today we are going to be unboxing and setting up my new sublimation printer whoo so yes um I started I decided to start venturing into sublimation I think it is something that’s really cool and it’s something I really want to do and so I went and bought this Epson 2803 I picked mine up from Target it was 2 30 and with a 30 gift card and I believe that promotion’s still going on so super good deal so if you want a sublimation printer I don’t know I’m really anal I really wanted a white one I don’t know why but they have a black one that’s only 180 and also comes with a 30 gift card which is an even better deal but I just really wanted the white one and I felt like the black one was in a series like they don’t make but they still made the 2800 series but yeah anyways um I’m gonna walk through just setting this up this comes with its own ink but surprise surprise um this video is actually in collaboration with hippo so hippo is well known for providing their sublimation inks paper and tumblers and so I reached out to them and they happily agreed to collab with me on this video.
So you will be seeing me actually use their ink paper and tumblers during my setup process and so as I’m going to be setting this up I’m going to be using the instructions that came with the printer to set it up the only big difference is I’m going to be using that hippo ink to fill up my tanks as opposed to that ink that came with the printer that is a big thing with sublimation do not put the regular ink in the printer wait only use the sublimation ink like and you can like clean the printer if you already have a tank um and it has to be a tank printer you can just use like a regular inkjet um but yeah so just remember that if you’re just now starting out just throw that ink to the side see if you have somebody who actually wants to use it but other than that don’t be concerned with it so the first step in the whole setting up your Eco tank is going to be you need to remove all the tape from it so there’s tape pretty much everywhere and like those with they have like little pads on them and stuff like oh they got a little Fancy with the tape in some places I was like okay so yeah like tape everywhere like why did that piece of tape need to go all the way to the back I have no idea but that’s what they did and so there was also some tape that like linked around the back so just tilt and turning and twisting the printer every way to get all that tape out.
The next step is to plug it in so I went ahead and plugged it in but I did not power it on remember that plug in for y’all follow the instructions and Jennifer maker she’s a big YouTuber hit crafting YouTuber here um I watched her video first so like her video is also really good I’m giving you like the quick Snappy version if you need the slow down version definitely check out her video and so before you turn it on the first thing you’re going to do is you’re going to want I don’t know why I put autofill oh that’s the autofill sublimation ink from hippo and so and it also comes with a glove if you need to use your gloves it’s not messy or anything so but that was nice to include the glove don’t really think you need it in my opinion and so these are their autofill bottles so the good thing about these bottles is I know there’s certain companies that their incomes with like a syringe and stuff theirs is just pops right on and I’ll show you how that works in just a second but I want to show off the Tumblr that they sent me because I was getting like really anxious and I just wanted to open up everything and so I stopped right in the middle of what I was supposed to be doing so I can open these up and so they’re individually boxed they each come with their own stainless steel straw as well as a individual cleaner so if you’re selling these you can send people like that whole thing which is really cool and also has the rubber stoppers for the bottom which was also really cool and also in the box with the shrink wraps so if you’re someone who uses a convection oven in order to do your sublimation it already comes with the shrink wraps too so just something to remember and it comes with 10 so plenty plenty enough so again without turning our printer on the looks like get back to the setup without turning the printer on we’re going to go ahead and start filling up the ink and as you can see there are four different tanks a black a yellow a magenta and a cyan AKA black yellow pink and blue um and we’re gonna fill them up like I said hippos um bottles are these are the autofill ones so they fit like perfectly over that little nozzle you can just like pop it down in and it’ll just do it all on its own which like for someone like me who didn’t know what they was doing and I’m gonna show you how I didn’t know what I was doing in just a second because would it be a Monica video if I didn’t struggle so like y’all see me I’m like okay it’s an autofill they say it’s supposed to just pop on but like mine not doing it like I’m doing something wrong I’m I’m clearly doing something very wrong and I was afraid of the prep like there is a tad bit of pressure that is required so I’m like okay I’ll just hold it here and I’ll just let it fill up because obviously these aren’t at first I thought they like I was doing something wrong or they didn’t send me the right thing I I didn’t know I did not know and I’m like I know this isn’t right I know this is supposed to just be able to just like pop on but I’m as I’m holding it the ink is going in there but like it’s not Auto filling like I wanted it to so I’m like okay hold on it’s going in there right it’s filling up it’s doing its thing but I’m supposed to be able to just pop it on here and so because at this point what I’m showing it to you it’s just I’m holding it and so you just got to put a little pressure on it you know I mean put a little pressure on it you can see me in the reflection on the bottom of the thing I’m still holding it you got to just put a little pressure on it and it’ll actually do it on its own and once you get it right like I have now at this point once I put that little pressure on it.
Y’all see I’m proud of myself so I’m zooming out it fills up really fast so yeah and that’s it you see it’s a nice clean entry and exit I’m showing y’all now that I know what I’m doing so yeah I’m popping on pop it off is super easy so put that lid on and then I’m just going to continue filling up all of the other colors one by one and also got really nervous because I don’t know why I’m like what if I put the wrong one in the wrong one like girl read the colors just read the colors and so there was actually plenty enough ink left in these um that there was still a little ink left over after this whole process so you can see how quick that goes down like when you pop it in y’all see how that gurgled away so quickly it goes like fast like that thing is filling up and that’s about how much the yellow is the easiest one to see so I want to show you about how much there was left after that process and now the tanks are all filled up it was a super quick super easy process with those bottles shout out to hippo for that so now it is finally time to turn the printer on so I’m gonna whip the screen out I was trying to figure out what level I liked you know what I mean so I liked it right there um and I’m gonna just turn it on when you turn it on the screen it’s so little it’s almost pointless like I don’t I’ve never I feel like I’ve never seen a printer screen this small flying no shade but it’s kind of little and so it’s gonna start asking you all these questions and you’re just beginning this initial setup so the very first thing that is going to do it is going to um what do they call it charge the printer so charging the printer is like pulling all the ink from the tanks pulling it through the system all that kind of stuff so it can be at the ready when it’s time to print so that is the very first thing that your printer is going to do at least this model I can’t speak for how the other models work but the 2803 that I got that’s how this one works it’s going to ask you some questions ask you you want to start you ready to start did you put the ink in you sure you put that ink in okay cool and so my estimated time for doing mine was 11 minutes and so it took the whole 11 and then it’s gonna say when it’s done it’s going to stop making all those weird noises and it’s going to say initially initialization complete.
once that initial setup is done you’re going to want to top off your ink so mine had went down to about the first line and so again I just popped open that cover and I just topped off all the inks one last time and even after that come on HIPAA there was still a little bit of inglap I said well okay let me put these back in the box and say before you know when I need to top it off one more time and again super easy just pop it on Let It fill up and shout out to hippo okay okay y’all let me tell y’all real quick and so they this came into different package than the other stuff and so it came like after I had grabbed all the other stuff and so I was like oh the paper where’s the paper but we got the paper and so really good paper the paper has great reviews on Amazon so I was really looking forward to seeing what that paper was going to be talking about got the Little Hippo on the back is it like it has like two eyes it’s like high Poo but like I know it’s hippo because they use a hippo as the mascot but yeah and so when you load it in the printer is going to recognize like hey there’s paper in the back what kind of paper is that I use premium presentation matte um because that’s what the instructions said to pick um as the choice and so the next thing you’re going to want to do now is going to after you say initialistic initial setup is complete you’re going to want to go through the whole process of actually setting up your printer full disclosure I pulled out my good hippo paper and put in this other paper because I’m like oh nope I’m gonna save all my hippo paper for the actual printing of the things and so mine only took about six sheets to set it up I think I messed up on the last one but you know it worked out in the end so I couldn’t tell it was asking me questions and then like how to figure put it on the it was just a little too confusing and so I was like I’m not gonna worry about it okay and so now we’re gonna just print out our first print and so full disclosure also did I did a couple off camera because you know I wanted to make come on here and seem like I knew what I was talking about because no one wants y’all watch me all the time not knowing what I’m doing I ain’t even going front but I’m like this can’t be that hard right and honestly sublimation is super easy uh full disclosure also I downloaded their iccs profile.
But I ended up not using it um because you have to like have like a software like Photoshop or something like that so I don’t think I’m using it actively but I may be that we can do a whole nother discussion about that but this is the image I picked it’s super cute super gorgeous I found it on Etsy I love it it’s so cute that you know I said I sent the finished product to my mom and them and they were fighting over who was going to get the tumbler and I’m like I can just make each of y’all one because I’m keeping this one so we’re gonna be tripless with our tumblers so yeah and so you can see I just put all the little rubber thing these are how the actual tumblers look they’re 20 ounce Tumblr skinny tumblers uh straight tumblers and yeah and so off camera because again I’m still a little new to it I went ahead and taped in everything off camera I’ll leave a link to the tape that I use below and I’m going to press this for I pressed it for 60 seconds and I turned it and I pressed it for another 30 seconds I started to get a little scared because it started to get you know a little hot and so I might have over press it a little bit you can see my paper a little burnt again I’m new I’m new to this so I was I overcooked my chicken too so I can’t cook though so if you ever come visit me we’re gonna go out to eat I’m never gonna torture anybody only person I torture is my husband and so I’m just gonna rip that off and y’all look the colors are so vibrant the Finish is freaking gorgeous like I was surprised at how vibrant those colors were that hippo ink is A1 certified baby like I was in oh pure awe of how gorgeous this turned out so I’m just gonna put the bottom um little stopper on and of course this is just to make sure like you don’t burn your table when you actually do put a hot ass drink in there because like we don’t want that because I accidentally set the iron on my wooden dining room table and now it’s forever blemished but I just put it in a corner where no one sits this is how it works out and y’all look at that that’s it sublimation is so easy oh and I also made this other cup um which is super cute you can see that like I made it too small but I just went ahead and glittered those parts and so I’ll post a picture of how it’s all finished off.