FlashGordon

Thanks in advance to all you good people who want to help with this, you keep people like me from jumping off buildings.
My print shop recently purchased a Kornit 932DS DTG printer. We've been getting excellent looking images over the past two weeks, but yesterday we had a customer return a sweatshirt that had the image desintegrate in the middle.

This happened after one wash, not sure if it was hot or cold. I'm wondering if it's because of the poly/cotton blend we're using or the amount of curing time.
If anyone has had simmilar problems or know what we're doing wrong, I greatly appreciate any advice.

 

Reply With Quote

SuddenUrge

My first guess would be the cotton/poly blend but not sure how well the kornit ink set works with a blend.

Next thing I would look at would be cure time/temp etc Maybe Justin Walker could help out as he uses a Kornit in his own shop

 

Reply With Quote

Hansca

back off you heat on your press and cure for longer times. although poly cottons could have a greater chance of doing this, I think you should try curing times first. I had the same break downs on 100% cottons and found that I had to cure longer, especially as humidity went up.

__________________
Hans
www.thetbar-dtg.com

 

Reply With Quote

FlashGordon

We do use a heat press for pretreatment to minimize the fiberalation. If that is what you're refering to, we have the press at 365. I'm considering trying the heat press after running it through the dryer. We tried slowing down the belt speed on our dryer, but we lost alot of brightness in our color. Have you found that happy medium, ya know so the pizza isn't gooey in the center but the crust isn't burnt.
(pardon the metaphore)

 

Reply With Quote

Hansca

after treating the shirt I use medium to heavy pressure on the te to press the shirt fibers down for even ink laydown. When I cure I cure at 325 with light pressure for at least 2 minutes ad up to 3 minutes to make sure I have removed the moisture from the inks. I am not trying to "press" the t-shirt at this point, just remove moisture. Too much pressure and you can affect the brightness of the print. I will release the press, let the shirt breath about 20 seconds, then re-apply heat to it. After this I will set the shirt aside to cool and if I am concerned I will do a scratch test on the print to make sure I have a good cure. I have found that too high a temperature on the cure will bake your inks causing them to break down easier. Hope this helps.

__________________
Hans
www.thetbar-dtg.com

 

Reply With Quote

FlashGordon

Hmmm, are you using a Kornit? We we're told by the folks we got it from not to use a heat press for curing because it won't work. Maybe that was just so they could sell us that 10k Dryer. Did we get duped or are we talking about two different things?

 

Reply With Quote

rottweiler

It is most probably improper curing of the print.

Rottweilers rule!

 

Reply With Quote