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Direct to Garment Printing
- Thread starter Fatboy
- Start date
signage
New Member
Pros are soft hand, number of colors not an issue, white printing needs pretreatment, this is either another machine or manually and tmore time and pressing.
Cons time consuming, if printing white needs shakien also needs to be moved throught ink supply lines and head, printer needs to be runns almost constantly to keep heads from clogging.
hope this helps
Cons time consuming, if printing white needs shakien also needs to be moved throught ink supply lines and head, printer needs to be runns almost constantly to keep heads from clogging.
hope this helps
Zx360
New Member
Great advice. If you don't already have an immediate need for one and jobs lined up you will need to print so etching every single day. Ours sat for a week and he print head clogged.... The whole machine now sits on a shelf
Mike_Koval
New Member
Indeed they have...maintenance is very minimal, ink has soft hand, it's quiet and the warranty and support is untouchable.
mark galoob
New Member
we had a brother for about 3 or 4 years. they put out a rock solid machine. i had no mechanical problems with it. i sold it and would i buy another one....no
heres why. prints faded after about 3-4 months. i started to see my customers coming in with their shirts i did for them and only a few months later the prints were faded enough for me to be embarresed by it.
i really do not think the tech is there yet to match the print quality and hardiness of screen print. printing white ink problems still have not been overcome in any of our industries, it is still very expensive with high maintenence. id stay away from this.
heres why. prints faded after about 3-4 months. i started to see my customers coming in with their shirts i did for them and only a few months later the prints were faded enough for me to be embarresed by it.
i really do not think the tech is there yet to match the print quality and hardiness of screen print. printing white ink problems still have not been overcome in any of our industries, it is still very expensive with high maintenence. id stay away from this.
We have been testing the Dupont ink DGT printed garments for years and would agree that they faded in 3-4 months. The Epson printed stuff is holding up excellent in a wash test. Using a Hanes Nano that has an Epson print and also same design from VS540 Quickprint & ColorPrint PU matte. Twenty-five wash cycles later the wash sample looks excellent against the control unwashed sample. Getting ready to go another 25 cycles.
SignManiac
New Member
Nevermind, you answered my question in your last post.
We purchased a Brother GT-541 (CMYK only) DTG printer 4 years ago. Zero issues (!!), 10 minutes maintenance in every 2-3 months. We bought it for about $20K and - until now - we invoiced out (printed light colored t-shirts) for about $400K.
Yes, the printer is slow: max 30 large images/hour.
Yes, the images can fade slowly but no peeling or cracking.
In my opinion the key of the success is to avoid the white ink as long as you can. It brings the clogging issues, the pretreatment requirement and its problems and expenses, it uses expensive white ink for periodical head cleaning, and the printer - because of the white ink - needs a lot of maintenance. Also, printing with white ink is extremely slooow. If your monthly overhead is high, the low productivity of the white ink printer is unacceptable.
Unfortunately there are market segments where the white ink is necessary because the customers cannot accept light colored shirts. It this case you have to use a white ink printer but it WILL BE PITA compared to the CMYK only DTG printing (which is very easy and problem-free).
Yes, the printer is slow: max 30 large images/hour.
Yes, the images can fade slowly but no peeling or cracking.
In my opinion the key of the success is to avoid the white ink as long as you can. It brings the clogging issues, the pretreatment requirement and its problems and expenses, it uses expensive white ink for periodical head cleaning, and the printer - because of the white ink - needs a lot of maintenance. Also, printing with white ink is extremely slooow. If your monthly overhead is high, the low productivity of the white ink printer is unacceptable.
Unfortunately there are market segments where the white ink is necessary because the customers cannot accept light colored shirts. It this case you have to use a white ink printer but it WILL BE PITA compared to the CMYK only DTG printing (which is very easy and problem-free).
binki
New Member
The ink is expensive, the prints can bet stunning or they can be crap, sometimes it is all over the map, the shirts need to be pre-treated, the machines have a very short lifespan, less than 5 years before they are obsolete, the white ink is really expensive, they are slow, it takes a certain amount of skill to operate them.
On the bright side you can do full photo prints as one offs, mixed media, more than just shirts such as canvas and other higher end materials.
Yes I owned one, now I do not and don't plan to get back into it as our customer base is mostly Rhinestones, embroidery and sports teams
On the bright side you can do full photo prints as one offs, mixed media, more than just shirts such as canvas and other higher end materials.
Yes I owned one, now I do not and don't plan to get back into it as our customer base is mostly Rhinestones, embroidery and sports teams
The big advantage of the CMYK only (no white) DTG printing is that the ink is fully absorbed by the cotton (it won't stay on the surface), so you can put rhinestones anywhere on the image.
Creating multimedia shirts is very easy:
1.) Full color printable image goes to the DTG printer,
2.) Rhinestone image goes to the CAMS rhinestone machine,
3.) Rhinestone transfer heat pressed over the DTG image.
Chi ching: $40
Creating multimedia shirts is very easy:
1.) Full color printable image goes to the DTG printer,
2.) Rhinestone image goes to the CAMS rhinestone machine,
3.) Rhinestone transfer heat pressed over the DTG image.
Chi ching: $40
FrankenSigns.biz
New Member
The digital garment entry price is too high, the cost per print is too high. Actual, real-world, walk-in-your-door demand is minimal. Most customers will freak at what I consider to be a bare minimum 3X markup.
Add to that the need of garment pretreatment, the additional step of having to heat press each garment and then the lack of resilientcy of the print, this is just a lose lose lose investment.
Do your homework, your due diligence. Ask questions, talk to other sign shops. Don't take just anyone's word.
Add to that the need of garment pretreatment, the additional step of having to heat press each garment and then the lack of resilientcy of the print, this is just a lose lose lose investment.
Do your homework, your due diligence. Ask questions, talk to other sign shops. Don't take just anyone's word.