When using a direct-to-garment printer, you are printing ink directly on to a garment or substrate. This means that you don’t have the benefit of having a transfer paper with a polymer adhesive on it to help with the washfastness of the ink. So the ink that you use in your dtg printer must have special binders in it to allow the ink to remain vibrant on the shirt after it has been washed. Although traditional pigment inks are less prone to clogging, they don’t have the washfastness needed to commercially sell garments in most cases. So you do want to verify that the inks you are using in your dtg printer are designed for printing on to fabrics directly. In addition, the viscosity of the dtg inks must match the print head in your dtg printer or you can have either ink leaking from the print head or clogs. There are a couple of different viscosities of dtg ink being sold currently, so please make sure that you verify you have the correct viscosity for your printer.
Should you decide that you want to try a different type of ink in your dtg printer, you are strongly encouraged to flush the ink delivery system using the appropriate type of Cleaning Fluid (ask your manufacturer / distributor for the one to use) and you should consider replacing the ink cartridges / dampers. There is a strong chance that if you mix two different types of ink in your printer that the two inks will begin to coagulate (i.e. bond together) and clog the ink delivery system. It is very difficult to remove all the ink from some of the ink cartridges and dampers – thus the recommendation to change these out. All though these recommendations do take additional time and money, it is well worth it to prevent the ink from clogging in these items and the print head (which is one of the most expensive consumable part to replace).
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- http://www.t-shirtforums.com/diy-dtg/t32499-78.html#post394129
- http://www.t-shirtforums.com/direct-garment-dtg-inkjet-printing/t70153.html