Also, does anybody know if these were ever made subsequently under a diff.
manuf. or name? They're IMPOSSIBLE to find and exorbitantly priced even
if used, from what I've seen so far.
Boggles my mind that if they're this prized that some co. won't start
producing them again.. guess we can't have any of that pesky quality
thing, gotta produce crap, try to copywrite ink, and charge half the price
of the unit for new carts
The MD-5000's were marketed outside North America by Okidata with their own
model number (MP-5000??) after ALPS stopped marketing them under their own
name, and printers using the ALPS hardware engines were marketed by Citizen
as their Printiva line. Similar printers are sold buy Roland and Kodak, but
use resin inks rather than wax, and are much more expensive (four and five
figure range, respectively).
There are still ALPS MD-1000's available new from an Australian dealer.
I suggest you check out the archives of the ALPS and ALPSDECAL groups on
Yahoo for more information.
The ALPS Microdry printers are slow (4 passes per page), noisy and not as
high resolution as modern inkjets, BUT, their inks are water resistant from
the start, and they have colours not available for the average inkjet (i.e.
besides the basic cyan, magenta, yellow and black, there are also metallic
cyan, metallic magenta, metallic gold, metallic silver, WHITE (not
supported by the MD-1300), and for some models, gold and silver foils and
dye-sub inks). Okidata added red, green and blue to the list. They can also
be set to print multiple overlays in registration, swapping out ink
cartridges as required..... Also note that ALPSUSA has only committed to
supplying ink cartridges until the end of 2006.
BTW. If you do elect to buy a used one, you should absolutely insist that
the shipper (1) remove the cartridges from the printer and package them
seperately inside the shipping container, and (2) firmly secure the
printhead against any movement, prior to packing, or you WILL, not "may",
get a damaged printer. Shipping an ALPS MD without these precautions is
virtually gauranteed to damage the printhead, and once that happens, the
only fix (at least in North America) is to send it to ALPSUSA and get a
replacement MD-5000 at a "repair/replacement" cost of $350.
Al Preston
