DTG Incoming....

[mk162]

nope, not really.  it's good on 50/50's, you have to change how it goes down though.  2 light coats vs 1 heavy.

on 100% poly there is no hope at this point.  everybody is working on it though.

[TCred]

Without knowing anything about it we tested 100% poly on our Kornit, we just stuck a shirt in and used the same settings as a cotton shirt previously printed. Print quality is superb and adhesion was good (up to 32 washes so far).

Now I am nervous that we just had beginners luck, and the DTG gremlins were having a day off.  Have you been able to isolate what is possibly causing the bleed?

[mk162]

actually I have heard the Kornits handle poly much better than others.  I am not sure why this is though.

[Frog]

Oh boy, eb, you want poly DTG and you get to deal with Hirsch with yet another line of machines!, LOL!

[ebscreen]

Oh heck no. Just want to see where the technology is at on that sort of thing.

I'd guess tri-blends and the like (fuzzies) are a no go as well?


You gotta get one Andy, fits your model well, and then we know where to send folks!

[GraphicDisorder]

Tech mentioned to us one of his clients printing tri-blends with success but he cautioned me about them. I am sure we will try them and ruin a few.  When the Mlink shows up you guys send whatever you want and we will try it as well.

[Frog]

Oh heck no. Just want to see where the technology is at on that sort of thing.

I'd guess tri-blends and the like (fuzzies) are a no go as well?


You gotta get one Andy, fits your model well, and then we know where to send folks!

It fits a chunk of my market for sure, but not enough volume to return my investment in a reasonable time unless I do the trade thing, and that doesn't fit my winding down model.
So, for the time being, it's transfers in house with speedy turnaround and occasional farming out of DTG when there is the time a quantity to justify it. I'm very happy with transfers on lights, and fortunately for me, that's most of them.

[GraphicDisorder]

ROI isn't too bad on this thing. I figure once we get this thing going and over 500 old shirt designs added with new being added all the time we will we will be jammin. Of course it will take us a little while to get that going so let's just say it takes a year for ROI at the most extreme ink cost scenario that ive seen off it so far.  Ill take it.  I though our Roland would take a year or so as well, we turned that corner in 6-7 months and we didn't even sell stickers when we added it. We already sell shirts so my thoughts is we will be good pretty quick for us. 

[Frog]

ROI isn't too bad on this thing. I figure once we get this thing going and over 500 old shirt designs added with new being added all the time we will we will be jammin. Of course it will take us a little while to get that going so let's just say it takes a year for ROI at the most extreme ink cost scenario that ive seen off it so far.  Ill take it.  I though our Roland would take a year or so as well, we turned that corner in 6-7 months and we didn't even sell stickers when we added it. We already sell shirts so my thoughts is we will be good pretty quick for us.

Yep, I think that with an online, retail operation of selling stock designs, it's almost a no-brainer, with the cost of the machine and supplies more than offsetting the alternative of keeping huge stock of pre-printed shirts.

[GraphicDisorder]

Or in our case running pre-orders and that organized chaos.  I think this will work for us but time will tell.  Worst case I have a machine to sell. No risk, no reward.  Frankly id about keep it just for making my own shirts, haha.

[IntegrityShirts]

Here's a couple dumb noob questions...

How do you cure these after printing? Can you use a dryer or do you have to heat press?

Can you take a vid of the pretreat machine running? Don't think I really understand that process/chemicals and is it worth it rather than just spraying by hand?

[GraphicDisorder]

Here's a couple dumb noob questions...

How do you cure these after printing? Can you use a dryer or do you have to heat press?

Can you take a vid of the pretreat machine running? Don't think I really understand that process/chemicals and is it worth it rather than just spraying by hand?

You can use dryer or the heat press, dryer would require a bit of dwell time, so doubt we use that much. 

Soon as I am using it normally ill grab a video of teh Pretreat machine, think of it like a car wash really though. Load shirt it sprays over the whole image area (which you can turn on and off sprayers). You set the amount of pretreat you want to be on the garment which you need to measure to determine.  I would spend the money for it for sure, unless you just had space for a hand sprayer which would require drain/etc.