Improper laundering can cause shirt-color dye migration, prematurely “age” your prints, and otherwise damage your printed garments. Please follow these simple laundering guidelines and communicate them to your clients to maximize the durability of your prints and customer satisfaction.
Transferring a finished print to a garment is simple and can be done immediately after DTF printing and curing, or up to a month later. Longer storage times may be possible if carefully stored in an air-tight container and in a climate-controlled environment.
| Film Type | Cotton Temp (F) | Poly Temp (F) | Press PSI | Transfer Press Time | Time Before Peeling | Finish Press Time |
| Hot Peel | 300-330◦ | 260-280◦ | 50-70 | 20-30 sec | 0 | 10-20 sec |
| Cold Peel | 300-330◦ | 260-280◦ | 50-70 | 20-30 sec | 30-90 sec | 10-20 sec |
The transfer process is now complete!
All good quality prints begin with good quality artwork. The best quality shirts, perfect pretreat application, and excellent inks & printers cannot correct problems with the actual image being printed.
Aesthetic qualities aside, there are a few important considerations when creating or sourcing any artwork for DTG & DTF printing.
Customers may request that you print a design that they provide to you as a graphic file. This in itself is not a problem, but it’s important to check the parameters of their designs and let them know proactively if you have quality concerns. As mentioned above, make sure any file you accept is 300 DPI and sized appropriately for the size of print they want to have.
Downsizing is easy & quick to do in DirectRip, so oversized images are fine. But images that are much smaller than the desired print size will not result in the quality of print that you want associated with your DTG printing business.
The same goes for use of clip art or images saved from the Internet. Make sure they’re designed for larger format printing using the parameters referenced above.
Your printer can produce incredible quality prints! Don’t let your reputation for quality printing take a hit due to poor quality source graphics.
Consumable parts are those parts that are expected to require replacement on a regular basis, as part of normal maintenance for optimal performance and reliable operation, not due to any manufacturing defect.
While consumable parts are expected to require replacement as part of normal system maintenance, you can maximize the service life of these components by staying on top of your routine maintenance schedule.
Parts that are exposed to both ink and air need to be cleaned after each day of usage, to prevent ink from drying and building up over time. Ink build-up on the capping station, wiper blade, or printhead undercarriage can result in nozzles clogging and potentially require replacement of the printhead. Diligent and thorough maintenance is the best way to minimize the need for consumable parts replacement.
Probably the most familiar examples of consumable parts are tires and air & oil filters on a car. The fact that they have to be replaced periodically does not point to any type of flaw — it’s normal and expected.
A damper for the Freejet 330-series DTG printers — a consumable part.
Some of our consumable parts are dampers, ink clips, ink tubes, o-rings, and pumps. Just like tires wear out, so do consumable parts on your printer. These types of consumable parts periodically need replacement due to normal wear.
Your warranty does cover any defects in parts or workmanship, and if a consumable part is deemed by OmniPrint staff to have been defective on a brand new printer it will be covered. We also provide a limited warranty on the printhead against spontaneous clogging, while other DTG manufacturers typically treat print heads as consumable parts. (Damage or clogging due to head strikes or lack of maintenance is not covered.)
When choosing a garment for DTG printing the most important factor will be the quality of your garment. High-quality garments will produce high-quality results, while low-quality garments will produce poor results. And since OmniPrint’s DTG ink is water-based, certain fabrics interact better with the pretreatment, ink, and fabric.
We recommend experimenting with various fabrics by a variety of manufacturers to see which garments work well with your graphics. Typically, DTG printing works best on natural fabrics and natural-synthetic blends. It will take practice to find the right pretreat amount based on the fabric type, fiber content, and amount of pretreat. Here are some general guidelines to consider:
Once you have considered and optimized these factors you can print on:
It is important to maintain a temperature range of 60° to 80° Fahrenheit and a Relative Humidity range of 45% to 65% to avoid negatively impacting:
If the humidity is too high, fabrics can absorb and retain moisture, causing ink to bleed. We recommend doing a final heat press on any garment that was previously pretreated to steam out any moisture and remove any wrinkles.
The shelf life of our inks and pretreat material is normally one year, but temperatures exceeding 80° Fahrenheit can cause the consistency of inks and pretreatment to permanently change, whether in the equipment or still in their original containers. If this happens the nozzles of the print head or pretreat device may clog, so the material should be replaced to avoid damaging your equipment.
If the humidity is too low atomized ink can dry on the print head plate and cause clogging. Also, if temperatures exceed 80° Fahrenheit the consistency of the ink can permanently change and result in clogging print head nozzles, potentially requiring that the print head be replaced.
Clogging of the print head due to temperatures or relative humidity outside of the recommended ranges is not covered by your printer’s warranty.
One of the most potentially damaging problems that can occur with your printer is a head strike or head rub. Avoiding this will extend your printhead’s life and save you the expensive of lost time & materials, and possibly expensive repairs.
A head strike is when a printhead contacts a garment, film, or platen.
If a head strike occurs, the printhead may be damaged. If the head strike is on a pretreated garment it will likely clog nozzles and may permanently damage the printhead. At the very least, a head strike will smear ink on your print so result in scrapped materials.
Properly positioning the platen, mounting the garment, setting the platen height appropriately (so that the print head has sufficient clearance), and keep the film properly aligned (in DTF printing) will ensure that you avoid experiencing a head strike.
If the nozzle check is good, continue printing to keep ink flowing through the nozzles, then wet cap in Super Nozzle Cleaner overnight when finished printing.
If a good nozzle check cannot be achieved by following the above steps, contact tech support to see if permanent damage can be avoided.
