[Kaloszay]

Hello everyone!

I work for a company that sells all kinds of sports related stuff and we also make custom printed shirts, trinkets, custom made jerseys, well basically everything.
Currently we are using vinyl, sublimation and inkjet printing for garments (mostly jerseys, any kind of t-shirt, hoodies, jackets etc.)
We are taking any kind of orders from smaller ones (~1 - 20 garments) to big ones. (~200 - 2.000)

We have a Texjet echo2 DTG printer, which I'm using only as a DTF printer for a longer time now. (I like DTF more, mostly because I don't have to pretreat shirts and if anything goes wrong, I only have to ditch out the transfer paper, not the whole shirt.)
I would like some recommendations for printing methods (or even machines), that does not need much maintenance, is fast and works well if you only need to print one t-shirt or like 200 t-shirts. The printer is used only once a week currently or sometimes it isn't even running for 2-3 weeks. (there have been big problems because of it several times.) We are only using it if we have to because it's the most time consuming method and we don't really have the man for it.

 

[splathead]

There's really no 1 size fits all. If you are only getting smaller jobs once a week or so, and some of those are vinyl, maybe its time to stop accepting jobs under a certain amount and ditch the DTG. Steer as much work as you can to screen printing; clearly the best, least expensive method of printing larger jobs.

 

[Kaloszay]

There's really no 1 size fits all. If you are only getting smaller jobs once a week or so, and some of those are vinyl, maybe its time to stop accepting jobs under a certain amount and ditch the DTG. Steer as much work as you can to screen printing; clearly the best, least expensive method of printing larger jobs.

We can't really ditch anything, at least that's not my choice.
Mostly we use the vinyl for bigger and smaller orders aswell. (mostly jerseys with inscriptions and numbers on it for sports teams)
We need something like DTF/DTG that can make smaller or bigger orders with complicated graphics on cotton garments, that other methods (like vinyl or inkjet) cant.

 

[NoXid]

For larger orders you could outsource the printing of the transfers, be they Plastisol or DTF, and only do the heat pressing part yourself. No more DTF/DTG printer to maintain and fuss with. These machines work best if used frequently, else your maintenance cost in terms of both time and materials relative to your actual product production is not favorable.

Note, when ordering transfers, the larger your order size, the lower your per unit cost, especially with screen printed Plastisol transfers.

As Joe said, there isn't a one-size-fits-all solution. Every method has its pros and cons, and the situations it is best suited for. Use it outside of that ideal situation, and the cons come into play.

Screen printing in-house would be a great option for single-color designs from 20 pieces to infinity. Four-color designs maybe from 50+ units. Lots of equipment and learning involved in getting up to speed with that, especially if want to do full-color art with process or simulated process. But it is the most durable and cost-effective way to print anything in quantity. Not a practical option for a 2 shirt order, though. That is what vinyl is for.

 

[TABOB]

The printer is used only once a week currently or sometimes it isn't even running for 2-3 weeks. (there have been big problems because of it several times.)

We need something like DTF/DTG that can make smaller or bigger orders with complicated graphics on cotton garments

There is only one solution to this... find more work to keep it busy.