How To Correctly Choose A Heat Transfer Film Printer?

Heat Transfer Film Printer is a type of digital clothing printing machine, and one of its well-known applications is T-shirt heat transfer. In order to help you choose a DTF device that is truly suitable for your printing business, the following will introduce it：

Important factors in choosing a DTF printer: understanding printing needs, important components of DTF printers, and DTF printing consumables.

How to correctly choose a suitable DTF printer?

DTF has different configurations and different prices. The more functions, the higher the configuration, and the higher the price. But do you have to choose the highest configuration and full functions? The answer is: the most important thing is the right one.

Specifically, when choosing a DTF printer that is truly suitable for your clothing printing business, you need to seriously consider the following important factors:

1. Choose a DTF printer according to market and business needs

There are many types of DTF printers, such as: high-precision, high-quality, A3-size DTF printers can handle ordinary production volume but extremely high-quality T-shirt printing; large-format, high-performance DTF printers can complete mass production, large-format and special finish printing; with 4 or 5 print heads, it can achieve continuous and stable high-speed output to meet the mass production needs of garment factories. As an operator, you should have a clear understanding of the printing market, demand, and characteristics in your area.

You can ask yourself the following questions: How big is the market demand? How many orders are there? How many prints are there? Is it the same in normal times and seasonal peaks? Are there special printing needs? (Such as ultra-large format, all black, special water resistance and wear resistance?) Are there sudden and emergency orders? When you have the answers to these questions, sort out the needs of the market and business, and then according to the characteristics and types of different printers listed above, you can narrow the selection range and find a DTF printer or DTF solution suitable for your clothing printing business.

2. Printer components that must be understood when choosing a Direct-to-Film printer.

Understanding the configuration and important components of a DTF printer is extremely important for choosing a suitable DTF printer! Otherwise, when you see some parameters and names, you may feel confused. Next, we will focus on some important components: Nozzle – The nozzle is one of the most important components of a DTF printer. It determines the performance and quality of printing and is the core of an inkjet printer. Once it is blocked or burned, it will have a great impact on the entire operating status of the machine. Most manufacturers on the market now use Epson printheads.

If they have certain requirements for the machine, they will choose the I3200-A1 printhead. Generally speaking, the performance and service life of the I3200 are relatively high. Motherboard – The motherboard is responsible for coordinating the various components of the printer, including the print head, ink delivery system and other components to produce high-quality images on the print media. The industry’s well-known Hansen board White ink circulation – White ink heat transfer printers have relatively high requirements for the fluency of white ink. Due to the special composition of white ink, most machines are equipped with a white ink circulation system. The components of the white ink circulation system include white ink circulation pumps, white ink circulation filters, etc.

3. DTF printer consumables – DTF textile ink.

DTF ink is a water-based pigment ink. This ink is more light-resistant, moisture-resistant and anti-oxidant (including ozone) and other characteristics, which can explain why the use of this ink to print can keep the printed pattern on the clothes for a longer time. Good ink has strong color saturation, wide color gamut, high color reproduction, and the printed pattern is long-lasting and unfading. Features of high-purity, high-quality DTF ink: (1) No nozzle clogging: At room temperature, with automatic or manual moisturizing of the machine, the machine can be stopped for 24 hours without drying, and the nozzle is not easy to clog, which improves the work efficiency of the printer. (2) Small amount: Compared with ordinary ink, DTF ink can print 10-20% more area, with less usage and cost saving.

(3) High color reproduction: DTF ink can print more colors, with full colors and true reproduction of the design, achieving real-scene level printing effect. (4) Clear edges: DTF ink can print clear pattern edges, making the powder shaking cleaner and non-sticky, and not easy to produce glue edges.

    4. DTF consumables – DTF hot melt powder.

There are many hot melt adhesive powders on the market to meet the different production needs of customers. We recommend using high-purity TPU hot melt powder with DTF printers to achieve a perfect hot stamping picture. 100% TPU powder, because of its clean ingredients, no impurities added, better tensile resistance, clean powder shaking, no sticky powder, clear hot stamping screen, clear lines of small characters without ghosting, scratch resistance, and yellowing resistance.

5. DTF consumables – PET film.

DTF printing is printed on PET film or transfer paper by a printer, and then transferred to clothes by high-temperature hot pressing. PET printing film is divided into single-sided coating film and double-sided coating film. According to the temperature, it is also divided into cold tear film, warm tear film and hot tear film. The characteristics of high-quality DTF transfer materials are uniform coating, strong ink absorption, accurate alignment, not easy to slip, clean powder shaking, good release effect, uniform gluing and baking, high washability, soft hand feel, full elasticity, and no cracking.