#Spacecontrol print utility software how to#
#Spacecontrol print utility software serial number#
#Spacecontrol print utility software Pc#

These printers are mainly used for T-shirts. Luckily for me, the printer came with SpaceControl, AND more importantly, plenty of ink.įor reference, an ink refill on one of these machines is in the region of £700.įrom my rough cost estimates, every sheet of A4 I print is in the region of £1.40 just for the ink and the paper.

#Spacecontrol print utility software serial number#

When The Magic Touch sell a printer, they hand-deliver it and install the software for you, every printer has a unique serial number and the SpaceControl licence is linked directly to that machine.

#Spacecontrol print utility software Pc#

I do all my design work on a Mac but do happen to have a cobbled-together PC in the living room that I can run the software on. The software costs in the region of £300 to buy and only works over USB on a PC (not Mac-compatible). The original supplier of the OKI is The Magic Touch, who also make a piece of software called SpaceControl. I bought mine for about £1300 on eBay from a company in Northern Ireland. This is no longer in production from OKI, but is available second hand. I didn’t want to cane a load of cash on something which turned out to not be what I wanted. In hindsight, what I did was possibly a blunder, but I’m not sure yet. I had the money saved up to buy one, but which one? The other problem is it’s no good for prototyping and experimentation due to the lead time of getting them done, and the margin for error.Īfter reading up and doing research, it sounded like I needed an OKI printer. I’ve been quoted between £30-60 for an A4 sheet of transfers.Īgain, this is a great service for individual modellers, but no good for starting a business with as the price I’d have to charge would be way too much just for providing a design and the sales facility as I’d have to be able to pay the middleman. Some other companies will print your designs for you. The definition and colour on this is fantastic. In fact, Railway Mania’s first transfer sheet, for Imperial Smelting Corporation No.2, was designed and printed by the talented James Hilton of Narrow Planet/Planet Industrials fame. You can, of course, get your designs printed for you. This is fine for some things but isn’t really what I wanted. The issue, as I understand it, is that for colour, you need to print out a sheet of your transfers in white, and then a sheet in colour, and lay the colour over the white on the model (the white transfer does the job of the paper in a normal printer). I’ve had a couple of things printed using this method. This is a white cartridge which replaces the black in your machine, so if you convert your image to black and then print, it’ll come out white. If you are printing at home, it is possible to buy Ghost Toner. ALPS stopped selling their printers for export over 10-15 years ago, so there was a gap in the market.Ī company called OKI has stepped in to fill the gap somewhat. In the past, to print white you generally had to buy several hundred pounds worth of ALPS printer (made in Japan). This means that they don’t need to worry about the base layer because it’s already white. Home and office printers are generally set up to print on white paper. It might not immediately be obvious but the biggest challenge is white ink. I want to be able to do custom designs for people, and make transfers to supply with our own kits or via the website.

I don't think the cutting out bit is easy to do, so I'm willing to compromise on having to cut out the transfers myself That is, high quality, high definition transfers in a multitude of colours, with the backing film almost the same size as the transfer itself.

#Spacecontrol print utility software how to#

I think that one of them has been not asking for help/advice when I should have, I feel strange about asking sometimes because it feels a bit like ‘hey could you give me some tips on how to set up a rival business please?’ even though so many of the helpful articles are from people who run businesses, so maybe that’s my own hang-up.Įventually I want to be able to make transfers like Fox do. I want to be completely honest about this, as I have made several mistakes. There’s not a great deal about this online as it’s quite a niche subject, but we are very lucky in that there have been a small number of people who have published their findings and advice. I’ve long wanted to get started doing it, so I thought I would chart my progress, the trials and tribulations of how I got on, the mistakes I made, appeals for help etc. The ability to make custom transfers affordably is great for modellers. Getting started in waterslide transfer printing