 1400

6 color Epson Claria ink printer, photo dye inks, with photo black, Cyan Magenta light Cyan light magenta and yellow. Epson Claria inks are very good for photo purposes but are not really a bulletproof ink for heat transfer purposes. Yes on some transfer medias they will last but truly how long? You cannot go wrong with pigment inks, as we have shirts that are 10 years old and still look good.
6 position/color printers do not truly use all 6 poisitions at the same time. Paper / media choice is what drives the channels to fire, except on photo paper only 4 colors will fire from this printer
There are no aftermarket "base pigments" that the manufacturers can use to make inks that will match the Claria inks colors, so our ChromiumPro pigments are what we use. ChromiumPro inks are matched to the Ultrachrome colors for SP2100 2200 Pro 4000 7600 9600 inkjet ink photo printers. The color match to the Claria ink is not there so you must use an icc color profile when using these inks in this printer. You will lose some gamut (color space that the printer is capable of producing) when using these pigments.
We were never really happy with the Stylus Photo 1400 to begin with, but at the time it was the only affordable 13x19 printer capable of doing the transfer work.
Built and designed for the home end-user, not for business.