I own the Brother DTG that prints on lighter fabrics and am in the market for a DTG that will print on darks. I love that the prints from the Brother have a soft feel--I can't feel the ink when I touch the garment. I think the Anajet is the best option (both price and quality wise) for DTG printing on darks, but the black garment sample I have feels almost like an old school heat transfer. It does have a lot of ink on the garment, but it still seems very thick and stiff. Is this always the case when using the anajet to print on dark fabrics?
I have heard that the new brother machine that prints on darks will have a very soft feel, but I don't want to wait 4-5 months for a machine, and I can get 3 anajets for the cost of one Brother.
Yea Anajet on dark's are stiff, due to pretreatment/white under base which is denser than cmky inks
Personally, don't use an Anajet for darks, the ink cost to do a dark shirt is like $4 and if you dont do darks everyday with it, your gonna be in trouble...
There you go slamming the Anajet again. All white printing dtg will have a less soft hand. You can easily print on darks for under $4. MrJigBack slams Anajet every chance he gets. Apparently he never learned how to operate his properly. I have never had the problems he says he had. Quite a few people on here own a brother and have added an Anajet to do darks. We use the Anajet daily and it performs very well. I'm sure he will reply with more rubbish. On lights the 2 printers are neck and neck. I saw and got samples from the only existing Brother dtg that prints on darks and it has a much much harder hand than the Anajet. Mr Big will reply with more Anajet horror stories I'm sure. It seems to be his obsession at times.
ok dokie $4 is rubbish huh? Well how long you owned your machine? or How long you been part of forum because there is something called search button to see exactly what "other" people said about the cost of ink on dark shirts.
How in the world does it have a "soft" feel? it feels like silkscreening... but a tad softer, and for the record, Anajet has highest ink cost of all DTG machines : )
Our Anajet prints wonderfully on dark shirts. It's more work, but the results are great. After you wash it, it does soften. I've done many darks shirts, and the ones I've done for me that have been washed, are very soft compared to our silk-screened shirts. We don't add a lot of softhand to our plastisol inks so that may make a difference.
For the price, you can't beat the Anajet for light AND dark shirt printing. We've been very pleased.
Yes do a search, and yes you have been here longer. I do not see what that qualifies you for except your length of contempt for Anajet. When was the last time you did darks on a dtg?..... I'm sure the technology has improved a bit since then, and it is only getting better. You would be a much happier person if you would let go of the past.
Apparently they got a newer machine that has improved, but since I had my machine they haven't improved jack..
It has been a while, I won't deny that one bit, I am saying though on average it is atleast $3 to $4 a shirt, not trying to sugar coat nothing, those are facts.
It is also a fact Anajet inks are most pricey, not by much from Brother currently, but a tad more indeed.
There is a in my opinion a larger ratio on the forum anyways of unsatisfied clients, I been on hear not very long, but long enough to see that being an issue.
Anajet people are nice folks but even there VP mentioned a few issues they are still are having with white ink : )
The day when cost of ink is $1 to do a shirt and there is min. hazerdous things involved to do a shirt, than I maybe think differently about white ink
I own the Brother DTG that prints on lighter fabrics and am in the market for a DTG that will print on darks. I love that the prints from the Brother have a soft feel--I can't feel the ink when I touch the garment. I think the Anajet is the best option (both price and quality wise) for DTG printing on darks, but the black garment sample I have feels almost like an old school heat transfer. It does have a lot of ink on the garment, but it still seems very thick and stiff. Is this always the case when using the anajet to print on dark fabrics?
I have heard that the new brother machine that prints on darks will have a very soft feel, but I don't want to wait 4-5 months for a machine, and I can get 3 anajets for the cost of one Brother.
Thanks in advance for any advice!
Christie
Twochicks,
Although I haven't made a purchase yet, I did get to see the new Brother, the new DTG Viper and HM1C and the Anajet in action at the Fort Worth NBM Show. The new Brother machine had the worse feel on darks of the machines I just mentioned. The detail was probably the best though.
For me, and this is my opinion only, the DTG machines both had a little bit better feel than the Anajet. If I were to make a purchase today, I'd lean toward the DTG brand because of the WIMS system. And, I'd porbably buy the Viper because of the extra printing options.
If I were you, I'd make my way to an apparel show in your area and make your own conclusions. I appreciate the info and knowledge that I've gained from these forums concerning the various DTG machines, but the real life, hands-on knowledge I gained at the show was extremely valuable to me and helped make my decision. Granted, the technology is always changing, so we'll probably have to do more research when the time comes to actually make the purchase.
With that said, I'd gladly own any of the above mentioned printers.....and I wouldn't rule out the MS-One either. Time will tell though.
Some clarification should be made as to the "hand" of the dark garment. If you remove Brother & Kornit (because they have a completely different ink sets), almost all the other printers use the Dupont White Ink and the Dupont Pretreatment. The other exception is Sawgrass, but the last I heard they were dropping out of the equipment market and not sure what they are doing with their ink. I am not sure why the manufacturers that hide where their ink comes from don't publicly embrace the Dupont brand when for the most part... the people know it. It is a good ink and based on what I have seen, it is the only commercially available option at this time.
So understanding that most of the manufacturers are using the same ink and pretreatment, the only other four factors that could actually matter as to how the "hand" of the shirt feels is 1) the RIP, 2) the Operator, 3) the Graphic and 4) the Substrate / Garment. The RIP is going to tell the printer how much ink to lay down. The more ink you lay down, the heavier the print is going to fell. The Operator in my opinion has the most control over how heavy the hand is on the shirt. The operator is going to be the one that applies the pretreatment. The more pretreatment applied, the heavier the hand is because you are applying a glue-like solution to the top of the shirt. If you apply too much or too little of pretreatment, then you can get bad wash tests and the design will come off. Depending on the graphic, you may be able to use more or less ink. Some graphics will allow the RIPs to use the background color of the graphic to use the color of the garment to help with the colors in the graphic (i.e. not printing black ink, but using the black in the shirt instead). This can lead to less amount of ink being used and a softer hand. The final aspect is the substrate. Each shirt produced differently (from a different manufacturing plant, using a different sizing chemical, woven off of different looms, using different dyes,...) can also dictate how much pretreatment and ink you need to use to get the optimal results.
Noticed that the hardware (i.e. printer) is not listed above as a factor for the hand of the shirt. This is because the hardware is basically a spitting device that is controlled by the RIP. The hardware is definitely important in regards to reliability and the amount of maintenance... but that is a completely different issue the hand of the shirt. The only time the hardware could even be remotely related to the hand of the shirt is when you are talking about the viscosity of the ink being used. The heavier viscocity inks (Kornit & Brother) can provide a heavier hand if you apply the same amount of ink as the lover viscocity inks (Dupont). However, these manufacturers have adjusted for this by dropping less ink. On average, an Epson-based dtg printer will drop around 8 times the amount of white ink as it does for CMYK. The print I saw at the Indy NBM Printwear Show from the Brother GT-782 printer had 5 times the amount of white ink compared to the CMYK ink. So I don't see the the viscocity of the ink as a large factor compared to the three others listed above.
In summary, don't assume that the hand of the shirt is a result of the printer it came from. You have to know the complete process (pretreatment, graphic, RIP, cure method) and what substrate was used. Then do the same thing on each printer in order to get a good answer. However, you change one thing... and it could throw everything off.
Anajet prints on dark fabric 
