Effective immediately, Sawgrass Technologies has discontinued selling extended cartridge formats, representing 3 inks, for the Epson 3000 printer:

1) Classic Extended. (Sublijet)

2) XL Extended. (Sublijet XL)

3) IQ Jumbo (Sublijet IQ)

Extended cartridges have a fill capacity of 220 ml of ink, as compared to the standard cartridge capacity of 110 ml.

From my experience with Sawgrass, I would feel good if they discontinued selling anything.

Not intended to start any discussion about or against Sawgrass. Just my personal feeling.

Mickey

David,

Who knows, that may have been my 3000 from years ago that I abandoned after struggling with the early stages of Sawgrass mud, or I mean inks. I sold it to a gentleman in your area.

My thought on it would be that since Epson has released the 4800 perhaps a lot of people have simply upgraded their equipment so orders for the 3000 cartridges may be down. But I don't follow it all the closely, so it is just a guess as to a possible reason.

When I first got interested in sublimation about two years ago, the folks at Alpha Supply spent considerable time talking to me, and related a story about a fellow that had allowed his printer to sit unused for 6 or 8 months. He called them and asked if he had ruined it by doing that. Alpha supply suggested he just shake the cartridges real well and it should work.

He did and it did. Urban Legend? Who knows...but it sounded good.

I know there has been a lot of contention surrounding Sawgrass, but so far ( a year) I have had absolutely no problems with them, the ink or my 4800. Perhaps I'm just lucky.

Luck at least to be part of a GREAT forum.

Chuck,

My reference to Sawgrass "mud" was to their early forumlation (SubliJet). They never offered to make it right when I inquired, hence I went a different way.

Chuck,

Can you tell that those of us who have been involved with sublimation long enough to have used and seen (high quality) inexpensive ink disappear from the landscape, remain a little bitter? :-)

You bring up a good point, in that, the Epson 3000 (although the original workhorse) has been supplanted by newer technology.

That, more than the price of ink, is probably the primary reason for the discontinuance of the extended 3000 cartridges.

I agree with LJ, that despite the price of ink, the ink jet sublimation process is still the best tool for some jobs and that's why I'm still a fan of the process.

I knew Paul somewhat, (Artaniun), and Bob Smith, (Color Factory), very well. The most non-clogging ink was The Color Factory.

Where my objection to the Sawgrass pricing was that the ink cost $15 per liter, and was sold for $1000 per liter in bulk to customers. And the customers of Artanium and Color Factory were threatened with legal actions by Sawgrass.

Philadelphia, PA (Really Bensalem)

When you finally understand it completely... it changes.