Author Topic: Thinking about DTG  (Read 14668 times)

Offline TCred

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Re: Thinking about DTG
« Reply #60 on: November 19, 2015, 11:19:49 PM »
Since day one, the word on DTG that I got was it is not ideally suited for large single color areas of any color. I am sure though that in time, you'll learn some tweaks amd tricks and improve your product.
I have seen for a long time that not only are all machines not created equal, but neither are the operators!

Our experience is that quite good solid whites are not impossible (on a Kornit, can't speak for any others), but it does take some experimenting with pre-treatment and ink settings, and is very dependant on the suitability of the shirt for DTG. We tried every shirt we could get our hands on (most got the thumbs down) before deciding on a range that we would be happy to print and sell.

We also got test prints from several manufacturers including Epson, Brother, Mimaki, and DTG before deciding that the Kornit was the only one that produced outupt that meant we could sleep at night without worrying about customers complaining about "issues" with the print.

The photos are of a recent job on tees and hoodies. It was our first job on the Kornit, and took hours of testing before we were happy to run the job. Not unlike screen printing really - it looks easier than it is, and the learning curve is like the north face of the Eiger.


Offline bulldog

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Re: Thinking about DTG
« Reply #61 on: November 20, 2015, 03:06:32 PM »
Pulled the trigger. Installed Tuesday and Wednesday. I got the viper one pretreat too. Neat set up. They only recommend shaking the white cartridges and white agitation daily. The machine wants you to do a flush every day on the menu read out though so not sure if I should do it or not. The brother actually retrieves the white ink from the lines now before doing the weekly flush which saves ALOT of ink.
The white is not as vibrant as I would like it to be, even on the ring spun shirts. Solid blocks of white seem to be only for screen printing and a hell of a lot cheaper. The installer told me a rule of thumb "on the high side" would be to figure $1.00 a CC for prints that are white "only" once you figure in the flushes and cleaning solution. CMYK costs pennies. a typical white only logo 8 x 8  inches was about $4.00 / 4.18 cc
I cant wait to see what I can do with this thing.

I'm very new to the DTG game but I wonder if you are not putting down enough pre-treat? Maybe something to experiment with.

Offline bulldog

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Re: Thinking about DTG
« Reply #62 on: November 20, 2015, 03:10:52 PM »
Well I just got looking at the Epson F2000, I'm seeing there is a lot more work than just tossing it on the platen and off you go, but the Epson price don't seem that bad 15K for a new out the box machine.  Only thing that worry me about the Epson is the ink cost and the I thing someone mention wasting 150 bucks a month on an ink dump/clean hard to toss away 150 like that, I do thing this could help us during the slow months and keep those 2 to 6 pc jobs we turn down or just to costly to screenprint.  Any one running an epson DTG?

I just got an epson modified printer which isn't the same as the F2000. I've heard bad things about that printer. I'm still in the process of setting mine up. I imagine it will take me a couple weeks to really learn it after I get it all set up.

The MOD1 doesn't use the epson ink, I think it is a dupont ink that is relabeled. 12x12 white image (mostly solid) was $1.38 according to the RIP. Could have used a little bit more white but it was about 99% coverage and still had a nice hand. A "regular" customer would never even notice, IMO.