Or is this “Ghost White” printer toner just a repackaged off-the shelf item that doesn’t quite cut it?
Reading the latest MicroMark flyer in the offical reading room, I (finally) noticed this Ghost white decal printing system (turns out it has been in the last few catalogs as well).
Well, the printer is a standard HP 452dw color laser Jet (d = duplex/double sided printing, w = wireless), and oddly the listed MM price is cheaper than HP’s - I though MM only did MSRP. So, nothing exciting there. Same with clear-on-blue decal paper, I believe that’s the usual MM offerings.
So IMO that leaves the Ghost toner cartridge as the key. Since the usual laser jet color (3 color+1) printer toner cartridges are mentioned - is this a two part process (print using White toner, switch out, then overprinted if need be with Color)? Do the results look good? (MM decal paper has sometimes, in my past experience, come with a less than smooth texture, which does NOT really smooth out after decaling and slathering on the Microsol, to my dismay).
Note: Maybe this was fully discussed on this board a few months ago, but the ‘Search Community’ function seemed to run away crying without returning results, and Google just seems to state “Model Railroader forum? Wot’s Dat?”. I didn’t see or recall anything about this Ghost toner before, so I ask now. Thanks.
Let’s see, the printer is $330.00 and the white toner cartridge is $350.00. I don’t know what the colour cartridge(s) cost, but they are not free obviously. So, let’s say that we are looking at $1000.00 for the full package. At $40.00 per page I can get 25 - 8 1/2" x 11" pages of decals for the same amount from the current custom decal suppliers. I doubt that I could use 25 pages of decals in my lifetime.
I’m not being critical of the product at all, but I suspect that the average modeller would have a hard time justifying the cost. I suppose that those with deep pockets might like the convenience of being able to produce white decals on the spot.
My other concern is the two step process. The alignment system would have to be pretty accurate for the decals to not have blurry separations between the white areas and the colours.
First of all: Use this in your google search, where XXX is what you are looking for, except you better type something other than XXX or no telling what may turn up.
XXX site:cs.trains.com
It was discussed a couple times in the past. This is the most recent.
So far no one has admitted to purchasing the system.
I bought a used Alps MD-1000 ($170 on eBay) back in 2011 and it prints white extremely nice. The white cartridges are getting harder to find (Alps dropped support for the MD series in 2004) but they are still available for around $20 plus S&H.
I recently bought 5 white cartridges off eBay for $86 free S&H. They should last me until I’m pushing up grass. I’ve only used 3 white cartridges since I bought my Alps, I’ve gone through 50 sheets of 8” x 11” decal paper using a total of less then 4 white cartridges.
The Alps MD series is a dye sublimation printer and is applied with a heat process similar to a Laser printer.