# Tips for speeding up DTG printing



## nottypical (May 1, 2009)

The back of my shirt is taking about 5 min per shirt to print. The design is 10 x 12 and it's all text except one celtic shamrock. I tried changing the print from 720 x 720 to 720 x 360 and it left lines like the nozzles were clogged. I did and a nozzle check and sure enough, a couple were clogged. I did a head clean and nozzle check, only one was missing. I tried printing again and there were still little lines in the text. Anyone have any other tricks or tips to speed up the printing?


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## nottypical (May 1, 2009)

I got the 720 x 360 to print without banding!! I do have to print 2 passes (printing on irish green), but it only takes about 3 min to do both passes instead of 5 min for 1 pass at 720 x 720. I also set it up for production run to save even more time.

I came in this morning and made sure I got a perfect nozzle check. I printed about 5 shirts and I could just barely start to see the banding. I raised my Belquette bagged ink about 1/2 an inch...back to printing just perfect with no banding what so ever. 

My humidity in here is also the lowest it's ever been. It's only at 30% as it's been just bitter cold up here and it's so hard to keep the humidity up. It's a lovely 8 degrees!  (Burrrr)

I think I finally might be getting the hang of this whole DTG thing!!


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## FatKat Printz (Dec 26, 2008)

2 passes of color on a white shirts??


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## nottypical (May 1, 2009)

No, 2 passes of color on a gildan 2000 Irish Green shirt at 720 x 360. One pass looked too washed out.


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## FatKat Printz (Dec 26, 2008)

just using color no white.. what color??


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## vinyl signs (Dec 26, 2007)

Lets see picture of this shirt!


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## nottypical (May 1, 2009)

Just color, no white. It's black with a drop shadow.


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## FatKat Printz (Dec 26, 2008)

do you have light pretreat?? this usually helps.. as far as the banding make sure you are wiping around the printhead and check your encoder strip.. but yes a picture would help.


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## Don-ColDesi (Oct 18, 2006)

When printing at lower resolutions it is critical that you have a perfect nozzle check or you will experience banding. The lower the resolution the less "overlap" that is built into the process - thus minimal imperfections do not get covered up. Glad to hear that you have found a way to speed things up.


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## TahoeTomahawk (Apr 12, 2006)

That's great you figured it out. I've always had unacceptable banding at resolutions lower than 720x720 on the Kiosk, even with perfect nozzle checks. I think the banding has something to do with the mechanics of the print bed.


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## binki (Jul 16, 2006)

switch to screen printing. it will be faster. 

if you must dtg, convert your image to jpg 200 dpi. 

print in bitmap mode at 200 dpi. 

stop all processes on your computer, disconnect from the network and shut off virus software. if you cannot do that then exempt your graphic files from scanning. 

get process explorer to see what is taking up time. 

check your print spooler for latency. 

contact your rip vendor for suggestions if none of this works.


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## TahoeTomahawk (Apr 12, 2006)

binki said:


> switch to screen printing. it will be faster.
> 
> if you must dtg, convert your image to jpg 200 dpi.
> 
> ...


Most of what we print for customers is because they were unhappy with the screen printed design and DTG is better in their opinion.

Some good tips about resources on your computer, it's always good to double check for rouge processes. I would discourage anyone from disabling your virus scanner .. a very bad idea.

The printer begins to print as the Rip spools it, so there is not alot of down-time there .. the problem is the Kiosk is too damn slow.


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