The best DTG

[StickerBee]

What do you guys recommend? Volume 6000 tshirt a year for seasonal gift shops.

Please advise. TIA!

 

[Reveal1]

What do you guys recommend? Volume 6000 tshirt a year for seasonal gift shops.

Please advise. TIA!

Perhaps learn from my mistakes. I have a website that fulfills about 2000 shirts and during a slow time decided to convert from screen transfer to DTG thus allowing me to expand product to my wide-format customers. Spent a lot of time evaluating. There are numerous low volume hobbyist Epson inkjet printer head based solutions sold by niche companies, purpose built medium volume solutions (Epson 2100 and Brother) and high volume like Kornit. I cheaped out thinking I would dip my toe in the water with a cheap system (Katana - stay away!) and its been a nightmare of no-service, broken promises mechanical problems, clogged heads; you are pretty much on your own. All that despite our fastidious attention to maintenance and a better than average technical understanding of inkjet technology from 8 years of maintaining our wide format printers. I liked the idea of a print engine cheap enough to keep a spare print engine in reserve, but didn't anticipate the litany of issues and resulting downtime. In retrospect I should have gone with the Epson or Brother to get the kind of service a real business needs, or not get in it at all until the technology matures. Sounds like you already have a nice t-shirt base, but in my case I question the wisdom of taking on numerous 3-10 shirt orders as it adds tremendous complexity vs. my larger and more profitable wide-format business.

If you don't need white ink, consider a CMYK setup which will double speed and eliminate troublesome white ink. And of course, if you don't need to print on cotton, Dye-sub is proven technology and way less expensive.

 

[WildWestDesigns]

In retrospect I should have gone with the Epson or Brother to get the kind of service a real business needs, or not get in it at all until the technology matures.

Epson and Brother still have their issues and still need a really good amount of use.

The titanium Oxide in the white ink is still an issue and that's where you would really get clogged heads quickly if you don't have the volume to keep everything flowing.

I'm still waiting for the tech to be far mature then it is now or until the volume is there to justify it for DTG (for me to invest in it as it is now, it would have to equal my embroidery volume, which just isn't going to happen).

If you don't need white ink, consider a CMYK setup which will double speed and eliminate troublesome white ink. And of course, if you don't need to print on cotton, Dye-sub is proven technology and way less expensive.

I really do like the dye sub method. If "you" are able to cut and sew a finished garment, you can actually have a dark finished garment as well (still have to start with a white base, but print the dark color that "you" want).

Print heads clogging can still be an issue, it too needs a good volume associated with it.

 

[RPM]

The wife bought an Epson 2100 this summer to just to play with. It only gets turned on once a week but has worked flawless so far. Zero problems with colors including white....

 

[StickerBee]

Thank you guys! So far im leaning towards epson. As of this time just using the siser colorprint pu and it looks decent. Using my roland bn20 on draft1 its very clear and crisp.