Anyone use an ALPS MD1000 to print decals?

[dkobayashi]

I'm thinking of printing some of my own custom decals sometime this year and I'm looking at the MD1000. What's the quality on the decals like? If any of you guys are or have used one, could you offer me any insight? Or an image of some decals you printed..just so I can have an idea of what the final product looks like!

Just want to know what I am getting into here.

David

[trojansamurai]

I have the MD-5000, but the results with the 1000 should be the same. Alps is the only way to go if you're going to print white or metallics.

General finish:

• bit of a waxy finish
  
• bit thicker than conventional decals if you overlay several colors
  
• need to protect it with Micro/Superscale Liquid Decal Film before using
  
• works with decal softeners about as good as typical kit decals
  
• extremely crisp printing because you don't have bleeding or smearing like inket printers
  

Some known issues:

• need to run about 3 passes of white to get a fully opaque white
  
• need 1 or 2 passes of white before printing yellows and reds
  
• bright yellow (100% yellow) and bright red (100% magenta + 100% yellow) come out very nicely, but tends to get zebra-striping if you try to print oranges and in-between shades
  
• same goes for greens, which can look like zebra stripes of yellow and cyan
  

It just takes some trial and error before you get the hang of things. I draw my decals almost exclusively in Adobe Illustrator because it's vectored art and resizes up/down with no loss in resolution. You can certainly do it in Photoshop or similar programs, but there will be some limitations as far as being able to control colors and other tricks.

Here's a good site with helpful info and tips: http://robdebie.home.xs4all.nl/models/decals.htm

[Jennings]

I'm told that the ink cartridges for the MD series are no longer being manufactured. Certainly Alps has dropped their support for the entire printer line (long time ago). Are there other sources of the cartridges, and is anyone writing third party drivers for them???

[KursadA]

The ink can still be found; and the prices are still reasonable enough for occasional personal use. I am not aware of any third party drivers being written; the current drivers work fine on Windows XP. I maintain an old Windows XP computer with a real parallel port just for ALPS printing; it is not worth the hassle to get them to work on a more modern Windows system and a USB-to-parallel adapter(most of which won't work with the ALPS). That said, I just don't use mine too much anymore and will probably get rid of it sometime this year.

Edited February 3, 2012 by KursadA

[hooknladderno1]

Hi David,

I have had an MD-1000 for several years. I LOVE IT! I do keep my fingers crossed every time that I fire it up though. As stated above, there is no longer support for them. They are a unique and one of a kind printer. As with anything, there is a learning curve, but the decal results are amazing! I would suggest going over to Yahoo.com. There is a "group" there called "ALPS Decal" as well as a sister group. There is a ton of information on ALPS printers, solutions, drivers, etc. It is well worth the time to visit before you make the investment. While not all helicopter decals, this will show you a few examples of ALPS printed decals:

All of the black lettering was done by me on this fictitious USCG Jetranger. The USCG logos were from Joseph Osborne. I believe that they too were done on an ALPS.

These fire vehicles are also custom ALPS printed decals. All striping, logos, and lettering were done by me on the MD-1000.

Hope this helps.

David