NARC72 said:
Printchic, does the resolution have anything to do with the slower shirt output per hour? 3 to 4 shirts an hour, can you imagine if you had a big order, you'd pull your hair out & bite your nails down to the nailbed!
Yes the higher the resolution you print the slower the machine. Here's the deal. The machine that prints on "black shirts" is a "Epson 2200" that has been "souped up" to print on a t-shirt. So everything that applies to a user that print on paper using their 2200 desktop printer applies to the DTG machine that has been "modified" to print on a t-shirt. With that being said one could simply go to Epson's site and look at their Manual on the Epson 2200 and see speed times, etc.
Now when you get into printing on a "black/dark" shirt with the DTG Printer (which is really a Epson 2200 beefed up) your time is diminished "because of all the steps required" before you print.
and...
when you are ready to print you have to print "an underbase" (the white ink first) and then print the colors. Depending on "resolution" you choose this could take a while. But regardless maximum stated on their chart you can get for a design say about 10" x 10" is 4-5. In my case I found i got less shirts per hours than stated in their charts.
I was looking at the Fast T-Jet2™ SDT-1200, was that the one you had?
Yes and No. I had the red machine (the first model that came out) then shortly after they released the Fast T-Jet2 (silver color machine). When i upgraded to white i just installed the "Fast T-Jet2" drivers and my machined operated just like the Fast T-Jet2.
They are the same inside (both are Epson 2200 machines under the hood) but the new ones has a Laser that can tell if you have the shirt board too high. For me i had to take a metal bar and lay across the shirtbed to see if the shirt touched it (Thus taking time away from printing). If it did i had to lower the bed so avoid possible print head damage from the shirtbed being too high. The only other difference is that the Fast T-Jet2 has a slightly wider or longer (can't remember which) print area.
You can print 7 colors on the red machine but they were saying on the T-jet2 you could only do the 4 ink colors. However recently i see some owning a (T-Jet2) have just installed the drivers for the "Red" machine (T-jet Standard) and now print 7 ink colors as they've just had too many printer issues trying to print white ink.
The Brother Machine that i have now "doesn't print white ink" but it has the ability to print on several "dark shirts". The rule of thumb is if the ink is "darker" than the shirt you can print on it we have found.
So all said,
It would actually be better to screenprint your "black shirt" jobs as you are right 3-4 shirts is not very productive. The only thing I can see people opting for the Fast T-jet2 model for since you are getting about "3-4 shirts per hour" is
- if you have your own shirt line and do the shirts a few at a time
It would be more advantagous to get the "larger marchines they have" so you can print "several shirts at a time only then can you in my opinion be making $$$
As for my Brother GT-541 my answer to the fact my machine doesn't print white ink is to just order "screenprinted transfers" when I do a job for a customer. Just completed a shirt order for some reunion shirts. This week I have another order for 50 more shirts on a royal blue. They too will be "screenprinted transfers".
So i am not limited because my machine doesn't print "white ink" i just order transfers and press then own. The customer is not able to tell if the shirt was "screenprinted" directly or "screenprinted" using a heat transfer.