An Introduction to Sawgrass Inks
While most people know us for Sawgrass Printers, our inks are at the very heart of what we do. We are first and foremost an ink manufacturing company.
About our Inks
All of our inks are made at our facilities near Charleston, South Carolina. If we were to walk you through our process, you’re going to hear two words multiple times: filter and quality check. Our ink is filtered multiple times during the process, and they are also quality checked multiple times throughout the process as well. We pride ourselves on the quality of our inks!
Our inks have an expiration of two years from when it is loaded into the cartridge. You don’t have to worry about the quality of the ink going down before the expiration date, but we do recommend changing it out once it is expired. Expired ink can cause color issues and clogged nozzles.
Another time you don’t need to worry about the quality of the ink is when levels of ink in the cartridge. The quality of ink output is the same whether your cartridge is full or almost empty. When you get a low ink notification go ahead and order a cartridge, so you have it on hand, but you do not have to change the cartridge until the printer displays the message that the ink is depleted, or the cartridge is used. At that point, you need to switch out the cartridge that is empty to continue printing. You may notice that some cartridges will deplete more quickly than others; ink use is going to depend on what colors you use in your designs.
About Our Ink Types: Subject, Chromablast, and Siser Easy Subli
When you are looking at our ink sets, you’ll notice that we have three very distinct inks that we manufacture: Sublijet, Chromablast, and Siser Easy Subli.
If you are using our SG500 or SG1000 printers, the Sublijet ink you’ll be using is our Sublijet UHD (Ultra High Definition) Ink. This ink is formulated to give you a superior result on all hard and soft polyester coated substrates. This is the ink for you if you are going to be doing a variety of sublimation projects using blanks made of ceramic, stainless steel, polyester fabric, slate, wood, glass, and acrylic. Sublijet UHD can also be using on Siser Easy Subli Heat Tranfer Vinyl. The main reason to choose one of our other ink sets is if your main goal is to produce cotton t-shirts, or if many of your projects will utilize Heat Transfer Vinyl.
Chromablast UHD is our solution for pressing onto cotton fabric. This pigment ink is used in conjunction with Chromablast transfer paper. Chromablast is not a sublimation ink but does allow you to transfer onto 100% cotton fabric. This ink only works with cotton fabric and no other materials, so our recommendation is to purchase this ink set if your focus is cotton shirts. This is also a great ink for a second printer once you have established your business.
Siser Easy Subli Ink is specifically formulated to work with Siser Easy Subli Heat Transfer Vinyl. Siser Easy Subli HTV is a great option if you are wanting to use sublimation on darker color shirts or cotton fabric. Since the base is a white heat transfer vinyl that you print onto, this is a great solution for these situations. Siser Easy Subli ink is a great choice if a large portion of your prints will be onto Siser Easy Subli HTV. Siser Easy Subli ink will also give you a good result on all the other blanks that you can use with Sublijet UHD ink.
A Note
One thing to note; we do not recommend changing your ink set once one has been loaded into your printer. It is practically impossible to clear all the ink out of the lines of the printer. Because each ink is formulated differently, your performance would be hampered if the inks mixed in the lines.
Our suggestion is to start with a printer filled with the ink you feel best suites your needs and then add a second printer with a different ink when your business has grown to that level. This also helps as you’re starting with the products you feel you can sell most easily and then add additional products as your business grows!
Hopefully, you now have the information you need to choose the right ink for your Sawgrass printer. Additional information on our inks and printers can be found under the Help tab at the top of our website. You can find us at sawgrassink.com. You can also use the Help page to open a ticket with our Care Team. Want to connect with me? You can join my group “Rhonda’s Sublimation Corner” in MyMates. That’s a great place to ask me questions or request a blog post you’d like to read!