Alps MD 5000 Standard Thermal Printer

A few comments on some of the reviews.

daenic - The printer probably ripped the ribbons because you were using the Dye-sub cartridges (Blue) on plain paper. You need to use the special Alps Photographic Quality paper for them.

treeslow - MD printers are still manufactured. They're just not sold in the US. If you want one, you can buy from http://www.alps-supplies.com which is based in New Zealand. You can also get whatever ribbons you need there.

jimmydouglasc - As before, you can get whatever ribbons you want from http://www.alps-supplies.com

My own comments - for continuous tone photographic quality printing, nothing beats a dye sublimation printer. However, there are many printers on the market capable of dye sublimation.

Where the Alps MD printers come into their own, is their ability to print white, gold and silver.

The MD-5500, which is currently available at the links above also includes a USB port, which the earlier printers did not have.

Alot of people thing bigger is better, in this case it's not . If you purchase this printer for printing photo's .You've made the right choose . Alps MD-5000 can be upgraded to a dye sublimation mode/printer, using an upgrade kit and photographic ribbon-style cartridges, in which ink dyes are vaporized (the colors are turned into a gas), and then sublimated into special paper-------- ( 5000 md (P))
Great for photo's . but most people purchase these's for making decals . Although, you can use seven ink cartridges at a time . it's no big deal . I guess it depends on you reason for purchasing , if you want to make decals I recomend the 1000 md .
Follow the steps below to perform the print head check.

This test applies to the Micro Dry series MD-1000/1300/5000(P)only.

Turn the printer off.
Load a sheet of white laser paper.
Press and hold the "Power" & "Ready/FF" buttons at the same time.
Release the "Power" button, and keep pressing the Ready/FF" button.
Right after you release the "Power" button, count 4 seconds, and release the Ready/FF" button.
Immediately, press and release the "Ready/FF" button one last time.
The printer should start printing a series of letters, numbers, horizontal lines and a black solid bar at the bottom of the sheet.
Once this test page is completed, turn the printer off to stop the test.

Now I have done my research... and discovered that if you want a vibrant color, cool metallics, and white. This is the printer! You can put an undercoat of white and apply this to any color paper, EVEN BLACK AND TRANSPARENT! Then print color over it and get an OUTSTANDING COLOR! I printed on black most of the time, and always got good results. Installing the printer was not fun though, but after a half an hour, I ahd it workign fine, and even after my research the quality of the print outs amazed me. Yes I see that some may depressed with this printers quality in the actual print outs, but you see many colors all close together, for example, for light blue, you will see white undercoat, with blue lines through it. It is like magazine prints and comix book prints. That is what they remind me of. VERY perffessional, and very good color quality! This printer also does good text as well as color. So if you want a really rare printer, that prints crazy colors, this is it!

What a printer. With 2400 DPI resolution, this desktop printer well do things you can only dream of. With the dye sub feature, you can use the blue dye sub cartridges,( heat transfer is at a higher temp.), and your photos will be like ones you bought at the store. Greeting cards, iron on transfers, decals, this printer does it all, at a price reserved for more expensive devices.

Epson C88 is a inkjet, if that printout gets wet the ink runs! And dont hand a photo from one of these to anyone under 5 years of age or chances are they will be wearing the ink! Even my grandparents used to end up wearing ink all over their fingers!

ALPS MD 5000 print out a very thin waterproof continuous tone layer using a heat process called dye sublimation. You can even compare this to a inkjet. You might get better resolution from some cheap inkjet but there are also better dye sublimation printers out there. For the average enthusiast this printer is too versatile to ignore. You can even transfer these photos to other items such as mugs. There should be no scores below average for this printer. One of the main downsides is they are delicate, have too many moving parts and have some slight banding effects (in 2 directions) that I did not notice with my Primera Pro Elite Dye Sub Printer. This printer is compatible with XP and has decent color rendition.