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.
does anyone know of any DTG printers that can print large graphics on the full front of a t-shirt? i've seen tees which have a graphic go from bottom to top. it wasnt screen printed, i figure it was done by DGT.
if you know of any sites or shops in the NYC area, let me know.
I don't think DTG printers can do all over printing though. I think it is either done via screen printing before the garment is sewed together, or it's done by a special type of screen printing machine that can print on sewn together garments (I think the machine type is called a roller printing machine).
It depends on the machine. To date, there are 2 that I know of that could do this. The first is the Flexijet Long model. It can print 16" x 50", you would have to have a platen large enough to do it.
The second is a machine that we will be selling later this month. I still can't go into details about it, sorry.
The problem though, with both of these machines for a full front print is, it won't print on the sleeves as part of the full front. You can rig them to do it by printing the sleeves separate, but it won't do it in one pass, since the nature of the way you have to lay down the shirt (and these printers only print 16" wide). If you have creases, etc, and the head strikes it, you get a misprint because the head smears the ink. So printing over seams doesn't work too well. You can do it by lowering the bed of the printer, but the more you lower the bed, the further the print and the fuzzier the image. So printing over a pocket is doable, but printing full front including sleeves in one pass isn't.
There is one other machine that I had seen do this. It was a very large printer but it was $45,000. Before the year is through, we'll have another printer that in theory should print a full front, edge to edge, and the price isn't anywhere near that.
As with anything, when the newest technology gets out there, everyone has BIGGER and better ideas!
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BelQuette Inc, 877.202.0886 & Screener's Choice, 330-345-5877
Mod1 Direct to Garment Printer, Made in the USA www.belquette.com
In all probability, there should be a couple more that can as well, one from the Kiosk people and one from the TJet people. The problem is, there really isn't any platens made for them to do it and, you have to spend a minimum of $30,000 to get the one you want that will print large enough.
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BelQuette Inc, 877.202.0886 & Screener's Choice, 330-345-5877
Mod1 Direct to Garment Printer, Made in the USA www.belquette.com
DTG printers needed 
