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Kcross47601

DTG Printing for shirts and hats

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Hey guys, Been looking into expanding past HTV for shirts, hats and Koozies.  Screen printing is a option I've been looking into but the issue is not really the $10,000 cost for a decent equipment set up but the amount of floor space that everything would take to set up.  I was looking at Epson and Anojet DTG printers but I'm finding mixed reviews. I've found set-ups for use with a hat attachment but not sure if the quality of the print will be worth it. I currently do everything with HTV from regular to glitter to rhinestone. I get orders for shirts that range from one or two custom shirts all the way to 75 in multiple sizes for a business.  Does anyone here use DTG printing that may be able to give me some insight on the quality of equipment?  Thanks,  Kris

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I know that madhatter has one - do your research - when I looked into them once the big issue was they seem to clog a LOT and sending them in for heads and service is expensive - now I am sure like the solvent printers it depends a lot on if you use it daily or let it sit for days at a time.  hopefully someone with more current info will come in and give their first hand experience 

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other consideration is you are comparing apples to oranges - dtg great for low numbers or one offs - very slow but no screens to burn and mess with - with screen printing once you burn the screens it is fast to produce and only pennies per item in cost.  each media has it's place.  trade shows are great to learn about the different processes 

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Maybe Madhatter will chime in. I think that DTG will be nice because of no screens to burn and register plus the amount of space a 4 or 6 color press takes up.  If I was doing a few hundred shirts a day, I would definitely go with screen printing depending on the design but I'm looking at many smaller orders of what I call onesie twosie type orders and a few business orders ranging from 10 to 75 shirts in a order.  For a small operation, if DTG would out weigh screen printing as far as time goes, I can see spending the 15,000 for a printer.  Thanks Dakota for your response.

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Mad Hatter will not chime in lol. Been busy just getting time to reply I own an older DTG brand and was amazed at the quality it produced. Now my DTG is lower DPI compared to the new Epsons and Anajets so the print is going to be a lot better, however with that being said just like any print media the image is as good as you use so if you have a crappy image it will come out crappy. The other factors in DTG printing is always use cotton, if your using white ink always pretreat garments do a good job this will factor a good print or a bad print on dark colored apparel, and always cure the ink don't over do curing it will ruin the ink. Now if I was looking for a DTG Epson would be my first choice the second would be Anajet and then any other brand. There is maintenance on it like any epson style printer print at least a test pattern ever 4 days or the head will clog if you don't feel safe just doing that tape a piece of paper down to the platen and print a small colorful image. Always keep cleaner and swabs to clean heads fibers do build up from the shirts not as bad as you would think. Also always lint roll the apparel before printing that will cut down on fiber build up. It's a process but well worth it. A quick tip if you do go with DTG if you have many shirts that need pretreating pretreat all the items and then press for the pretreat to dry( your suppose to press them anyway befor you can print on them) it will save you leg work and speed up the process. I believe you asked about time for a white shirt about 2 minutes or about, for dark colors 3-4 min depending on the size of the image.

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