Direct Temperature Monitoring for Optimization of Dye Sublimation Heat Transfers

As soon as I obtained my dye-sub printer I began printing pictures on a variety of substrates. But for the most part, I found that the tables of platen temperatures and press times that you can find on the internet were not very useful. Each new substrate and size of material required optimization in my hands, on my equipment.

I’m too lazy for all that! There has to be a better way. In the attached short article, I review the dye sublimation process with a view to understanding the critical issues that affect the quality of transfer. I experimentally determined an optimal universal target temperature and describe a heat transfer protocol that requires no optimization for different substrates and works for every substrate and size of media tested to date. Spoiler alert; the protocol employs a thermocouple device to monitor the transfer surface to determine when to terminate a transfer.

Details are in the attached PDF. Feedback is welcome.