# Direct to Garment Testing



## majesticmind (Sep 1, 2007)

So , I have a test shirt from each of the named companies in the forums Direct to Garment forum. I have had all these prints for for over 6 months. Black shirts full colour prints. I wash test all our stuff like a bachelor. The most expensive printer had the worst results. After 2 washes I could see minor peeling of the colour. Minor yes, but unacceptable. I think the quoted price was about$70,000 CAN. Each of the prints had unacceptable results after 2 to 3 washes. The only one that looks exaclty like the day it arrived is the Anajet print. 

So I have seen other members say that it is the fault of the person printing , pre treament etc... 

The companies are trying to sell me on their printers. But if it is the fault of the way it was printed and not the printer then this says to me that if you cant pull off a successful sample(for what ever reason) then I really shouldnt purchase from you. 

I would really like to have one of these machines. But even the Anajet has problems and complaints. 

Has anybody here even made a profit with one of these machines(any brand) after all the tech issues, replacement parts, wasted ink, time of prints,pre treatment labour and general business costs, duds.

From what I have read so far, I just cant see how anybody has made any money. I hope I am wrong and that pride wont interfere with an honest response.

Is this whole thing just a waste of time, money, and peace of mind or not. 

Looking for some honest feedback. Not anybody trying to save face or bad mouth companies. Just facts.


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## denck (Apr 7, 2009)

I have a buddie/Fellow screen printer that bought a t-jet and has had Nothing but problems with it.
When calling the help center their response was sorry we dont know what to tell you


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## joeshaul (Mar 1, 2008)

My printer (Brother GT541) can't do dark shirts, I've had it for slightly over a year, no real maintenance issues at all. There was a cotton buildup on the printhead that was causing it to drip ink on garments occasionally, I think overall it damaged about 2 shirts before I investigated it, it dropped on some others but we were able to clean them (didn't heat-set the area and put it in the wash). 

I'd love to say I print 100 shirts a day on my printer, but the fact of the matter is, orders are few and far between since I am in the middle of nowhere, with jobs coming in spurts. Some weeks I'm just doing onesy twosies of people's families, etc, other days I may be printing 100 for an upcoming event. That being said, there have been gaps of 3-4 days where I may not have printed anything, and I recently got back from an 18 day vacation (was only supposed to be a 14 day, but got caught in a blizzard and destroyed an engine on the way back). The first thing I did was clean and print test pages for my dye sublimation and my DTG equipment, both were fine. 

So, you will probably say "I was investigating white ink solutions", I cannot give you that point of view, however all the research that I turned up two years ago when I began researching DTG printing pointed to "wait for it to stabilize, it's a high risk". I think it has gradually gotten better, but I still commonly read about errors in pre-treatment, clogs, etc. My printer has not yet paid for itself in the year that I've owned it, however it will definately have paid for itself before its second birthday barring any major issues, I did my research (quite a few hours reading reviews, went to about 3 trade shows), I evaluated my market, customers were a bit slower than I was expecting, however I am very happy with my purchase.


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## sunnydayz (Jun 22, 2007)

As long as your pricing structure is right you can make money. I was making money great with my HM1 till I had spinal cord surgery in January. In almost two years the only parts I have replaced on my machine are, one printhead, around 12 dampers, one wiper blade. Parts that were replaced through my warranty were, one firmware board, and one mainboard. Those two last items were completely covered by my warranty.

It is true that the print is going to depend on the printer. Most dtg printers, with the exception of the Kornit and Brother, are all epson based printers, so they are all capable of the same type of prints (of course like I said besides the brother and the kornit). The main things to make sure of to turn a profit, is to make sure that you have the customer base to support it, and that you learn the printing and pretreatment process well. As long as you do those things, you can make a profit. It takes great marketing, taking care of the machine and knowing the process.


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## abmcdan (Sep 14, 2007)

I've had a T-Jet Blazer Pro for almost a year and make money with it. I've had a couple problems that took it down for a day or so but otherwise its a work horse. We just ran it 10 days straight 10-12 hours a day with 1 day going for 18 hours and it never broke down and that was at least 70% dark shirts with white ink.

As long as you have decent computer skills and some mechanical common sense to troubleshoot a few issues, DTG will work fine.

Hope this helps. Andy


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## majesticmind (Sep 1, 2007)

sunnydayz said:


> As long as your pricing structure is right you can make money. I was making money great with my HM1 till I had spinal cord surgery in January. In almost two years the only parts I have replaced on my machine are, one printhead, around 12 dampers, one wiper blade. Parts that were replaced through my warranty were, one firmware board, and one mainboard. Those two last items were completely covered by my warranty.
> 
> It is true that the print is going to depend on the printer. Most dtg printers, with the exception of the Kornit and Brother, are all epson based printers, so they are all capable of the same type of prints (of course like I said besides the brother and the kornit). The main things to make sure of to turn a profit, is to make sure that you have the customer base to support it, and that you learn the printing and pretreatment process well. As long as you do those things, you can make a profit. It takes great marketing, taking care of the machine and knowing the process.


Okay, can I ask you, what the cost of those replacements was and what would have been the cost of the other parts had you not been under warranty any longer?


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## majesticmind (Sep 1, 2007)

abmcdan said:


> I've had a T-Jet Blazer Pro for almost a year and make money with it. I've had a couple problems that took it down for a day or so but otherwise its a work horse. We just ran it 10 days straight 10-12 hours a day with 1 day going for 18 hours and it never broke down and that was at least 70% dark shirts with white ink.
> 
> As long as you have decent computer skills and some mechanical common sense to troubleshoot a few issues, DTG will work fine.
> 
> Hope this helps. Andy


Wow , that seems like a rare thing. Just from what I have read so far. But if we can pull off that kind of numbers with out breakdowns. Sounds good.


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## sunnydayz (Jun 22, 2007)

You know, I don't really know what the costs would have been, because I didn't get an invoice for it. Maybe one of the vendors will see this thread and give an answer. I wish I could be more help with that, but I just don't know. I don't want to misqoute it. On the motherboard, I think I recall someone saying on one thread, that it was around $1000 for buying it and having it put in. Again I am not positive on that.


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## majesticmind (Sep 1, 2007)

Now, too bad that the state of the T series is not so good with the alledged "closing " of US screen. Right now I think I would have to completly rule out buying any of the T-jet series of printers for ourselves.

But please people, keep the feedback coming. I dont want to make a purchase and then find myself on here posting about all my problems with a machine.


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

Have you thread this thread: http://www.t-shirtforums.com/direct-garment-dtg-inkjet-printing/t41520.html

It has some good feedback from members that own various DTG machines


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## majesticmind (Sep 1, 2007)

Rodney said:


> Have you thread this thread: http://www.t-shirtforums.com/direct-garment-dtg-inkjet-printing/t41520.html
> 
> It has some good feedback from members that own various DTG machines


 
Awesome, thanks Rodney.


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## mrbigjack50 (Jun 9, 2008)

When companies send you test samples, they typically didn't cure it properly... ie. Anajet go out of there way to send you perfect print, just to sell you there machine, but I will say that printing white with anajet is worse experience you will ever have, yes some "people" say great machine but in the corner of the room they snicker how machine does have many big flaws.

It all depends how your pricing and printing structure is done, I for instance base myself as a wholesale garment printer and do larger volumes at lower prices but make my money buy doing a ton of shirts instead of 1 shirt. I never get onsies and always get order of 12 20 50 ect. to do basically because of way I have put myself out there. 

Main reason I will never do darks is, time consuming to do, high cost of inks, and I would have to sell darks double cost of a white or light garment and client will just turn around and say, well a scrrenrpinter will do far cheaper... and for that I don't do darks.

White ink on machine is not there at all on any machine, funny thing is Brother new machine 781, is gonna even have issues with white ink because I talked to rep. about it.

I also will state, I switched to a Brother machine from Anajet and print quality is far more superior, colors are always accurate and it is far better made machine than Anajet.

I use to do contract work for a guy and cali and he gave up on me because of Anajet, than he saw on myspace is shirt redone on Brother and he wanted a sh*t load of shirts because he was blown away with the results I was getting on Brother, compared to Anajet.

On the Brother the Black in machine and High lights were spot on, while Anajet Black were a process black that looked cyan and high lights were muddy.


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## cdes (Jul 10, 2008)

I bought an Anajet this week and set it up yesterday. My first job was a 4-color print on a yellow shirt. They came out great. Customer was impressed with the output. So, that made me happy and I see this as a profitable venture. Since white is too much of a hassle for a one-man shop I will not use the white ink option. Maybe that process will improve down the pike.


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## mrbigjack50 (Jun 9, 2008)

I hope you don't got grey cart. I sold mine after thing stop telling me it was out : )
Maybe Anajet impoved machine since I had it but sure will print awesome for a few weeks, than it will get head issues, bad prints ect.
Do not put white ink in machine unless you use it everyday, that is what anajet told me


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## DAGuide (Oct 2, 2006)

This is just my opinion... but if you have any doubt about a printer, then you need to see every step (i.e. getting the printer ready, pretreating - curing, graphic alteration, ripping, curing, cleaning / maintenance of printer,...). The bottom line, any printer with white ink is going to have more challenges than a CMYK only printer. I know plenty of people that run just CMYK inks in the printer because white ink did not work with their business model. So much marketing has been placed on having to print white ink that it is ingrained in most people. I am not saying that everyone should not print white ink... but that you should really do a good business analysis to determine whether it will be profitable for your business. For example, I spoke with a company in Hawaii that says 80% of the market where dark shirt. He bought a white ink printer and after 6 months, runs the printer as Dual CMYK. For this business, the extra hassle with white ink (pretreating, maintenance, head cleaning,...) was not worth it to keep in his printer full time. This does not mean that if there is not a profitable job that comes buy that they will not load the white ink and print the job... they will when it is worth the time / effort. And by the way, they have a closed ink system with an automatic pretreater. So he has the bells & whistles for an Epson-based dtg printer.

Just do your research and get some first-hand experience before you make your decision. Best wishes,

Mark


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## cdes (Jul 10, 2008)

I only plan to do dual CMYK. Don;t have time for white ink.


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## majesticmind (Sep 1, 2007)

mrbigjack50 said:


> When companies send you test samples, they typically didn't cure it properly... ie. Anajet go out of there way to send you perfect print, just to sell you there machine, but I will say that printing white with anajet is worse experience you will ever have, yes some "people" say great machine but in the corner of the room they snicker how machine does have many big flaws.
> 
> It all depends how your pricing and printing structure is done, I for instance base myself as a wholesale garment printer and do larger volumes at lower prices but make my money buy doing a ton of shirts instead of 1 shirt. I never get onsies and always get order of 12 20 50 ect. to do basically because of way I have put myself out there.
> 
> ...


 
Why on earth would anybody send out a crap sample. They are supposed to be trying to sell me on their machine. Is that the "typical" industry standard, send out under cured garbage so nobody buys our product. I dont get it. I here the brother is good. But if I am going to spend this kind of money I want to print on any colour shirt. 

I made my own printer that prints on white shirts, out of an old epson 1400. It works great. I want something to print on blacks. I can t screen a 4 colour process job on 1 or a couple shirts with screens. Its not worth the trouble.


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