About DTG printers

In my humble opinion, I would have to agree with previous posts...
Why pay more for one printer when they are all basically the same?

The IMPORTANT issue is the ability to print WHITE INK!

Printing to shirts is a great small business, but if you limit yourself to only printing on light colored or white shirts, you are ignoring 80% of your potential income.

Having that in mind, the Brother does not have the capacity. They have a new model out but it is VERY pricey.

My research revealed that most of the entry level, direct to garment printers use an Epson printer mechanism. The difference between the different manufacturers is in the ink delivery system.

Since this technology is fairly new, it is going through changes quite rapidly... and the latest developments relate to the issues with white ink.

White ink is thicker than CMYK colors and the materials used make it tend to separate and clog... The biggest contributor to this is exposure of white ink to air.

Some DTG printers use open bottle systems to hold the ink supply... some use cartridges with internal chips to tell the printer when the ink is used up.

It is important to agitate the white ink to prevent it from separating. This is easy to do with cartridges and bottles on the shelf, but once in the printer, you have to remove the cartridge to agitate it. The bottle... simply swirl it around.

Exposure to air causes white ink to catalyze.(set-up) Bottle type systems expose the white ink to air, are messy and you can never get all the ink used up. You must periodically dump out the bottle and rinse the "sludge" out of the bottom of them, or risk getting a clogged print head...

Cartridges have an internal bag that is sealed and all of the air is evacuated. This eliminates the exposure to air problem, and since you replace the cartridge, you never need to rinse them out... there goes the mess.

The more you throw away, the more your operating costs! Tossing a cartridge and the chip inside every time you add ink is expensive. This adds to you operating costs... Just adding more ink to the bottle costs less, and you are buying in bulk, So you save money there.

What Did We Do? Well, the latest development for several reasons, is the best of both worlds.
What if you could have no exposure to air, but still agitate the ink easily...
What if you could keep the ink and swap it out with no mess and not throw away the expensive cartridge?

We Upgraded Our Machine to use "bagged ink". We have a DTG Kiosk 2 and upgraded the bottle system to use bagged ink.

We purchase our ink from DTGINKS.com, We buy the EPSON cartridges and request "bag only" which saves us $5 a cartridge.

We get the 220mL bag of ink which is easy to use and store. We shake them and flip them over every day, both on the shelf and in the printer.

The printer sucks every last little bit of ink out of the bag, and it is easy to see when the bag is low or empty.

The only thing that is thrown away is the empty bag.

BUY A PRINTER THAT IS UPGRADEABLE YOURSELF"

Don't get a printer that locks you into buying a specific cartridge or ink... It will cost you as the industry evolves.

Look Into The COMPONENTS within the printer... Epson will always be making parts for their printers.

NONE OF THESE PRINTERS ARE SPECIFICALLY DESIGNED FOR DTG PRINTING. They are all modified and adapted from other systems and components, used together to make it work. That is the only way they can be produced in a cost effective manner.

I have researched and located the original component suppliers for the main consumable parts and found the least expensive suppliers for my replacement parts... The $30 dampers for my machine can be purchased for $6 The $400 print head... $209. Replacement ink lines, $.08 per foot...

I hope this "novel" of information helps.

In my previous life (before t shirt printing) I was in electronic equipment repair (since 1987) This background gave me the "insight" to dig a little deeper...

My personal philosophy is that the less you spend to operate, the more competitive you can be, and still make more money... and reducing the amount you throw away benefits the next generation.

Please...check out the M & R I-Dot

Wow! Thanks for great information. May I ask, where do you get the print heads from?

What did you end up buying, and how is it working for you.

I have two sources for print heads for the Kiosk 2 (same as the Tjet)
The original printer is a Epson 2200 PhotoSylus...
The first is http://officestoredepot.com/stylusphoto2200.aspx
And the second is http://dtginks.com/index.php?page=shop.browse&category_id=4&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=74

Hi I'm Dave. Just for what it is worth I have the Brother GT-541. It is nothing short of GREAT!. Low maintenance low operating cost. You are limited to light color garments but hey that is fine for what the machine is designed for, db

Hii

if you are planning to buy DTG printer then you can check these sites:
http://www.tradekey.com/ks-direct-to-garment-printer/
http://www.anajet.com/

Thanks

The Brother GT 541 is a great printer, but cost upwards of 3 times what the Anajet costs to operate. I've printed on both and own an Anajet - Ink cartridges cost more than 3 times as much with Brother ($200 per vs. $65 last time i checked). Quality is identical best i can tell. Why spend so much more for the same quality...?