Discuss the various aspects of direct to garment printing. DTG printers include Brother, T-Jet, Flexi-Jet, DTG Kiosk, Kornit, Mimaki, Tex-Jet and others! Discuss and learn about this up and coming printing technology.
Walking through Bunnings Today (Hardware store) I see some heat gun's (used for stripping wallpaper etc)
Looking at the specs most have variable or at least adjustable temp/airflow rates.
In the box is also some attachments including a wide nozzle and this got me thinking.
Even a cheap one ($40) has a low air/high air flow and a min temp setting of 300 Degrees Celsius.
This of course got me thinking that the waterbase inks I use for screen printing require 150 degrees to set so it should be more than capable of doing the job. In theory they should be able to run for at least several hours non stop (they do have thermal cut outs etc if blocked etc) without dramas.
I am working on a basic conveyer system with a speed adjustable motor. A small "oven" area which can be folded light metal to create an "air curtain" (similar to used above doorways for aircons in shops etc)
Obviously this needs more development yet and timing the conveyer so the garment gets up to temperature etc.
Hoping others will help out and post ALL details here so it is freely available to anyone to use/add too. (I will continue to post but due to other projects this probably wont get started physically for a few weeks.
If someone has a heat gun they use for drying now it would be great to get some details along the line of what gun you use, wattage rating, settings, and how long it takes to get the ink up to temp (especially if you have an infra red gun and can get accurate temp readings).
Why not just use a heat gun? simply for speed, the idea is you can print, place it on the conveyer and it comes out the other side finished (you could set it up on a bench and have the finished garments "drop" in to a basket ready for folding/packing.
I think it's a good idea to try it.. at the minimum even if it doesn't properly set the ink, it would evaporate enough water to make your final heat press time much shorter.
We recently bought a Vastex DBII-30 conveyor dryer, it has 2 IR heat panels, and forced Air. The belt length is 7 ft. Even with this, we found that to get the best washability, we run the shirts through twice.
For the black shirts, it seems to make the print kind of crispy so we still do a final 30 second press on them to get it smooth again.
Good question, but I'm not sure. I need to get a temp gun. It's strange watching the IR panels at work, you can see it heating up the Ink faster than the garment around it.. I'm not sure why, maybe due to the water content?
OK just checking back, bought the heat gun yesterday so time to start playing. I should probably have clarified at the start too my printing is on baby gear and smallish prints so my needs are a little different. (Just in case anyone else follows or gives it a shot)
I stumbled upon your posts while looking to build my own dryer. I am planning to use a recycled treadmill drive and rollers along with a canvas belt for the conveyor. There are several quartz heaters available through various suppliers for the oven. How is the heat gun concept working?
Actually it hasn't so far! Bought a vinyl cutter and have been flat out with work on that and a new line of screen printed baby gear, plus working on a small dingy with the boys!
SOunds like a good source for the conveyor.. plenty of them laying around unused.. the missus probably wouldn't even notice the motor was missing!
I have build a conveyor style diy dtg using the default epson motor and a couple of gears, i believe a stepper motor and a cheap ebay stepper controller will work for speed control....if you can bear the stepper noise....
On the other hand you can use cheap 12v DC motor with the proper PWM controller
Something like that HHO Fan Cooled 30 AMP PWM with Case: eBay Motors (item 150442628590 end time May-17-10 22:57:57 PDT)
DIY Conveyer Dryer under $200 
