DTF not DTG

[Dottonedan]

My wife has been watching regarding the DTF world. She listens to Todd Downing a lot. He bought a good printer and converted it. There was a lot of talk about that...and he was reporting on his experiences.


Last I heard, he has had some trouble, (but not as much as many others). I hear that the consensus is  “converting” is not a good choice and not recommended unless you really know what you are doing and research well...and even then will still have some issues.  We are sticklers for going with a tried and true option. We wait to hear what others are experiencing and then go with a highly recommended brand versus creating trouble for ourselves. We have a sublimation printer, an older shirt heat press, and a new Fusion IQ hat press...and may get the DTF printer as well but really, I’m pretty happy with ordering the transfers from someone else and just applying.

[Homer]

No such thing as a DTF printer, they are ALL conversions... If you don't like the tinkering / trial and error of testing ripping your hair out, just order the transfers  You'll be further ahead... I like to do things the hard way

[mk162]

No such thing as a DTF printer, they are ALL conversions... If you don't like the tinkering / trial and error of testing ripping your hair out, just order the transfers  You'll be further ahead... I like to do things the hard way

While this is true, some companies go a lot further in their conversions.

Sonny has one that has an onboard heater that gels the ink so it can lay down the prints faster.  It's a big 24" model from these folks:
http://alldtg.com/page/products/dtf

[3Deep]

I bought the L1800 converted it myself and yep it's slow on large prints, but I try to keep print size down and this machine is for 1 to 12 maybe 15 shirts max, I don't want to screen print high color low volume orders and customers don't like to pay for it either.  Buying the really nice DTF setup with the works only works for me if I was going full transfers, my small setup is what it is, to help fill those small high color or one day turn around job, and we got samples so they can feel a large print and small print.  Far as powder goes I've use our regular heat transfer powder on certain prints with very small detail and it works just fine and the hand feels just a bite different, the difference is the grain where the DTF powder I ordered is grainy and the regular heat press powder is more like baby powder very fine, gotta pick your battles on decorating now a days.

[Sbrem]

Question, can you mix the black and white powders to make a gray? Or would that not have enough bleed resistance?

worlds collide, kittens have puppies, hot snow falls up...

When I have a moment to test out all the powders, I'll let you know. Apparently different powders give a different hand, so we'll see.

So it's like crossing the streams.

Even further back, it reminded me of Firesign Theatre. "...Spiders jamming the police lock, and I just know my wife is sleeping with the bees!"

Steve

[ericheartsu]

It’s odd to me.  (We are going to get into an even more different discussion) but why then do people even do waterbase printing (of not for the hand).  From what I understand, it’s more of a loan than plastisol, and overall, even more costly to complete an order in comparison.  So if the customer may not care than much about the hand then why do waterbase?  I thought that the hand was the main reason.

don't get me wrong. there are plenty of customers that do care. but the majority of focus are price driven. Not quality driven. We are lucky we get to work with quality driven clients.