DTG Printing

11/02/2009 by admin.

DTG printing is the greatest innovation for t-shirt printing ever!

It solves all the problems of normal garment decoration. This is done by a machine that works on a very similar way to your ordinary desk top printer. It is actually about ten times larger and the printer head sprays dye rather than ink.

So you can design anything you want and it will print onto the garment in the same way your household ink jet, onto white paper.

White paper being the operative word. If you put a black sheet of paper into your desk top printer, you wouldn’t expect a very good result. The reason for this is the printer doesn’t have a white cartridge. This is because it relies on the white  paper to provided the white needed in the image. The other problem is the reds, blues and yellows don’t show up if you print them onto a dark colour.

This is where the DTG printers fall into two types. One type that can only print onto white or light coloured garments. The other that has an extra process that prints a layer of white first, and them prints colour on top of that.

Great I hear you say, problem solved! Well maybe

I have just got back from the Printwear & Promotion exhibition and have studied all the available options for direct to garment printing on coloured or black garments.

Brother has a fantastic reputation with the machine it produces for printing on white garments. They are due to have a coloured version of the machine for sale in this country by this coming October. The other problem is that it is rumoured  to cost about 50,000 Euros.

There are plenty of other cheaper versions of direct to garment printers in the market place, but there are serious issues with usability and reliability. This is generally caused by the white ink which is a suspension fluid and clogs the jets up on the printer head. 

So having looked at everything that was on offer at the exhibition I found the HM1-C printer made by Yes Ltd to be the best product on offer. It has a circulating ink system which seems to be very  effective at stopping ink clogging and various new technologies that put it ahead of the game.  In fact we were so impressed that we have bought one, so watch this space and we will keep you informed  on how we get on with it.

Posted in Digital Transfer | No Comments »