
What fabrics can be printed with DTF printer? In fact, all fabrics can be printed by DTF printing machine, but the inks used by various fabrics are different, and different fabrics correspond to different printing inks. In fact, many people want to have a machine that can spray and print all fabrics at the same time, that is, an ink can target all fabrics with good color and color fastness.In textile digital printing, a large number of nozzles of digital direct jet printing machine ensure high-quality pattern design and fast production speed. However, because the nozzle is too close to the fabric, some fabrics cannot be used for digital printing. For example, some off-line fabrics will come into contact with the nozzle and cause damage.
1.Cotton, hemp, silk, viscose
There are two processes for digital printing of cotton, linen, silk and viscose, active digital printing and pigment direct jet printing. Active digital printing is directly sprayed on the fabric through the digital T-shirt printing machine, but the fabric needs a treatment in the early stage, which is called sizing, otherwise the color can’t go up. Active digital printing is cumbersome, requiring pretreatment, printing, steaming, water-based, qualitative and so on.
Paint direct jet printing is directly sprayed on the fabric through the digital direct jet printing machine. It does not need the sizing, steaming and washing processes in the active printing. It can be sprayed and printed directly at high temperature to fix the color. And paint digital direct spray printing can be directly sprayed on black fabrics.
2.Polyester chemical fiber
In the past few years, polyester has become an increasingly popular fabric in the fashion industry. However, the disperse ink commonly used in polyester printing is not effective when it is used in high-speed digital printing machine. The typical problem is that the printing machine is polluted by ink flying ink.
3.Blended fabric
Blended fabric refers to the fabric composed of two different types of materials, which is a challenge for digital printing machine. In textile digital printing, one device can only use one type of ink. Since each material requires different types of ink, as a printing company, we must use ink suitable for the main materials constituting the fabric. This also means that the ink will not be colored on another material, resulting in lighter color and white exposure. Generally, digital printing machines for clothing and textiles can handle mixed fabrics with a proportion of 70-30%. For example, the blended fabric composed of 70% cotton and 30% polyester can be printed with reactive ink. However, for 60-40% of blended fabrics, the use of digital printing will have limitations in color depth.
4.Nylon
Nylon fabric can not be dyed or printed in high temperature environment, so direct jet printing is mostly used for printing, and acid dyes are also used. The difficulty of acid dyes lies in the unstable color and poor color fastness after printing. These problems have existed for a long time.
5.Wool
It is feasible to use digital printing machine to print on wool fabric, but it depends on the type of wool fabric used. If you want to print on “fluffy” wool fabric, it means that there is a lot of fluff on the surface of the fabric, so the nozzle must be as far away from the fabric as possible. The diameter of wool yarn is five times that of the nozzle in the nozzle, so it will seriously damage the nozzle.
Therefore, it is very important to choose a digital printing machine that can make the printing nozzle print at a higher position from the fabric.
6.Silk
Another natural fiber suitable for digital printing of textiles is silk. Silk can be printed with reactive ink (better color fastness) or acid ink (wider color gamut).
In any case, the cost of DTF printer is still higher than that of ordinary printing, which determines that printing machine printing is more suitable for medium and high-grade products with high added value. For example, digital printing has just appeared, which is suitable for many applications on silk.
