For sake of this example, we are going to pretend we’re looking to color match this glove with the blue in our printed design.

Use your own print settings to print out the above files onto film.

Click the below button to see our Cadlink settings.

You might consider printing more copies to PRESS onto white or black shirts for extra references!

TIP: Once completed, keep everything handy for all your other color match projects!

If we were looking for a match to the glove, we would most likely choose 4-7. We might also select 3-5. Both are circled in the picture.

Next step would be to open your design program.

We use Silhouette Studio.

Open both the color chart where the desired color is and the design onto the same canvas.

Use the color match tool to change the color of your design.

Now your design is the color you selected that best matches your glove!

These are basic steps. But, if you are an advanced user and creating your own designs, you can use this method too. This ensures your designs are printing with the intended matched color.

We also find this handy if for any reason your printer is not printing colors properly. You can “trick” it to being a closer match.

For example, after buying this 20$ printer for the printhead, we discovered one channel was clogged. Since we needed to print ASAP, we decided to move one of our whites to the actual clogged channel. We then moved our black (was clogged) to the normal white channel.

Next Step is to set the ink order in your RIP software.

The below steps are for CADLINK v11.

Click Queue -> Set Ink Order

The below settings are for the above cartridge configuration. White #2 is the clogged channel.

Make sure you do a couple head cleans to flush the channels!

We recently discovered that the printhead in the Epson XP-6100 model is the EXACT same printhead as the XP-15000.

We usually find used Epson-6100 for sale for between 20-50$(CAD) on marketplace. We can buy one brand new on amazon for 169$(CAD). We swap the printheads out easily to recover our clogged Epson XP-15000 DTF printer.

This has been the CHEAPEST way we found to replace our clogged printheads without breaking the bank.

Obviously buying off marketplace comes with risks. We think the chances of buying a regular ink printer that is clogged is rare.

Update: We proved ourselves wrong once, see BLOG Post -> HERE)

The XP-15000 uses Cyan, Yellow, Magenta, Black, Grey & Red. This equals 6 color nozzles.

From a glance, we can see that the Epson XP-6100 uses Cyan, Yellow, Magenta, Photo Black & Black. This equals 5 colors. However, as you can see below, the black is a DOUBLE cartridge. So we still have a total of 6 nozzles.

When removing the black double cartridge, you will notice that the part where the cartridges clip in only has 5 release levers. You’ll need to use the one from your XP-15000 UNLESS you plan on using the double cartridge for the white.

After you move the printhead to your XP-15000, make sure you run a couple of print head cleans.

Also, set your ink order in your RIP Software if you changed the order at all!

BONUS!
When swapping the printhead, you’ll find this LOCK piece. It is the reason you can only insert colors in only specific slots. If you remove it, you can use cartridges from your XP-15000 or XP-6100 in ANY SLOT.

When buying off marketplace, sellers often include old cartridges for free. This makes your investment more valuable. Replacing your white cartridges is a good thing to do after a while anyways!

If you do this, make sure you know the right order of your inks as you will now be able to insert ANY color in ANY slot.

These are always the first settings we change.

To find the general settings, click on Tools -> Options.

Make sure to enable advanced settings in order to see all the settings in the following steps.

This enables the printer to print all colors BEFORE printing the actual file. We like this setting because we can tell if any colors aren’t working before spending time printing the whole image.

Increasing the resolution will make your prints POP however you will notice a slow down in the printing (this works out for us and lets the ink dry)

MAGENTA

BLACK

Here we set the MAX INK setting.

PRINT PREVIEW OFF

With Silhouette, we created a small blank file and saved as .PNG which is only 2″x2″. We keep this file handy.

Download Blank File below.

In Cadlink, we created a new custom page size called Daily – We made it’s size 2″ by 10″

Click HERE for detailed steps.

We always make sure the the Confident Strips are turned ON. You can find these settings under the Queue Properties menu Called Settings-> Print Labels in Cadlink.

We leave this on all the time so the printer has time to start each ink color BEFORE the design is actually started. This gives us a chance to stop the print if we notice the colors are missing from the confident strip.

Confident Strips will show up like this in the preview.

Once a day, we check to make sure the printer environment is ideal. We keep a humidity meter close to the printer at all times.

Ideal temperature is 69-71 degrees F/20-22 degrees C

Ideal humidity is 45-55%.

If too high, we run a dehumidifier.

If too low, we run a humidifier. (Amazon.CA Link)

Each morning, we gently remove and rotate the white ink cartridges and we fill them up if necessary. We also fill our other colors if necessary.

Then we do one print head clean and make sure to add moisturizer liquid (cleaner) to the capping station twice during the process.

In Cadlink,
We make sure the page size is selected to our earlier created custom page size (daily – 2inch wide)

We then add the blank.PNG to our page in Cadlink.

We always keep our small scrap pieces of film so we can use them for our daily quick test. Anything over 2inches wide is perfect for us to use on our daily test prints!

We then add a piece of scrap film – usually we pick something larger than the page size we created above – so since the page itself is 2″, we try to make sure the film is at least 4″ wide.

In the picture, we used a silhouette mat behind our film to help the printer detect the film.

Once printed, you get a printout of all colors and white without wasting too much ink/film in the process! It should be about 2″ wide.

We use q-tips dipped in moisturizer to clean each mesh on each cartridge gently.

We use q-tips dipped in moisturizer to clean the slots of the printhead gently.

We reset the waste ink tank with the resetter.

We have a set of maintenance OEM cartridges filled with our moisturizer fluid.

If we notice any problems, we run a few printhead cleans with these cartridges in.