I am using the kiosk and pretreating shirts with pretreatment. I am having trouble with my designs fading out or just completely washing out. Is there any kind of spray to seal the shirts after they have been printed and heat set out there? I am about ready to give up on this machine.
1. Make sure that you are curing the inks completely - light shirts (no white ink) require 2 minutes at 170'C (about 340-350 F) - dark shirts (w/ white ink) require 3 minutes at the same temperature.
2. Verify that the display on your heat press is correct (heat press strips or a device to check temperature continuity like George Knight sells)
3. If you are getting good white ink when you print, but the inks are washing out, you are probably apply too much pre-treat - assuming your heat press is working properly
Questions
1. What ink are you using?
2. What pre-treatment are you refering to?
3. Is this happening on both white ink and non-white ink prints?
I am using the inks from coleman & company and the pretreatment is from them also. I have a geo knight press and am heat setting them at 325 for 2 minutes
If you are using the Bright inks then 325' for 2 minutes is good for non-white ink prints but darks (with white ink) require 3 minutes. If you are suing V.02 inks then the specs I gave in my previous post apply. Verify that your heat press is accurate to the display. I have seen the display on several brands of heat presses be off by as much as 50' F.
Do the prints look good when they come of the machine?
Are you also pre-treating for light colored shirts w/o white ink?
My shirts look awesome when they come off the machine. After they are heat set they appear to fade out some. I am pre treating all of my shirts whether they are white or dark. All of them are fading or washing out. I also roll the pretreatment with a roller after I spray. Am I supposed to be pressing hard or light?
No need to pretreat white shirts! Are you sure you are not putting down too much pretreatment? If you have too much pretreatment the white will wash out/ flake off!
Thanks Brian I guess at this point I could be putting to much pretreatment down. This whole process is just to much of a guessing game. To much to little its hard to gauge.
You are right, pretreating can be challenging and the only way to learn it is to practice. The best way I have found to teach people is to have them do the top 1/3 of the shirt with one pass of pretreatment, the middle 1/3 with two passes of pretreatment and the bottom 1/3 with three passes of pretreatment. Then print a color spectrum for each 1/3. Do the exact same for the bacl of the shirt so you have a control sample. You will be able to see the difference between the each section. Cut the shirt in half and then wash the front half. If you can make some adjustments to your HVLP, then you can adjust the setting if none of the three work that great for you. Just make sure that you write down your settings for both the pretreatment and printing / RIP process.
Prints wash out or fad 
