Why should we use DTF Printer to Print T-shirt?
Why is DTF Printerhot in thecloth printing industry? Compared with large-scaledye sublimation printers, roller machines, and screen printing machines, what advantages the DTF Printing Solution bring to us?
1. What is A Direct To Film Printer? How does A DTF Printer Work?
DTF printer is also known as a digital offset heat transfer and powder shaking machine. It enables you to print the desired design onto a film. Then you transfer it onto the T-shirt, The pattern design is clear and true, which can exceed the actual effect of the photo. Many people named it to offset heat transfer based on Kodak photos. Also known as DTF printer, it is the small family economic printer we are using now.
2.What fabric can be printed with DTF printing machine？
1.Cotton, hemp, silk, viscose
There are two processes for digital printing of cotton, linen, silk and viscose, active digital printing and pigment direct jet printing. Active digital printing is directly sprayed on the fabric through the digital T-shirt printing machine, but the fabric needs a treatment in the early stage, which is called sizing, otherwise the color can’t go up. Active digital printing is cumbersome, requiring pretreatment, printing, steaming, water-based, qualitative and so on.
Paint direct jet printing is directly sprayed on the fabric through the digital direct jet printing machine. It does not need the sizing, steaming and washing processes in the active printing. It can be sprayed and printed directly at high temperature to fix the color. And paint digital direct spray printing can be directly sprayed on black fabrics.
2.Polyester chemical fiber
In the past few years, polyester has become an increasingly popular fabric in the fashion industry. However, the disperse ink commonly used in polyester printing is not effective when it is used in high-speed digital printing machine. The typical problem is that the printing machine is polluted by ink flying ink.
3.Blended fabric
Blended fabric refers to the fabric composed of two different types of materials, which is a challenge for digital printing machine. In textile digital printing, one device can only use one type of ink. Since each material requires different types of ink, as a printing company, we must use ink suitable for the main materials constituting the fabric. This also means that the ink will not be colored on another material, resulting in lighter color and white exposure. Generally, digital printing machines for clothing and textiles can handle mixed fabrics with a proportion of 70-30%. For example, the blended fabric composed of 70% cotton and 30% polyester can be printed with reactive ink. However, for 60-40% of blended fabrics, the use of digital printing will have limitations in color depth.
4.Nylon
Nylon fabric can not be dyed or printed in high temperature environment, so direct jet printing is mostly used for printing, and acid dyes are also used. The difficulty of acid dyes lies in the unstable color and poor color fastness after printing. These problems have existed for a long time.
5.Wool
It is feasible to use digital printing machine to print on wool fabric, but it depends on the type of wool fabric used. If you want to print on “fluffy” wool fabric, it means that there is a lot of fluff on the surface of the fabric, so the nozzle must be as far away from the fabric as possible. The diameter of wool yarn is five times that of the nozzle in the nozzle, so it will seriously damage the nozzle.
Therefore, it is very important to choose a digital printing machine that can make the printing nozzle print at a higher position from the fabric.
6.Silk
Another natural fiber suitable for digital printing of textiles is silk. Silk can be printed with reactive ink (better color fastness) or acid ink (wider color gamut).
In any case, the cost of DTF printeris still higher than that of ordinary printing, which determines that printing machine printing is more suitable for medium and high-grade products with high added value. For example, digital printing has just appeared, which is suitable for many applications on silk.
