DTG printer is a high-end clothing direct printing machine on the market. UV printer is a hard material printing machine, the two seem unrelated, how can be put together for comparison? But now, with the development of technology, the two have something in common. UV printers can also be printed on T-shirts and other clothing fabrics.
Therefore, the following is a detailed description of the differences between these two clothing printing methods.
(1) Different workflow
The DTG printer is a direct injection technology that requires a computer and a DTG printer, as well as DTG ink and a hot press. The working process of DTG printer is: first design the pattern that needs to be sprayed directly on the T-shirt, and then pretreat the T-shirt, the role of pretreatment is to wait for the direct spray, the pattern can be naturally firmly attached to the clothes. After the pretreatment, you can use a hot press to press the clothes first, one of the functions is to press the clothes flat, convenient for subsequent direct spray; The second function is to perfectly integrate the pretreatment solution into the garment, and then facilitate direct spraying. After the above steps are completed, lay the T-shirt flat on the printing platform of the T-shirt direct spray machine, start printing, and print the pattern on the T-shirt. After printing, it is best to re-press the T-shirt with a hot press. The effect of this is to make the pattern better integrated with the T-shirt.
T-shirts printed by DTG printers are comfortable and breathable. Of course, I forgot to mention in the previous article that DTG T-shirt printing has requirements on the material of the clothing, which requires pure cotton T-shirts or T-shirts with high cotton content, otherwise the printing effect will be very poor. DTG printed cotton clothing for all seasons, unlimited.
In the early days, UV printers were often used to do outdoor advertising, print acrylic materials, or directly print on glass, wood, and canvas. Now, some businesses have modified the UV printer, so that it can be printed on clothing, and both soft and hard materials can be printed, it is a great progress in technology!
UV printer to print T-shirts or other clothing need to use auxiliary consumables, AB film. This AB film is not the AB film of the UV DTF crystal label. This AB film is designed to serve UV printing clothing.
UV printing T-shirts requires a computer, UV printer, UV ink and AB film, and a hot press. The workflow is very similar to UV DTF printing crystal labels. But don’t try to print the crystal label yourself and transfer it to your costume. It’s not going to be very effective. The pattern needs to be designed first, and then the pattern is printed on the A film by the printer, and then the B film is covered by the laminator. Finally, tear off the B film first, place the pattern on the garment to be printed, select the position, and then use the hot press to assist, transfer the pattern on the A film to the garment.
If UV printer prints clothing, it is best to print spring, fall and winter clothing. This way of printing clothing printing is very similar to DTF printing, which belongs to the transfer class. There is a gelatinous feeling, not breathable, summer printing clothing, small pictures or letter labels are no problem, once a large area of printing, it may be very stuffy and not breathable.
(2) The type of sprinkler used is different
DTG printers use water-based textile inks, most of which are transparent white ink bottles. The sprinkler heads used are mainly Epson series water-based heads, including I3200, 4720 and 5133, etc. Some DTG T-shirt printing machines will also use starlight series sprinklers. UV printer uses UV ink, opaque bottle packaging, mainly black, but also some manufacturers use brown and other dark bottles. The nozzles used are mainly oily heads in the Toshiba nozzles, Seiko nozzles, Ricoh nozzles, Konica nozzles series, of course, there are also EPSON’s U series nozzles.
(3) The drying and curing principle is different
The DTG printer adopts the external heating, drying and drying mode to make the pattern adhere to the surface of the material; The UV printer uses the UV light curing and solidification principle emitted by the UV-LED lamp. Of course, at present, there are still a small number of UV flatbed printers on the market using mercury lamp heating to cure, but this will be less and less and slowly eliminated.
It should be noted that DTG printers and UV printers are not universal, nor can they be used simply by replacing the ink path system and curing system, and the inherent motherboard system, color software, and control procedures are also different. When choosing, you need to choose according to what kind of products you own. Choose the printing method that suits your product.
(3) Different application fields
The application field of DTG printer is relatively simple, basically can only print clothing, and it is pure cotton clothing. This printing method is suitable for professional clothing equipment manufacturers and can generate bulk orders. Do the professional field of refinement and high-end, can make the T-shirt output higher added value.
UV printers have a wide range of applications, and both soft and hard materials are currently in the range of printing. Suitable for comprehensive business, can undertake multiple types of orders. Custom glass, custom acrylic picture frame, custom outdoor billboard, custom clothing, custom oil painting, etc., has a wide range of applications, it is suitable for small businesses to use their own business, quickly respond to the market, do not stockpile goods, and quickly recover costs.
Therefore, DTG printers and UV printers have their own advantages, the specific choice of which printing method, according to your production needs to decide.
