Practical Advice for Buying and Using a Digital Printer

By knowing the capabilities and limitations of this technology, you can rely on almost any major brand to print without problems.
April 1, 2009

The Fast T-Jet Blazer Express is one of two Epson 4880-based printers from U.S. Screen Print & Inkjet Technology, Tempe, Ariz., which was a pioneer brand in inkjet garment printers. The Blazer Express (shown) is a desktop machine that prints one garment at a time. The free-standing Blazer PRO can be loaded to print three garments per run, and has a larger print area (16" x 47") than most Epson-based machines, which typically print up to 16" x 30", as does the Blazer Express. The eight-ink platform can be loaded with CMYK and four cartridges of U.S. Screen's new white ink in order to print dark garments, or, to print especially brilliant colors on white or light garments, the printer can be loaded with CMYK plus red, green, blue and orange.

By Terry Combs, Contributing Writer

So many inkjet-to-garment machines, so many choices, so many varied and confusing stories. If you read the forums, go to the trade shows, or listen to the guy down the street who bought an inkjet machine three years ago, you might be even more confused about the differences in the growing variety of equipment available. Despite what you hear, there are more similarities among these machines than differences.

Inkjet machines, as they exist today, are perfect devices for printing full-color images on short-run orders. Decorators can now say yes when a customer wants five shirts printed with a full-color photo of Grandma and the kids sitting under the Christmas tree.

So what are the most important things to consider before purchasing a digital printer? The following explanations apply to most, if not all, of the growing list of machines available in the marketplace today.

Ink Basics
All well-known inkjet-to-garment machines use water-based inks, from just a handful of ink manufacturers. The labels might be different, but much of the ink inside is the same. There has been some experimentation over the past four years with solvent inks, but everyone has migrated back to water based at this point.

The first generation of machines printed light garments only with cyan, magenta, yellow and black (CMYK). In order to print dark garments, most today use a more complex platform that prints CMYK plus white ink. They print on darks by laying down white ink underlay and then CMYK on top.

These "white ink" machines also could be set up to print CMYK plus spot colors. While it can print only on light garments, this configuration produces vibrant colors and the ability to hit exact color matches — though customers never quite grasped the advantage. So the choice continues to fall between, do I want a less-expensive CMYK machine to print white shirts only, or have the option of printing dark garments with a more complex white-ink platform?

When I taught screen printing classes, 99% of the students' had little trouble printing on white shirts. Dark shirt printing caused numerous complications and difficulties. It's the same with inkjet-to-garment printing.

White shirts are fairly simple. Load the shirt, print the shirt. Dark shirts require more thought, more training, more practice, and a bit more spoilage before you get it right. Be prepared to work harder at this.

Printers set up for light shirts only can print directly from any software program on your computer — just as you send a text document to any office printer.

But white-ink printers require a RIP (raster image processor). Essentially, a RIP is special software that tells your printer, "Pull cyan, magenta, yellow and black from these ink slots, and then white ink from these other slots." In other words, the RIP will tell the printer to do something other than it was originally built to do.

Pretreatment
A key element to inkjet printing white inks on dark garments is that the shirt requires pretreatment. This is done with either a power sprayer, one of the new autotreat machines where the spraying occurs inside a cabinet, or by rolling the pretreatment on with a small roller. Simply put, pretreatment on the shirt causes white water-based ink to sit up on top of the shirt rather than sink in and virtually disappear.

Print Engines
Most printers on the market today employ an Epson 4800 series print engine. Two of the higher-end machines use different print heads, and others claim to use proprietary heads. But under the hood, you'll find most are clearly Epson 4800/4880 machines.

The reason is simple: Epson has created the basis of a top-quality printer. Brands in our industry adapted them by adding textile inks, new firmware and software, and a variety of print platens for shirts and other substrates. Another benefit to using garment printers with Epson printheads is that replacement parts are readily available. For a few hundred dollars you can replace the entire printhead system, which is like putting a new engine in your car.

Quality and Washfastness
Poor quality prints are most commonly the result of two things, either low-resolution artwork or an improperly maintained piece of equipment.

These machines can reproduce your artwork perfectly. So if it's poor quality art, a perfectly reproduced poor image will result. There are tricks to making poor artwork "salable," but this takes a little more knowledge of the major art programs.

And doing daily maintenance — per the manufacturer's specs — will improve the quality of your prints. Clogged jets in the printhead will result in banding (lines through the print) and a dull, washed out appearance due to less ink getting onto the shirt.

Washfastness is almost always a function of proper cure. Prints that fade, or crack in the case of white ink, are most commonly the result of too low of a curing temperature or not enough time in the heat press or conveyor dryer. And remember, just as with other forms of decoration, some garment brands print and wash better than others, so be sure to experiment.

A properly cured print will wash like a screen print. The problem is that when people hear this, they assume you mean a plastisol print rather than a water-based screen print. Water-based ink has a smooth hand (soft to the touch), but it is more prone to take on the worn look of the repeatedly washed fabric it's printed on, rather than a PVC plastisol ink that sits on top of the fabric. A properly cured inkjet print should wash just like a water-based screen print.

Success and Failure
I spoke with a machine owner once at a trade show who complained that she had been "forced" to change her printhead three times in only a few months. She was visibly upset and wanted an answer from me. The conversation went something like this:

"Do you use your machine every day?"

"Maybe once every two weeks," she said.

"Do you do a head cleaning every day?"

"I don't have time for that."

"Then do you insert cleaning cartridges during those long stretches when your printer is not in use?"

"I don't have time for that either!"

And my response was not welcome news to her: "I'm afraid that means you will continue to spend your time and money to replace printheads."

I had to explain to this customer that there is no magic button on inkjet-to-garment printers. They like to run every day. And when they're not running, they need to have the ink move through the printhead at least once each day. If that is impossible, load cleaning cartridges and flush the ink from the lines and printhead before shutting it down for more than 24 hours. If you don't make time to maintain your machine — and do it regularly — you can't blame the machine for problems.

While inkjet-to-garment machines are fairly simple to maintain, they do require a bit more care and feeding than a six-color screen printing press. Most complaints about these machines come from those customers who rarely use them, while daily power users are able to print and print and print without problems.

So, how do you know which machine to buy? All things being equal, it comes down to service, support and trust. If you need repairs, is there someone fairly close by to do the work? Call the toll-free support number and see if someone picks up the phone. And most importantly, buy from a supplier you know and trust.

A 30-year industry veteran, Terry Combs is director of sales, cotton division, for Sawgrass Technologies. Terry lives, works and writes from Fountain Hills, Ariz. For more information or to comment on this article, e-mail Terry at tcombs@sawgrassink.com.

Hirsch Video Demonstrates Oversize Shirt Printing
A new video from Hirsch Intl. shows how to print oversize designs on the Mimaki inkjet garment printer the company distributes. To see the video, visit hirschinternational.com . Click on “Direct To Garment Printer” and search the right navigation bar for available videos.
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