Top 3 HP Dye Sublimation Printer for Custom Printing

Here, you will get the list of the best HP dye sublimation printers with their market price. It is very useful as a buyer’s guide if you want to purchase the best HP printer as per your industry size, production speed & capacity, and compatible with sublimation blanks for business. So, let’s get started.

Many people ask, “Can we use HP printer for dye sublimation?”. And the answer is yes, you can use an HP printer for dye sublimation printing. But you should choose the appropriate one.

Many people are converting their printers into sublimation printers, mostly with Epson and Sawgrass. They replace the original ones with the sublimation ink cartridges or tanks. In this conversion process, the printheads play the most important role.

Mostly printers with piezoelectric printheads are used for conversion. Because thermal printheads are incapable of using sublimation ink, it bakes into the paper or gas out of the cartridges before it prints onto the transfer paper.

When we talk about HP printers, most of them have thermal printheads. Hence it is unlikely to convert or use them as a sublimation printer.

Hence, looking into the demand for the best dye sublimation printer in the market, the HP Stitch printers are exclusively made for dye sublimation on fabrics and textiles.

To cater to a huge market in the custom printing industry, the HP printer not only prints on the transfer paper but is also capable of directly printing on the fabric. You can say it is a sublimation cum direct-to-fabric printer. So, without taking much time, let us discuss more details to have a comprehensive outlook.

Tips to Choose the Best HP Sublimation Printer:

By now, you have an idea that HP printers can be used for sublimation printing. If you are operating a printing business, you would like to choose the best printer without losing bucks buying the wrong one. To produce high-quality artwork, you must choose the best HP printer for sublimation printing, which depends upon a few factors described below:

1. Industry Size:

This is a broad category to select the right sublimation printer. The industry size refers to whether you are a small scale, medium scale, or large scale industry, your production capabilities, and total monthly orders received.

You will want to make sure you are buying a sublimation printer that fits the size & requirements of your business.

A standard 11 to 14-inch sublimation printer won’t do much good for you, if you are looking for printing larger designs for signage or promotional items like flags, banners, interior decoration, and more. In comparison, a big size 126-inch wide printer may kill your space and budget when it comes to printing on smaller designs for socks, hats, or t-shirts.

Pick a good size printer that rightly fits the media width and production capacity. You won’t be wasting money on a worthless or a printer with its majority of features & functions being unused.

2. Print Speed:

Second, comes the print speed. Print speed refers to the speed at which a printer can print images on a single side of the paper or textile.

In every sublimation printer, you would find four to five print modes. Basically, it starts from a maximum speed to high-quality settings. For instance, a single pass mode gives you a higher print speed with the lowest cost per meter.

The multiple passes in the high-quality mode produce vibrant prints, although you get a lower print speed with a higher cost per meter.

If you run an industry, you likely need higher print speeds like 350 square meters per hour. A print speed of 62 square meters per hour is enough for beginners or small print shops. Basically, it depends on how frequently you receive orders, and most importantly, shorter deadlines determine the optimum print speed you need.

List of Best HP Dye Sublimation Printer with Price:

Okay, it is enough going through the pre-requisites. In this buyers guide, let’s go into the main part of the HP Stitch dye sublimation printer list with price:

1. HP Stitch S500 Dye-Sublimation printer:

Price: $24,995
Suitable for: Medium to Large Scale print shops and product decoration industries
Application areas: Printing Soft signage, apparel, team wear, and interior decoration

The HP Stitch S500 is the flagship model. The dye-sublimation printer is ideal for printing t-shirt, sportswear, jerseys, team apparel, fashion items, interior decoration, and soft signage industries.

If we talk about digital printing machines, we know that there are primarily two types of printers. One is a sublimation printer, and the other is the direct-to-fabric or direct-to-garment printer. But, the HP Stitch S500 is a bit different. You can use it both as a dye sublimation printer and direct to fabric printer.

So, all credit goes to the ink. You can use HP printer sublimation ink to print on both, i.e., directly on paper and garment/textile. A single printer prints on various substrates, which means if you are a print shop, product decorator, and eCommerce seller, you can cater to a wider market. So, let us discover more about this printer.

1.1 Printhead:

Moreover, it has eight thermal printheads in the format CMYK + CMYK, which achieves a maximum print resolution of 1200 dpi.

1.2. Ink:

Now, about ink cartridges. This is something interesting about HP. We know that Epson printers are compatible with ink cartridges like Epson wf-7710 or ecotank printers carrying bulk ink systems. But, the HP Stitch printer’s interesting advantage is that it supports both 775 ml ink cartridges and 3 liters bulk ink tanks of CMYK configuration.

The bulk sublimation ink for HP printers lasts long, which means fewer ink changes and fewer downtimes. Even if the machine is still in operation, you can replace the ink without switching it OFF. As a result, it increases your productivity.

1.3. Print Speed:

The dye sublimation printer can print at a speed of 110 square meters per hour. Switching to high-quality production settings, the print speed drops to 60 square meters per hour. However, the speed is optimum both for home and industrial use.

1.4. Multi-purpose platen:

Besides ink, the platens help you shuffle the S500 into a sublimation or DTF printer. It comes with a vacuum platen for printing transfer paper and foam sponge platen for printing directly onto textiles.

1.5. Automating Paper Rewinding:

The tension winding system isn’t a newly introduced technology in the market. In fact, Epson and Sawgrass wide-format printers come with this feature. We can expect from HP that an even and precise rewinding of sublimation paper without the need for tension bars.

Next, the paper wrinkling in due course of printing may pose another issue. So, the S500 comes with a media-optical system that eliminates minor wrinkling even if the paper is thin. This results in high-quality print. So, you need not pay more price for buying thick paper. Even thin papers easily work with the HP printer.

1.6. Overall Dimension:

The HP Stitch S500 is 160-centimeter wide dye-sublimation printer. So, it isn’t a desktop printer. It needs some space. Moreover, its overall dimension is 2560(Width) × 710(Depth) × 1420(Height) mm. It weighs about 226 kg.

2. HP Stitch S300:

Price: $14,995
Suitable for: Entry-level, Home-based business, and small print shops or sellers
Application areas: Printing Soft signage, apparel, team wear, sportswear, uniform, and interior decoration

The HP Stitch S300 is an entry-level dye sublimation printer. The beginner-level solution for people who want to get into the dye sublimation business. Suitable for printing sublimation transfer papers, sublimation polyester fabrics, and sublimation film, thickness up to 0.5mm.

So, in other words, you can print on sublimation paper and directly onto textile as it uses the same set of HP 624 ink cartridges as the S500 printer.

It is a front-operated machine that saves 30% of floor space. Similar to S500, this printer is 160 centimeters wide. But, it has only four thermal printheads, as opposed to S500 having eight, each having 1200 nozzles per inch.

The more printheads, the more nozzles to push out ink, the faster the print speed. So, the print speed of HP Stitch S500 is faster than S300. Moreover, S300 uses four colors, i.e., CMYK, that print a resolution of 1200 dpi.

2.1. Ink:

Now, about the ink system in S300. It uses only four ink cartridges, 775 ml each for C, M, Y & K. It has no other bulk ink storage facility as in the S500 printer. Moreover, you can change the printheads quickly and easily without any need for a technician.

2.2. Print Speed:

The S300 has four print speeds for different print modes. The maximum print speed is 62 square meters per hour. For high-quality print settings, the print speed comes down to 17 square meters per hour.

2.3. Maintenance:

Through HP’s smart nozzle compensation system, you can replace missing nozzles easily. This avoids any print bandings or print folds and results in high-quality print every time.

2.4. Overall dimension:

The overall dimension of the printer is 2550(Width) × 710(Depth) × 1350(Height) mm. It weighs about 194 kg.

3. HP Stitch S1000:

Price: $177,399
Suitable for: Large scale product decoration industries
Application areas: Printing Soft signage like flags & banners, apparel, interior decoration, and fashion line

The HP Stitch S1000 is the high-end model of the HP dye sublimation printer series. The printer is an ideal solution for printing textiles, soft signage, interior decoration, and fashion line.

Like other sublimation printer HP models, it can print on both sublimation transfers and directly onto textile. In other words, HP Stitch S1000 is a sublimation cum direct-to-fabric printer.

It is 320 meters wide machine, the widest of other models like S500 and S300. It uses four HP thermal printheads similar to the S300 model that produces 1200 dpi print resolution.

Although huge, the S1000 is easy to use and manage. The hassle-free navigation system with HP’s easy loading tray makes it easy, even if an inexperienced operator can have the machine running within seconds.

3.1. Ink:

The S1000 uses four 10 liter dye sublimation ink tanks, each for Cyan, Yellow, Magenta & Black. As it uses a bulk ink tank, you do not have to replace inks frequently. As a result, you have fewer downtimes, easily handle deadlines, and seasonal peaks.

3.2. Print Speed:

The S1000 prints at a speed of 220 square meters per hour in production mode. In high-quality settings, it prints at a speed of 100 square meters per hour. It is an ideal solution for those who want to print custom signage and banners.

3.3. Automatic Maintenance:

With an automatic maintenance program, you do not have to carry out the daily maintenance routine. The printhead maintenance carriage in HP Stitch S1000 automatically cleans underneath each printhead and replaces any missing nozzles for you.

The drop detector checks each nozzle within the print head to make sure that they are functioning currently. If it detects any blocked nozzle, the nozzle compensation system automatically activates alternative nozzles to replace the missing ones. Therefore, you won’t lose any quality or speed or suffer downtimes.

3.4. Overall Dimension:

The overall dimension of the S1000 sublimation printer is 5740(Width) × 1380(Depth) × 1670(Height) mm. It weighs about 1300 kg.

Final Words:

As we have discussed, it is possible to sublimate with HP Stitch printers, provided you are using HP sublimation inks only.

Lastly, I would recommend HP Stich S500 for print businesses starting from small and likely to grow shortly.

At least you do not have to replace your printer until you handle large-scale orders. While S1000 would be a great option for those, who have to fulfill large orders with short deadlines.

I hope his guide helped you to find the best sublimation printer for your business.