DTG printing is the most exciting thing to happen to the garment industry since automatic screen machines and dyesub. There are, however, things you need to know.
1) the ink has a shelf life. the longer it sits around the bigger the chance you will have bad ink.
2) production times are nowhere near screen printing. while you can print short runs profitably, longer runs need much better control of costs to be competitive.
3) printing a single shirt can take 4 minutes or more from start to finish.
3) this is a complicated piece of equipment with close tolerances. not paying attention to that fact will yield nothing but frustration.
4) these machines like to run. the more you run it the happier it will be. the less you run it or the longer it just sits around the more chance you will have for problems like head clogs.
5) the ink is expensive.
6) pressing the shirts after printing adds to the time to print, consider a tunnel dryer like screen printers use.
7) color matching is a big issue. make sure you understand how colors work on a pc, how that are translated in the rip, and how your machine treats them.
8) unlike screen printing or embroidery, bitmaps (raster images) are your friend. imo this is one huge advantage over other forms of decorating.
Well things have changed so much in just the last year. New pretreatment without window of application.wash durability is great, new printers with very little or virtually no clogging issues, ink prices at all time low.
That is encouraging to hear. Should I search throughout the forums for information on these advancements or is there a industry magazine or website I can read. I am also starting to research which DTG printer I should get right now.
Our market pretty much changed. We do a lot of sports teams and leagues so the Versacamm is a better option for us. We still do t's with it but our main T market is women so that is mostly rhinestones and glitter vinyl.
This forum has been a great deal of help, I am starting a T-shirt business in Brazil where I currently live. If anyone could help me out with some questions I still have:
1. Preparing the garment. I have seen the outcome of the T-shirt (100% cotton) after receiving the pre-treatment (so the ink "holds" on better) and direct print...it simply hardens the garment, requiring -somehow- a previous wash before wearing it. Do all pretreatments harden the cloth like this? Do retailers simply sell this way and let customers wash and then wear? Or am I getting something wrong? Because, as far as I have read, you could perfectly "do without" the pre-treament on light colors, but the durability of the image isn't as good. Correct?
2. Brazil is a humid place, tropical weather year round...does this affect the printer in any way? Or is dry air the only issue?
1. Pretreatment does affect the garment in someway. It does make it does look like it requires wash. but i dont think you need to do that, because it will go away by itself. If you show your product right after you print it, then the customer will ask some questions and you need to do some explainings.
Pretreatment makes the prints look better but not necessary. but you must make sure to use Light Garment pretreatment.
2. we live in the same hemisphere, my country (indonesia) is also very humid all year round. Make sure you buy a humidity monitor to control the humidity level of your working area.
Thank you for a very open and informative thread. Great to have users give their experience with honest and open minds. Living in South Africa I suppose is ideal from a humidity and weather point of view. I have been watching the dtg industry with interest. One of my concerns regarding dtg is the voltage. Ours here is 220V. and I think the voltage in the States is 110v, so I would need a transformer should I venture into the kaleidescope of American made dtg. I think barring a few makes, most newer printers are much of a muchness. The difference would be the support that printer has in a specific area. And that would be another concern. What kind of support can one expect in another continent (another planet almost) and another time zone
Hello,
I tested the firebird FBX100, thought that would be my salvation in ahorrao much money and time to change the fluid in my sprayer, but with my experience has not been good in black shirts all ok, but in the white shirts there is a problem, if you give them the sun before his first washed out yellow spots all over the shirt, anyone else have this problem?
I have the kiosk 3,i am in Europe and I use is called pretreated FATBRIGHT but is very expensive and not just behave well in the wash, which pretreated recommend?
There's other pretreatments out there like Image Armor and DuPont. PM me if you are interested in concentrated forms
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