Printing decals with an Alps printer

[Anonymous]

I have been researching an alps printer and as the price seems a little steep, was wondering does anyone have experience with one?? Is it worth it, or is someone out there willing to do a little "outsourcing" with compensation?

John

[bfsfabs]

John,

I have an Alps MD-5000 and have made some decals with it. Most of them have come out pretty good. Maybe not quite what I had in mind, but OK.
My own feeling is that the somewhere along the line I missed some little bit of info. I read the MR articles and still the same feeling persists.
The decals I made were mostly of the road name and reporting mark flavor. Sure beats the one letter at a time process from an alphabet set. I think it will really be all right after I get the operator, myself, up to speed.
I could use a little help myself. Anybody ?

Lowell
Pacific & Southwest Railroad Co.
[e-mail]

[Anonymous]

I wish I could help you! I mostly interested in the alps type for the reason it can print white...I am building a fleet of Chicago Metra F40ph locos and bi-level budd passenger cars and especially for the locos, I need white printed on clear decal film...I am working in N scale, so a large portion of the artwork would be small. How is your machine on detail. My wife has a cannon S800 which is a really nice photo printer and could probably meet my detail hopes, but, alas, it doesn't print white. Of course, Micro-scale, who has a decal sheet in their inventory lists is out and they don't knowif or when they will run another print of the,...Walther's is back-ordered, as well, so I'm fairly screwed, it seems. I have thought about contacting one of the places I have seen advertise in Model Railroader located only about 20 miles from me here in Illinois, but I'd still need to do the artwork for them, and when I checked their price schedules, I was like-wow, this is harder than calculus to understand...

If, in the future I actually did artwork, would you be willing to print me off a sheet or sample?? There is a guy on ebay selling 2 alps md1000's now, but he states he could not get them to work and he got error messages from the machines. The current bid is only $110 for the pair, but if they are screwed up, what's the point. On the other hand, maybe his machine is too old or some other stupid computer anomaly befell him...Also, perhaps they could be repaired at a reasonable cost. I think the machine is about $600. What did you pay for yours, if you don't mind...

So many questions! I hope you don't mind!! Any suggestions, guidance, thoughts, and especially help would be greatly appreciated!

Your Friend,
John

[bfsfabs]

John,

You have hit on the key detail of the Alps printer. It will PRINT WHITE. Otherwise inkjet and/or laser printers have all the other capabilities required to carry out the job. I bought mine on 1999-Apr-06 from an outfit called Insight in Tempe AZ. The whole bill, I'm looking at it now, was $800.00. That included a bunch of supplies. The printer alone was $570.24. As to detail. The printer uses a dithering process to create colors. When viewed under magnification it looks like a bunch of little dots and short squiggly lines of various colors. Really pretty good when viewed with the the nude eyeball.

Alps discontinued the entire MD printer line a year or so ago. Although I suspect they are still available in Japan. Repairs to Alps, as far as I can find out, is only through Alps Electric and consists of trading in "yours" for a factory rebuilt unit. The cost for an MD 5000 was quoted at $350. Maybe somebody stateside does it too.

E-mail me and I will go on at greater length about what I know of these things. I have been somewhat frustrated by the whole deal. I still think I didn't pick up on some piece of info, OR my expectations are out of sync with reality. I would be willing to give it a try for you sometime.

Type at me . . .

Lowell
Pacific & Southwest Railroad Co.
[e-mail]

[CNJ831]

I have the ALPS MD1000 machine...the one that was always recommended as the best-buy for decal making and cost only about $225 new a couple of years ago.

To get the most out of the ALPS machines you must fully understand the specific process to follow for making decals. I have seen no single article that covers all the points necessary (including the ALPS manual). However, MR had an article on decal making not too long ago that touched on use of the ALPS and the NMRA Bulletin for June 1999 also had one. Taken together, these two DO give you all the background necessary to produce great multi-colored ALPS decals.

John

[bfsfabs]

John with Alps MD-1000,

I am going to reread, again, the articles you mentioned. May see what I think I missed.

Maybe you are the person I have been looking for. If you have the time, patience and inclination to discuss this, please e-mail me.

Thanks,
Lowell Ryder
[e-mail]

[greendiamond]

Oddballs decals uses the Alps printers to produce his line of decals.

There is an Alps user group on yahoo groups that may also be of some assistance.

Mike Tyl

[Anonymous]

I know a batch of outfits make refill kits for standard inkjet printers...and also that most inkjet inks follow a pretty standard sort of chemistry, viscosity, etc.. So...has anyone out there used the white ALPS ink to refill, say, an HP black cartridge, and just run it? Seems like if you cleaned out an empty black cartrdige (ultrasonic cleaned it?) and loaded it with white instead of black, then printed your lettering in solid 'black' - how would the printer know any different?

[Anonymous]

I know a batch of outfits make refill kits for standard inkjet printers...and also that most inkjet inks follow a pretty standard sort of chemistry, viscosity, etc.. So...has anyone out there used the white ALPS ink to refill, say, an HP black cartridge, and just run it? Seems like if you cleaned out an empty black cartrdige (ultrasonic cleaned it?) and loaded it with white instead of black, then printed your lettering in solid 'black' - how would the printer know any different?

[Anonymous]

I know a batch of outfits make refill kits for standard inkjet printers...and also that most inkjet inks follow a pretty standard sort of chemistry, viscosity, etc.. So...has anyone out there used the white ALPS ink to refill, say, an HP black cartridge, and just run it? Seems like if you cleaned out an empty black cartrdige (ultrasonic cleaned it?) and loaded it with white instead of black, then printed your lettering in solid 'black' - how would the printer know any different?

[Anonymous]

I know a batch of outfits make refill kits for standard inkjet printers...and also that most inkjet inks follow a pretty standard sort of chemistry, viscosity, etc.. So...has anyone out there used the white ALPS ink to refill, say, an HP black cartridge, and just run it? Seems like if you cleaned out an empty black cartrdige (ultrasonic cleaned it?) and loaded it with white instead of black, then printed your lettering in solid 'black' - how would the printer know any different?

[Anonymous]

I know a batch of outfits make refill kits for standard inkjet printers...and also that most inkjet inks follow a pretty standard sort of chemistry, viscosity, etc.. So...has anyone out there used the white ALPS ink to refill, say, an HP black cartridge, and just run it? Seems like if you cleaned out an empty black cartrdige (ultrasonic cleaned it?) and loaded it with white instead of black, then printed your lettering in solid 'black' - how would the printer know any different?

[Anonymous]

I know a batch of outfits make refill kits for standard inkjet printers...and also that most inkjet inks follow a pretty standard sort of chemistry, viscosity, etc.. So...has anyone out there used the white ALPS ink to refill, say, an HP black cartridge, and just run it? Seems like if you cleaned out an empty black cartrdige (ultrasonic cleaned it?) and loaded it with white instead of black, then printed your lettering in solid 'black' - how would the printer know any different?

[Anonymous]

Sorry to the list about the multiple duplicate responses to Michael ...don't know WHAT caused that!! SIX for one!! Such a deal!

[Anonymous]

Hey fellas, what program do you use when you create your decals? Is it Paintshop pro or something similar? I am interesting in making my own for a shortline I want to model and there are no decals available for it. Thanks for any info.

Jonathon

[greendiamond]

Joe:

The ALPS printers are the only printers that can print white, BUT they use a resin film cartidge (sorta like a colored wax that melts), so there is no white ink to refil other cartridges with.

Your suggestion would be ideal if ALPs used regular ink.

Mike Tyl

[greendiamond]

Jonathon:

You should check out the YAHOO GROUPS RR Decal forum for help. Most people using ALPS printers use graphics programs where you can separate the colors into layers for printing purposes such as Corel Draw. I'm not sure what everyone is using.

Link to yahoo groups is http://groups.yahoo.com

then search for RRDECAL

Good luck!

Mike Tyl