Printing onto fabric

[Norbert]

Hello all,

We have had an A3 Epson which we used to put special cartridges in for printing directly onto fabric four our textiles department. This has been left to dry out and completely jiggered the heads up and it is beyond economical repair. I've been tasked with specifying a new A3 printer to replace it. Does anyone have any recommendations for such a device. I've heard tales that HP inkjets use pigment inks and that these are just the ticket but , of course, they don't list cotton as one of the medium that they are happy to have run through their machines!

Any pointers in the right direction would be most grateful. Thanks. Rob

[plexer]

Have you looked into dye sublimation printing?

Ben

[Chunky]

I saw a demo of a HP wide carrage printer last year at BETT printing canvas and posters - huge thing.
was VERY impressive though - but had a price tag to match!

[Crowmanuk]

We've recently had a Ricoh GX7000 dye sub printer, you do have to buy the dye sub ink as the ones that are shipped are just normal ink (that took us a while to figure out). You'll need a heat press to set the dye permanently into the cloth but its working well so far.

http://www.ricoh.co.uk/products/gelsprinter/GX_7000.jsp

[plexer]

hmmm so you didn't have a GX7000 dyte sub printer then you had a normal one which you then changed the inks for sublimation inks and then you had a dye sub printer

The ones we've used here have been based on epson printers using a bulk ink feed system for the artanium dye sub inks.

Printing on to the special paper allthough I have been told normal paper works in a pinch and then we've done mainly transfers to mugs using mugs wraps in a halogen oven.

Dye sublimation is a cool process.

Ben

[Crowmanuk]

Mmm i suppose you could say that, I only found out about it when it was installed and wouldnt work though , thats when we found out that the ink that was originally with the printer is standard ink, the dye sub ink came in a different order, we've been printing on the "proper" paper but its got to be worth a go printing on normal paper, ta for the tip.