rotwiler's Full Review: Alps MD 1000 Dye Sublimation Printer
I purchased a Alps MD-1000 about a year ago. I never heard of a Alps printer and never seen one in my local computer store. The reason I bought it was, I found it at a auction site and it was cheap. I liked the idea of a dry printer so I said "for $60.00 I can't really lose much".
I record a lot of cds and needed a printer that I could print a cd label and not have it smudge. there are many features that make the Alps ideal for printing cds along with other applications, but I will go more into detail later in this opinion.
When I received the printer, I took it out of the box, looked at the instructions and hooked it up. It has typical connections as any other printer and comes with a software disk. It looks kind of odd, but it takes up very little space. The printer is a dark grey and the paper feed is dark blue with a orange paper feeder. There were cartridges that looked like something for a type writer in the box and I installed them per instructions.
So here I go with my first printing. Wow, this thing is really nice. The picture clarity and color is great. I was amazed that I could get such good quality printing from something I paid $60.00 for. As I looked at the picture I printed I could see some real fine lines from the ribbon used when printing from theses printers. That doesn't bother me at all, because you have to be real close to see them and they really don't stand out. The micro dry system used on the Alps looks like small video tapes with color ribbons on them. As you print the ribbon moves and leaves the color from the ribbon. It is a really well thought out system and great for smudge proof printing. The MD1000 is the low end model from Alps and the better ones look almost flawless, but they are higher priced. One very nice feature is that you can get a clear cartridge to make your pictures glossy and foil cartridge(shiny gold etc..). The gold foil looks real nice and can make cards and cds look great with the shine from the gold. The only drawback to using other color ribbons is that you have to remove them each time you use them, because there are only 4 spaces available and the cyan, magenta, yellow, and black already use up the 4 spots. I really like fact that when you print the item printed comes out water resistant and smudge proof. The Alps is rather slow printing because it has to go through each color and load the new color. I can usually print a page with two cd labels in about three minutes. All black is much faster though.
I like this printer and feel for the price there are not many better printers out there that can give the same features and the wonderful gold foil look. You have to see it to get the full effect.
NOTE: As much as I like this printer there is one drawback. If you get a paper jam, most likely you will break your ribbon that you are printing with. I have taken these ribbons apart and taped them(same as a VHS tape repair), but it is time consuming and a hassle. The cartridges are about $5.00 apiece and the foil ones are a little higher. I have had no problems finding replacement cartridges, but they are not as available as most ink jet printers.
I am very satisfied with this printer and have had no problems at all, except the ribbons breaking from a paper jam( but it was my fault the paper jammed).
Alps printers are made by Alpine and there is a website on them.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 60.00 Operating System: Windows
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