Inkjet Printers. at Sign Istanbul October 2017 Inkjet T-shirt. Printers. at Sign Istanbul 2017 Nicholas Hellmuth & Jose Melgar

Transcription

1 Inkjet Printers 1 October 2017 Inkjet T-shirt Printers Nicholas Hellmuth & Jose Melgar

2 Contents T-shirt Printers 1 PolyPrint 3 PowerJet 4 brother 6 International Brands 6 How to Design T-Shirts 9 Summary on T-shirt Printing Options 11

3 1 T-shirt Printers Normally we include T-shirt printers with textile printers inside our general FLAAR Report. But gradually we are moving more and more into T-shirt printers so this year we are making T-shirt printers a separate full-color FLAAR Report. You can find some T-shirt printers at most signage expos around the world. The difference is that Sign Istanbul, ISA and SGIA in the USA, Sign Africa, and other expos tend to have desktop size printers. Or, if the machine handles more than one shirt, then the printer is especially made specifically for T-shirts. The DTG M6 seen on the front cover photo is a 6-platen T-shirt printer. This was in the booth of TTS Digital. We appreciate the hospitality of the CEO Ozgur Kislaoglu. Steve Richardson, CEO of DTG printer company introduced us. At APPPEXPO in Shanghai every month, there is a wide range of diverse sizes and shapes and structures of T-shirt printers. But most are wide-format solvent printers which have been retrofitted with T-shirt platforms and of course direct-to-fabric disperse dye ink (solvent ink is almost never used on T-shirts or even most other fabrics). This is the 2-shirt (in-line) T-shirt printer (DTG Digital Viper2) at TTS Digital booth. This is a good way to start your business. Buy a small T-shirt printer and gain experience. Then upgrade to a 6-shirt printer; and then to a 12-shirt printer.

4 2 Inkjet T-shirt Printers After you gain experience with an introductory model, then you can upgrade to the 6-shirt model: DTG Digital M2, in the booth of TTS Digital.

5 3 PolyPrint Model Booth Printhead Structure TexJet Echo GFK Epson DX7 desktop TexJet ShorTee GFK Epson DX7 desktop TexJet ShorTee TETAS Epson DX7 desktop PolyPrint was perhaps the only T-shirt printer brand that was exhibited by two different companies. GFK is the first, and TETAS, the second distributor. PolyPrint TexJet Echo T-shirt printer in the booth of TETAS, a company that also sells 3D printers.

6 4 PowerJet Model Booth Printhead Structure 1S (rebranded Epson) PowerJet Epson DX5 desktop PowerJet is a company we had already seen in a previous tradeshow, at FESPA But we knew about this company mainly for their UV-curing printers. PowerJet 1S T-shirt printer. This is a modified Epson printer, with a custom-made feeding mechanism which holds three T-shirts.

7 5 Another view of the PowerJet 1S. Even with the feeding mechanism, this type of printer takes up considerably less space than a mechanical screen printing system.

8 6 International Brands DTG is an international brand that I know about for over five years. This company focuses on T-shirt printers (with disperse dye ink) and UV-curing printers (for signage and for printing on objects). brother Model Booth Printhead Structure GT-3 Brother Brother desktop GTX Brother Brother desktop Unlike some other companies, both of the models exhibited by Brother were printing the whole time. The booth also had a heat press to show the whole workflow. The sequence on page 8 shows what happened in about 10 minutes. Brother is a brand you see at expos around the world. I bet 90% of signage expos have one or more booths with a brother GT-3 series. Here at Sign Istanbul there was that model plus also a GTX. At SGIA a few days after Sign Istanbul I believe there was a larger model of brother T-shirt printers.

9 7 Brother GTX T-shirt printer (above) and the Brother GT3 (right). In most cases, the ink for this type of printer comes in cartridges.

10 8 We hope to see you at Sign Istanbul 2018, September, You need a heat press for most kinds of T-shirt production except for screen-printing. So we at FLAAR will be testing heat presses as soon as we receive one for in-house testing. Once we have a heat press, then we can suggest a reliable brand. You need to put a piece of protective paper over the T-shirt before you heat press it. This paper serves two purposes: to protect the t-shirt from direct heat, and prevent the ink from staining the heat press.

11 9 How to Design T-Shirts Lots of people like to put a snapshot or other photograph on a T-shirt. Snag is that line-art prints better on fabric than most photos. There are exceptions if the photo has bright colors and not much shadow area. But it is definitely better to have a graphic designer do an illustration specifically that has colors that print nicely on the cloth used by a T-shirt. 12 T-shirts at a time, on the DTG T-shirt printer in the TTS Digital booth. Wow, that is more than most Chinese-made wide-format retrofitted solvent printers.

12 10 A close-up of the creative designs being printed on the DTG T-shirt printer in the TTS Digital booth. Surely there were OKI desktop printers being used for T-shirt transfer printing with toner. But we were so busy at the expo all five days that we don t have a photo of OKI. We hope to get an OKI desktop printer in the future, 11x17 or A3 size to print sample brochures for our children s books. And the same printer can print onto transfer paper to make T-shirts. As soon as an OKI printer arrives, we will write a review of the results. Since we have so many graphic designers we can prepare eye-catching images for T-shirt printers to reproduce.

13 11 Summary on T-shirt Printing Options You can print T-shirts with the following printers, inks, and toners Toner printer (usually OKI) on paper; heat press onto the T-shirt Dye sublimation ink, onto paper; heat press onto the T-shirt. Disperse dye ink, onto the T-shirt; fix with heat press onto the T-shirt. Dozens of brands available: DTG is sending a model for us to do in-house testing. When it arrives in November we will issue reviews showing its capability. Pigment ink, onto the T-shirt. Depending on the material, helps if T-shirt cloth is pre-coated. Fix with heat press onto the T-shirt. UV-curing ink, onto the T-shirt, no fixation (so no heat press required). This is recent; most discussions of T-shirt printing options do not include UV-curing ink printers. Silk screen printing, directly onto the T-shirt. Only cost effective if you need dozens, scores, or hundreds of the same identical design (so no customization of individual shirts). Silk screen printing with an in-line digital inkjet printer to add effects that can customize, personalize, individual shirts. This kind of printer you see only at the giant textile printer expos in China. In addition to the printer, consider the budget and space for a heating press.

14 12 FLAAR has more than 15 graphic designers. This is our logo jaguar, prepared by Diana Zea. A close-up so you can see the saturation in the colors achieved by the DTG printers in the TTS Digital booth.

15 13 FLAAR provides education to young people from several villages in Guatemala. Here, three of the girls wearing the T-shirts printed by TTS Digital. Follow us PLEASE NOTE This report is licensed to ifo, DTG Digital and TTS Digital. Since some reports are occasionally updated, you can write periodically to check for updates. To obtain a copy, please obtain your report from or other web sites in our network such as Your only assurance that you have a complete and authentic evaluation which describes all aspects of the product under consideration, benefits as well as deficiencies, is to obtain these reports directly from FLAAR, via the various sites in our network. Copyright 2017

16 14 FREE FLAAR Reports ON TEXTILE TOPICS These are some of the reports and publications on textile printers, inks, and equipment needed to print on fabrics. FLAAR Reports has issued these reports and are available for you to download for free. Click or tap on each cover to go to download it.