09/02/2010 by admin.

There is a lot of talk lately on internet forums about building you own Direct to Garment printers. The theory has promise but the reality will be a disaster.

Yes the basic principle is the same. Both spray either ink or dye at the the surface to be printed. In some cases, both machines use the same printer head, but that is were the similarity ends.

It is slightly more realistic if you want to print onto light or preferably white t-shirts. This is because there will be no need to put a white layer onto the garment first. If you do want to print images with lighter colours or white onto darker t-shirts then the real problems begin.

The white pigment used to print onto black or darker t-shirts is much thicker than the printer head was designed to cope with. Therefore there is a great tendency for clots and eventually permanently unblockable printers heads that will have to be replaced. The is not a cheap repair. The head alone without fitting charges will cost around about £200 to replace! This problem can re-occur very often, which will wipe out any profit on the work. On top of that the job will be delayed while you repair the printer which will probably make the job late and upset your customer.

Then there is the problem of ripping software, I am not going to bore you with the technicalities of it, but needless to say you will have to have it and it is not cheap. Add to that you will have no maintenance or technical backup and I would say you are onto a looser.

If you are thinking of printing t-shirts with DTG technology, get onto the t-shirt printing forums, read what the customers of the different companies are saying and choose the one with the happiest customers.

Posted in T-shirt, DTG printing, DTG | No Comments »

29/01/2010 by admin.

A massive part of the process of t shirt printing is the actual t-shirt. There are many different t-shirts to choose from, for many different requirements.

As far as printing is concerned the major concern is the type of material that is used to manufacture the t-shirt. Most t-shirts are made from 100% cotton, others are made from all sorts of man make fibers.

Some processes like DTG can not print onto man made fibers such as polyester because it would not absorb the dye. Most DTG printers will cope with a 60% cotton to 40% man made fibre mixture but I would not recommend going as low as 50% -50% cotton to polyester mixes. It will look ok when you first get the t-shirt but will soon start to fade and washout.

Posted in Cotton, T-shirt, DTG printing | No Comments »