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doghouse · May 14th, 2008

I am a member of the marketing group of a producer of direct-to-garment printers. We are soliciting your input on direct-to-garment printers in order to better understand the needs of the market in our development process for the next generation of direct-to-garment printers. Respecting the rules of this message board, I cannot solicit your input directly, but I am hopeful we can start a thread here where participants can provide their input on the message board where all may benefit.

Many of you have direct-to-garment printers. We would be interested to know what features and benefits you currently do not have in your printer which you believe would be useful on future generations.

For those of you who are considering the purchase of a direct-to-garment printer, we would be interested to know what features, benefits you perceive to be most important in your purchase decision.

If you have decided not to purchase or have postponed your purchase, please note what limitations have delayed your purchase or what features and benefits you desire which are not currently available.

Please note your suggestions by replying to this thread.

We appreciate your time and input into this process, and trust that other users and manufacturers will benefit from your insight.

Thank you for your input and advice.

Arithian · May 14th, 2008

Doghouse,

My response is from the point of a new DTG owner (about 2 months now) so please note it as so.

DTG Printers, how they could be better.

- More Stable
- More User Friendly
- Viable to print from major graphic programs (photoshop, illustrator, etc) The third party program I deal with is horrible.
- Less white ink problems (or no white ink problems)
- Faster (always nice)
- Less maintance

DTG Printers, how they are great now.

- Viable for short run orders
- Great texture and feel
- Unlimited Colors
- Easy setup to print

Hope this helps.

- Joe

sharktees · May 14th, 2008

I have been into DTG for 2 years now ,I started with a T-Jet2 and have had a Brother for the last 3 months.We do this as a bonified business.If I could have a brother that prints white ink as easily and trouble free as it prints light shirts then thats what I'd buy.Being trouble free and low maint. is what I feel makes the brother so good.

sunnydayz · May 14th, 2008

Many of you have direct-to-garment printers. We would be interested to know what features and benefits you currently do not have in your printer which you believe would be useful on future generations.

An ink that can print on any fabric without pretreatment. And If I cant have that then a really great pretreatment machine.

Wow that is all I can come up with, I just realized how much I like my hm1. My machine really has all the features I would look for in a machine.

No wait I just thought of one. It would be really cool if my machine had a system to be able to flush my lines without having to empty my ink first. That would be a really cool feature. So that I could clean my lines and printhead without having to change out my ink bottles with distilled water.

COEDS · May 14th, 2008

I would like a Dtg printer that is user friendly and has all capabilities to print white ink.I would like to do many substrates ( shirts,hats,golf balls,etc). I would like software that has a easy learning curve. I would like all this bundled into a complete package that can be purchased for a reasonable amount.I would like a quality system in the $4500 range. I know ,I'm dreaming, but you asked what I would want. .... JB

anewbeginning · May 20th, 2008

Ive only had my printer for a couple months but heres my suggestions...

What sunnydayz said about the pretreatment. An ink where you could throw a black tee straight through the machine without pretreatment would be nice. But then thats probably more an ink issue than a printer one. Its also 1 of the reasons why i dont currently have the white ink upgrade, however with the amount of requests ive had for coloured/black tees i think i might need to invest.

Less maintanance.

Less head cleaning. I know it doesnt use much ink up but i feel like im wasting ink every time i do one to clean the head for 1 blocked colour (usually black)

Faster ways to load tees.

I dont print with a rip either, so to get pure blacks i usually print 2 passes. A way to manually adjust the level of ink out of the print head (within limits) without the need of ripping software would be nice.

Easy calibration of colour profiles for printer and monitor. ie. get printer to print out a bunch of colours onto a garment, hold it up to the monitor, pick the closest ones and its done. no more messing around with colour profiles.

Don't make them too affordable, then everybody will have one and we'll be out of business