Home-made white decals are back?

[nkalanaga]

wvgca:  A good method, if one can match the background color.  On a black car, it would be easy.  On a colored panel, also easy.  White on a solid-color car wouldn't be so easy, unless the decal covered the entire side of the car.  I'd really hate to try to match GN Big Sky Blue with a decal...

[DeltaBravo]

Because, as David said, DecalPro is a different process.  While the process likely works fine, it is more complex that what I can do with Alps (direct printing on decal paper).

None of the consumer grade laser printers (with white toner) come even close to the capabilities of the Alps MicroDry printers, and I'm tired of mentioning that.    Heck, even the industrial ink jet printers (like the one Tichy Trains uses for custom decals) are not optimal. Their ink is way too thick for decals.  It would be best suited for printing decal rivets, louvers, or welds.

The problem with ALPS is they don't make them anymore. Time to move on for those of us who don't have one and will most likely never have one.

[Maletrain]

Because I can never buy an ALPS or (its white ink), I am wondering about the dry transfer process https://decalprofx.com/index.html . It seems like it would be especially helpful for all those cases where I only want to change the road number on a bunch of cars.

Has anybody here tried that?

[peteski]

The problem with ALPS is they don't make them anymore. Time to move on for those of us who don't have one and will most likely never have one.

True, but there are still plenty of them on the secondary market and Elephant Rocket (a dependable  refurbisher in Japan) still sells refurbished units.  Pricey, but available.  Inks cartridges are also still available.

But you are right, it would be really good if an alternative was to be found.  The DecaPro thing seems viable (but much more complicated than what can be done on Alps). Also not sure how it deals with color images which need opaque white undercoat to properly show up on dark model surface.

Using white decal paper and trying to color match the background is a non-starter for me.  Perfect match (using CYMK printer) is pretty much impossible. Even blacks are not all the same. Even if you somehow achieve that, the printed color is a halftone (mixture of 4 color dots), not a solid surface like pain is. Plus the white decal edges are also visible.  I guess a decision on whether this method is acceptable depends on how accurate you want your model to be.

[DKS]

True, but there are still plenty of them on the secondary market and Elephant Rocket (a dependable  refurbisher in Japan) still sells refurbished units.  Pricey, but available.  Inks cartridges are also still available.

But you are right, it would be really good if an alternative was to be found.  The DecaPro thing seems viable (but much more complicated than what can be done on Alps). Also not sure how it deals with color images which need opaque white undercoat to properly show up on dark model surface.

Using white decal paper and trying to color match the background is a non-starter for me.  Perfect match (using CYMK printer) is pretty much impossible. Even blacks are not all the same. Even if you somehow achieve that, the printed color is a halftone (mixture of 4 color dots), not a solid surface like pain is. Plus the white decal edges are also visible.  I guess a decision on whether this method is acceptable depends on how accurate you want your model to be.

Of more concern is software. You pretty much need a dedicated PC with an ancient, unsupported OS and specialized, very fussy drivers to run one. So, in addition to the cost of a printer, you need to add in the cost of a PC and/or the right OS/drivers to run one. A serious PITA in most anyone's book, IMO. (Unless someone has fixed that problem, in which case I'd love to know about it, being an owner of an ALPS.)

 

[peteski]

Of more concern is software. You pretty much need a dedicated PC with an ancient, unsupported OS and specialized, very fussy drivers to run one. So, in addition to the cost of a printer, you need to add in the cost of a PC and/or the right OS/drivers to run one. A serious PITA in most anyone's book, IMO. (Unless someone has fixed that problem, in which case I'd love to know about it, being an owner of an ALPS.)

Fussy? No so. The drivers are absolutely sold on Win XP and earlier (especially with a on-motherboard parallel port).  Plus the only fussiness is with some parallel/USB adapter interface cables. So yes, an older OS is a bonus, but with virtual environments like Virtual Box (free to use) it is easy to run latest OS with a vitrual machine inside running ancient OS.  But then you will have to futz around a bit with the USB interface (since most new PC do not have built-in parallel ports).

However to me, having a desktop PC (or even a older low-end laptop) is well worth the trouble.  My setup is a dedicated PC running Windows 98SE and Corel Draw 10. Actually, that PC is dual-boot, and the second partition is Win XP SP3 with Corel Draw 12.  I do all my hobby graphic designs on that PC.  It is on my WiFi network (but I don't really go out to the outside world on it), so I can easily share files with my other computer.  No  hassle at all - well worth the extra "hassle" (as you call it).

[DKS]

My setup is a dedicated PC running Windows 98SE and Corel Draw 10.

Yes, and how many of us have that? Or all of the other gotchas like ports that play nice with the driver--hence my "fussy" adjective. Oh, yes, I had the requisite PC/OS setup, and still had to stand on my head and play scrabble for days to get the driver to even acknowledge the presence of the printer. "No hassle" for you is something very different for others. We're not all blessed with the same old, arcane hard/software... And yea, I call that a legitimate hassle.

 

[peteski]

Yes, and how many of us have that? (Or all of the other gotchas like ports that play nice with the driver--hence my "fussy" adjective.) "No hassle" for you is something very different to many of us. We're not all blessed with the same old, arcane hardware...

Old hardware is plentiful out there, and cheap.  As I said, to me it is well worth the extra "hassle".  I quote "hassle" because I don't  find it to be hassle.  And if you want new, then install Virtual Box. The possible problems are well documented with workaround (on Alps Yahoo groups) and elsewhere online.  And once you get it going, it should work well, but I have to concede that the printer itself can be a bit fussy.  Again, well worth it once you consider what ti can do.

To each his own I suppose . . .

If you have an unused Alps printer just collecting dust, you might consider to sell it to someone who will gladly put up with the hassles of using it.  a Working printer with a good print head can fetch some good prices on eBay, and you could use the cash for your house project.

[Missaberoad]

Has the Alps group moved their archive?
If not then with yahoo shutting down their groups all that information will be lost.

[peteski]

Has the Alps group moved their archive?
If not then with yahoo shutting down their groups all that information will be lost.

Working on it . . .

In hindsight, we should have done that back when the full migration to groups.io was free. Now they want $110!