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.
Hi,
Can any Forum members post good examples of T-Shirts that have used DTG printing especially on Dark Shirts. As previously posted I saw a Tjet in action and thought the whole process unimpressive, the quality of print poor,with dificulty in getting the print perfectly straight. One of the designs being demonstrated had to be printed twice to get good definition. I've been involved in garment decoration for over 20 years and to spend $15,000 on a kit like this seems ridiculous. Please prove me wrong with your examples.
paul
DTG printing is essentially a very new technology ("bleeding edge"), and it is far from perfected yet (or in heavy use yet). I would be interested in seeing such too, but there are probably not many members that have had a chance to use a DTG printer yet.
Hi,
Well surely it would be advisable before any Forums members are encouraged to use this 'Bleeding Edge' technology that is as you say not perfected and part their hard earned cash that something is posted to indicate this.
Buyers beware if it's difficult for guys with years of experience to get decent results then start ups have got no chance. Let the manufactures of these machines prove to the industry the value of this technology and until they do avoid it like the plague until it's perfected. Don't use start ups wishing to get into the industry as guinea pigs.
Well, I wouldn't quite say say 'avoid it like the plague' either; if nobody tries it out, it will fail and/or not improve. They do offer advantages, and could be useful for some folks (even in their current form). However, the only people that could reasonably afford these will likely be medium to large companies at this point, so I wouldn't even worry about DTG much at this point if you're a small business.
I do look forward to how this technology advances over the next few years; it has a lot of potential.
Well surely it would be advisable before any Forums members are encouraged to use this 'Bleeding Edge' technology that is as you say not perfected and part their hard earned cash that something is posted to indicate this.
Buyers beware if it's difficult for guys with years of experience to get decent results then start ups have got no chance. Let the manufactures of these machines prove to the industry the value of this technology and until they do avoid it like the plague until it's perfected. Don't use start ups wishing to get into the industry as guinea pigs.
You can get good results with a direct to garment printing machine, so there really is no need for a "buyer beware" sort of warning
Anybody spending that kind of money on the machine is of course going to be given an education about the machine, test out the printing quality, the cost per print and make a decision for themselves whether the quality will meet the needs of their business model and customers.
I've seen a few of them in action at a tradeshow and for whites and light colored garments, they are pretty darn impressive.
For blacks, it takes a little extra work, but I saw a couple of machines that could do it "decently". More improvements are being made on the process all the time and new releases are supposed to be made within a year that should really change things.
Even now though, direct to garment printing is used every day by businesses and is a very successful printing proceess (cafepress uses it to print 1000's of shirts per day, zazzle uses it as well...if the quality wasn't there, they wouldn't be spending so much money on the technology only to have a bunch of returns).
So while the quality may not be on par with screen printing yet in all circumstances, for many end customers that wear the shirts, the quality is great. The hand is super soft, and it can handle images that screen printing can't do at the same cost.
We have a couple of members here that use (and have used) various DTG machines and make good money with them (printchic, skibum, and I think one other member)
The year that the Red Skins won the super bowl (about 10 years ago), I saw 2 guys working for a German Company (cant remember names) that had a set-up next door to my office. They made me a "KURT #58" for the Red Skins white t-shirt from my Player Card (long story) printed directly on to the shirt in front of my eyes.
This tech has been around for years, the problem has always been the price points against screen print and the ability to print on black.
add on edit: still have that shirt around somewhere.
Thanks guys. Sorry if my post was agressive but I felt that it should be pointed out to start ups the limitations of this technology. I saw it and didn't rate it at all. But hey I'm ready to listen and learn and would love to see Forum members who use this process to post examples of their work. I still think the jury is still out on this. I'm most passionate about T-shirts and would never ever put out a T-shirt with this quality print. It depends I suppose on how high you set your standards and whether you are content to 'satisfy' your customers rather than delight them.
It depends I suppose on how high you set your standards and whether you are content to 'satisfy' your customers rather than delight them.
I don't think that would be an accurate statement.
People are "delighting" their customers now with DTG printers. Just because you personally weren't impressed, doesn't mean that all customers wouldn't be impressed and all printers using the machine don't care about quality.
We're all different here Paul
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ut I felt that it should be pointed out to start ups the limitations of this technology.
People truly interested in purchasing the technology will learn all the benefits and the drawbacks of it and make their own decision
You saw one machine and it didn't rate. There are several machines with different print qualities and benefits and they are obviously working well for lots of people. So it could be that you may have seen a bad test, or it could be that the quality isn't on par for what you personally would want to use.
It's not fair to make a blanket judgement of what everyone else's idea of good quality might be.
I actually think there is a large growing market for DTG. I also believe the technology is the wave of the future for T-shirt printing. I am not ready for DTG for one simple reason...cost of the machine. If it were cheaper there would be one right next to my heatpress simply to do white shirts. I dont much like the loading but this is all going to improve as is the white inks and abilities to print on darks. Keep an open mind and watch this thing improve....there is a lot of money going into those products right now.
I used to own a t-jet but sold it and opted for the Brother GT-541. The t-jet has the ability to do white ink the Brother doesn't. White ink isn't easy to do and the wash quality is not consistent which is something I didn't want to deal with at this time.
So i just order screenprinting heat transfers when i need dark shirts.
However, per your request here are a few samples off my Brother GT-541.
Thanks guys, and yes Rodney you are right my first impressions of this technology was a let down but I'm open minded and am glad to see this technology is working well for some people. My initial contact did cloud my judgement and I can now see the value in DTG priniting. Let's all hope the prices come down soon as I'm sure they will and I look forward to further developments.
Thanks again for all your replies , and thanks to T-shirt Forums this is a excellent place for all those involved in garment decoration!
thanks Rodney,
still not sure about transfers but i have some samples coming, and a DTG sample coming so will compare the two and see how i go, thank you o t-shirt guru!
DTG Examples Please 
