Just found this link on another railroad froum.
http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/29186
Thought it would be good to share.
Bob C.
I don’t have the link, but there was a US company doing the same (the link you have said it was a German company) and it was pretty cool. What was interesting is that they found a way to purchase the laser printers BEFORE they were tested with toner in them. Apparently it’s hard to get all the black toner out, even that from the limited factory test.
Yep, the way to go… make your own cheaply.
ahh, I found the link: http://www.atttransfer.com/whitetoner.html
OKI makes a color printer with additional white toner, not cheap:
http://www.coastalbusiness.com/OKI-Data-proColor-C711-WT-Laser-Transfer-Printer.aspx
It apparently works very well, for $3.3 k (http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-tongue-out.gif)
Greg
Cool. I haven’t seen white toner in nearly 20 years. I didn’t know it was still being made. Its a shame I don’t have a colour laser printer at home.
Actually several of this companies convert a mono laser printer to white… Most of our decals are white. It’s the conversion, getting the old toner out everywhere and some temperature/fusing issues, from what I read before.
Greg
Greg, in the case of many small laser printers, the drum, developing unit and toner unit are one assembly. That makes changing to a different colour, like white, much easier. As for the fusing of white to the medium, I can see where that might be an issue.
You are exactly right David, at the last time I did the research, the supplying company had picked printers with separate components, so all they had to modify was the toner cartridge, but they did indicate they had made a deal with the printer company to purchase the printers before they ran black toner through them.
I have not researched the state of the art yet… it’s very tempting that new OKI printer though, could pay for itself after a few decals.
I would think the bigger, more professional units would have more controllable fusing, etc.
Greg
I know nothing about the German company, but years ago I did some experimental work with toners from La Costa (ATI). At that time he only supplied experimental toner that you had to load into your own cartridges. results were very unsatisfactory. without getting into detail. the particles clumped not deposit uniformally and fusing was incomplete. It made a mess of my different printers. I abandon the project. He at that time was working with a printer company that made both laser jet and inkjet printers but they too abandon the relationship. There is a real market for white inkjet for commercial printing, thus if his product was successful I am sure the venture would have continued.
Around here there is a company called Raven Industries, that makes aftermarket toner for printers and copiers. My experience with their product has also been unsatisfactory, as has my experience with Copylite toner. There are so many variables that need to be right for toner to work properly, and not being a chemist nor engineer I can only name a few of them. Melting temperature, particle size, charge characteristics, and viscosity (both dry and in the molten state) are the ones that come to mind. Without having the actual design specs of the machine in question, it can be real difficult to make toner that falls within the acceptable range of all the parameters needed. Xerox even had problems making toner for one of their own machines in the states. It seams that only the plant that could make the toner to spec was a plant in England. So, at my last job, the company had to import toner from England for that one model.
That being said, I hope that they can get the white toner to work properly, without gumming up the fuser, sanding the coating off the drum, or otherwise buggering up the printer in question.
The subject of white laser toner has been widely discussed on many of the railroad forums, hobby forums and on the ALPS yahoogroup emails. It certainly would be a plus if there were some way to print white with the lasers but I think much of the discussion has been very similar to what has been mentioned here, however, there is still the problem of printing an opaque decal for colored rolling stock and models. Yes, there are a lot of “tricks” and techniques that folks have worked and experimented with, but by using the ALPS printer we’re able to produce the best “bang for the buck” and fast service.
Elephant’s Rocket out of Japan has “promised” ALPS printer support, printer and material sales as well as repair for the ALPS printers though 2030. While prices have continued to increase, it’s encouraging for those of us who are able to supply “custom” decal work for the hobbyist. For the time being, using the ALPS is the best we have. It would be my hope that we can continue to design and print custom stuff for as many years as we’re still in the vertical position. We’re pushin’ 80 pretty hard.
It seems odd to me that no one has come up with a viable new system that can do what the ALPS did. Surely there’s a market for it.
Ray there is, but its kinda like large scale. The market is a niche market. Most big name printer companies aren’t going after such a small niche, when they are making so much money on the “normal” type printers.
Yeah, that’s the way the World is going… Big and bigger… At least there are some guys (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-cool.gif)out there still able to do custom stuff to meet the needs of the creative modelers.
Just had a gentleman who models New Haven in HO contact me for some “exact” size lettering for a high end brass model that was lettered with the wrong colors. There’s nothing out in the commercial world to “fix it” so it has to be done “custom”… Makes the day challenging and fun… (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-laughing.gif)(http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-laughing.gif)(http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-laughing.gif)
Stan, there is something to be said for large and small companies. Personally I like working for small companies better, on the overall. We can respond to the customer better, and HR actually knows my name. But the big companies, with their economy of scale, can drive down the prices, or drive up the quality, or both, or neither.
Yes, David, that’s true. It seems that the larger a company gets, they’re driven by profit rather than customer service or service in general. That’s not always the case but… (http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-cool.gif)
