# Color dropped after heat press



## duca (Jul 24, 2008)

hello,

I'm having a little problem. After printing on white t-shirt, the result looks very nice. But after heat press, the color dropped a little bit. It's kind of faded. It's not that bad though. Somebody might be ok with it but somebody would not be satisfied.

To workaround the problem, I have to print 2 times and the result after heat press is satisfied but it consumes more ink and time.

My RIP setting is 1440x1440 with normal ink dot and my heat press time and temperature are 120 s and 160 C.

If anyone has a technique or suggestion to make the t-shirt looks more vibrant after the heat press, please let me know. I appreiciate it.


Cheers,


----------



## Don-ColDesi (Oct 18, 2006)

Try hovering the heat press over the print for a minute and then doing your normal press, this will help dry the ink prior to curing it and it should stay higher up in the garment.


----------



## duca (Jul 24, 2008)

Thanks Don. I'll try that and will let you know.


Cheers,


----------



## bornover (Apr 10, 2008)

Your settings seem good, I actually go 5 C higher in temp. I have seen that happen when the pressure on the heat press is set too high as well. Make sure you have a very light pressure. It is not like a heat press transfer that you want to adhear to the garment. You want the water vapor to excape while the garment is being pressed.


----------



## duca (Jul 24, 2008)

I did many things but the result is still the same. It was very nice after printing but after heat press, the color looked pale.

One more thing that I wanted to try is to pre-treatment on white t-shirt. Do you think it will help?


Cheers,


----------



## bornover (Apr 10, 2008)

I do not print any shirt with out it. Even on white shirts it makes a difference. I use the three different kinds of pretrement that Harry sells at Equipment Zone. One is for light shirts with no white ink being used. One for light shirts with white ink being used. And one for dark shirts.


----------



## conde tech (Nov 15, 2007)

Check your instructions. Do you need to pre-heat your shirt? Color drop out is usually not enough pressure.


----------



## MichaelM (Jan 14, 2009)

When I heat my white shirts I heat at 171 c for 40 seconds. Hope this helps.


----------



## zhenjie (Aug 27, 2006)

MichaelM said:


> When I heat my white shirts I heat at 171 c for 40 seconds. Hope this helps.


That's not a good time for Dupont ink. What print/inkset do you use?


----------



## MichaelM (Jan 14, 2009)

I use Yuhan-Kimberly ink. It is a water base ink.


----------



## duca (Jul 24, 2008)

zhenjie said:


> That's not a good time for Dupont ink. What print/inkset do you use?



Hi Zhenjie,

What's a good time and temperature for Dupont ink?


Cheers,


----------



## equipmentzone (Mar 26, 2008)

For DuPont ink (not using white ink) we recommend 330 degrees F for 90 seconds. For prints with white ink we recommend 180 seconds.

Harry - Equipment Zone


----------



## 13 Stitches (Jul 31, 2007)

duca said:


> hello,
> 
> I'm having a little problem. After printing on white t-shirt, the result looks very nice. But after heat press, the color dropped a little bit. It's kind of faded. It's not that bad though. Somebody might be ok with it but somebody would not be satisfied.
> 
> ...


What kind of DTG do you have? That would make a difference as I believe instructions are different for each DTG. I have a Brother DTG and if you double pass then they say you are just wasting ink because I think-not positive-but the extra ink just washes out. Wet ink always looks better than cured ink. Also, someone said pretreat for all but I only use it for polyesters and blends. It adds to your costs and time to pretreat. I have not done a wash test thought with it so I need to do that. I also do not know if Equipment Zone pretreat is different than the Brother pretreat.


----------

