Brother is releasing a game changer

[mk162]

http://www.brother-usa.com/lp/graffitee/#.TuIba2Mk6nA

They are doing away with the GT-541(what I have) and replacing it with this.  Of course they are not letting a lot of info out about it.  What I have gathered is it's either a CMYK printer or you can upgrade it to a CMYK + 4W for printing dark shirts.  It's fast and still fairly small, so it's good fit in most shops.  The best part is the white ink version should come in under $30K with a pretreat machine and a heatpress.  I've heard good things about it so far, we'll see where it goes.

I have been dreaming about the GT-782, but I can't drop $65K on a printer, but that is just too much to spend.  I'd rather buy an awesome auto for that price.

[GraphicDisorder]

http://www.brother-usa.com/lp/graffitee/#.TuIba2Mk6nA

They are doing away with the GT-541(what I have) and replacing it with this.  Of course they are not letting a lot of info out about it.  What I have gathered is it's either a CMYK printer or you can upgrade it to a CMYK + 4W for printing dark shirts.  It's fast and still fairly small, so it's good fit in most shops.  The best part is the white ink version should come in under $30K with a pretreat machine and a heatpress.  I've heard good things about it so far, we'll see where it goes.

I have been dreaming about the GT-782, but I can't drop $65K on a printer, but that is just too much to spend.  I'd rather buy an awesome auto for that price.

I have samples off a GT-782, I wasn't fully impressed.  It was good, but not there yet still.

IMO DTG period has a ways to go before its a quality product.

[mk162]

The 782 stuff I gotten done has been great.  Colors are tough, but I thought the print itself was awesome.

The downside of the gt series is the max DPI is 600.  The new machine will go to 1200.  It's a slower print, but I guess even on white tees the colors are brighter.

What I like is most manufacturers have moved away from Epson based printers.  Those were a terrible idea, the heads are just too finicky.

[GraphicDisorder]

The 782 stuff I gotten done has been great.  Colors are tough, but I thought the print itself was awesome.

The downside of the gt series is the max DPI is 600.  The new machine will go to 1200.  It's a slower print, but I guess even on white tees the colors are brighter.

What I like is most manufacturers have moved away from Epson based printers.  Those were a terrible idea, the heads are just too finicky.

The white is still lacking IMO.

Print other than that is pretty good. 

[mk162]

I think that is one of the things they are working on.  I agree on some of the prints I have seen, the highlight white could be a little brighter.

[blue moon]

funny thing, I have a print from 782 when they were first released. The white absolutely ROCKS and the print is beyond anything I could print. It is pretty thick though. So fast forward to the SGIA show this year and I am looking at the output from the 782 and it is nowhere near what it used to be. So they had to change something and it impacted the print quality significantly.  As mentioned, the ink deposit is pretty thick and that might be an issue. It would make the print too expensive or they had to change the white ink chemistry. 'not sure, but it sure did not look as good as before. The print was rather blurry and the edges were not crisp.

the new printer coming out is a CMYK that can be upgraded with 2 White channels and then 2 more if needed for total of 4color and 4 white. The nice thing is it supposedly lays the white on the go with the colors rather than laying it down first and then returning to run colors. I think it also said they were going away with RIPs and it is closer to push to print now. Launch is at the Long Beach show, so I am sure we'll hear more then.

attached is the pix of the early 782 sample I have here.

pierre

[inkman996]

Pierre a problem that persisted since day one with DTG machines is the fact that there was so many different operators demoing these machines across the world and all operators have different skills and experience. You could get one sample from one show and another from a different show, one will rock the other will peel off. It shows how crucial the steps are in printing a perfect DTG is. Not all operators are the same.

I also have an early on 782 print that i keep washing, must be 50 washes by now, white is still bright, colors are bright but there is signs of cracking, that is to be expected.

I also have a Kornit white print that fell apart after one wash,  I know for a fact that Kornit can do much better than that and I am led to believe it was just poor pretreatment on the shirt, and that goes back to the person that did it.

DTG on dark is not for everyone, a person needs to be vigilant on there procedures or else you are going to print crap and lose lots of money.

[Sbrem]

I spoke with the rep yesterday when he stopped in the shop. 3 models starting around 18K for CMYK, the next step up is 2 white heads plus CMYK, the last option is 4 white heads with CMYK. Around 24K for the top model, maybe shipping in March or April. 12 x 10 design with 4 white heads on dark shirts around 3 minutes, 35 seconds on the heat press. CMYK on a white same size under a minute. That's what I got. Saw some impressive and not so impressive prints, but they weren't optimized. 1200 dpi too.

Steve

[mk162]

Cool, I am sure my local rep will be stopping in soon.  I will check with him.

I guess my contacts at Brother are all dried up now. 

My printer is going on 7 years old.  I've replaced 1 print head and a couple minor parts.  I've maybe spent $1100 in maintaining it since I got it in 05.  Not bad at all really.

Pretreating is everything.  The Kornit print I got was awful, the colors bled into one another ind looked terrible.

The brother sample I got was great.  I think pressing the pretreat is a better option because it mats down the fibers of the shirt.  And the inks are so thin that they can't do it alone, they need the help.

[Sbrem]

I'll say that the first Kornit I saw was awful, just terrible file prep. The yellow were green, small text hopelessly blurred. I figured operator error, because what's the point of a $250,000 machine that prints crap? I've had a few jobs done on a Kornit, and the customers have been very happy. The operators are very good, and conscientious. Still, I'd love to have one of my own...

Steve

[BorisB]

I also have a Kornit white print that fell apart after one wash,  I know for a fact that Kornit can do much better than that and I am led to believe it was just poor pretreatment on the shirt, and that goes back to the person that did it.

I wouldn't blame it on operator alone. We print with Kornit Thunder. You are right that pretreatment causes issues with washability and image clarity. But single biggest most influential factor are T-shirts. Different brands and styles perform different, but that's to be expected and we test extensively. But when you take a batch of ten same shirts, and image washes away from two, like they were not cured at all, the other eight you can wash 20 times with no fading at all. And I mean one fold from same box of say white L Gildan 64000. Sometimes you see that spray doesn't soak nicely but forms big drops. We often quick wash these shirts, and afterwards  never have these issues. Heatpressing before printing doesn't help either. We kind of live with it.
It's pretreatment issue, yet you often cannot prevent this to happen. Small differences that occur in final washing of fabric before it's being cut & sewn have big impact on print quality we achieve.

Boris

[Frog]

Sounds like a another reaffirmation to proceed slowly and cautiously when considering the present technology for dark shirts. These are not for everybody.

[mk162]

Sometimes it is the cotton itself.  My friend preferred Gildan tees from Honduras because the blues printed brighter than the ones from Nicaragua.

[BorisB]

Sounds like a another reaffirmation to proceed slowly and cautiously when considering the present technology for dark shirts. These are not for everybody.

Not only darks.  Here is last week photo of five different white shirts. All are of same weight. They were printed on our Kornit using same settings, one after another. Photo was taken after test wash. One of them was useless. Two were very good and two were mediocre.




Boris

[Frog]

That, my friend, could be a nightmare!