Analysis of the development trend of digital printing technology in spray

Thermal transfer printing technology can basically solve the printing of chemical fiber materials, for the digital printing of cotton fabric is basically only with direct injection and heat transfer printing paper two. This side mainly introduces the development of direct injection technology.

Direct injection of cotton fabric is basically after emerging from the pigment ink began to appear some prototype. In Europe, the first major in Europe, through the conversion of the EPSON printer into a flat printer to achieve, which is about 1999 to 2001 things. The real start of commercialization is probably about 2003-2004 years, began to have some of the EPSON2200 and 4800 modified cotton T-shirt printer appeared in the fair. There were about 2-3 companies, respectively is the United States USScreenPrint company, Sawgrass, DTG in Europe and the United States, but due to the stability of ink and color saturation are relatively poor, so and not achieved great success.

The digital printing of pure cotton fabric is to the industrialization of the European Kornit and Japan's Brother company. They choose spectra and Kycera companies to develop industrial print head, and the development of specialized pure cotton pigment ink, to achieve a reliable large quantities of cotton fabric printing. Currently the main personalized T-shirt printing companies are basically equipped with Kornit931DS printers (about 7-10 million a) and GT541 brother printers (about 1.5-2 million dollars). These machines were introduced in 2005.

Because these professional machines are too expensive, so epson4800 modified flat direct injection machine has a certain market, especially in china. Due to the low technical threshold of this modification, so in China, South Korea and Taiwan, there are many companies produce and sell such machines. The price of the machine is falling fast. From 3-4 years ago, 100 thousand yuan a decline to 4-5 million, which is still a relatively complete function, there is a RIP software with its own modification. If you just change into a flat, about 30 thousand yuan. Currently on the market more reliable modification of FAST-T USscreenprinting, Directadvantage Sawgrass, flexi-jet, Singapore's DGjet, Europe's Nanojet, and some of the machines in korea. China also seems to have a few, I tried last year, a company in Zhongguancun, Beijing's machine. The feeling function is quite simple, and their RIP software also has the problem, the pattern color some distortion. They seem to be using Roman Haas's ink.

And the machine is about to talk about ink. Currently on the market to better quality of the ink to the modified machine mainly DuPont, Roman Haas (ROHM&HASS), the United States Sawgrass, the United Kingdom nanojet production of pure cotton ink. Most machines are used by more than the company's ink. The ink in the color gamut, wash resistance, stability are also acceptable, of course, and Kornit, brother professional machine effect is still a big difference. But the price is much cheaper than the brother ink (brother ink retail about $900 / liter, the cheapest Roman Haas's ink is probably 30-50 USD / liter). But I heard from the beginning of 2008, Roman Haas stopped production of their cotton ink, and may indeed profit is too low, not to make money. South Korea a lot of cotton ink price is very cheap, but did not try, the quality is not too clear.

Pure cotton print is not open around the white ink. Since 1997, many companies have used the development of white ink as a major research project. To 2005, basically gave up. Now in the market, only DuPont's white ink. DuPont's white ink was introduced at the September 2005 Atlanta ISA fair, for the Fast-T company's USscreenprinting cotton printer, then pretreatment T-shirt, print 3 times the white ink and then hit the color ink. In spite of this, it has attracted the attention of all the participants. USscreenprinting with white ink, the sale of thousands of printers. Scenery for a time. But white ink is a very immature product. Because the machine is too frequent, USscreenprinting had to spend a lot of energy to deal with quality problems, and even the court proceedings. Once the funds are very tight, by lending operations. It is "into also Xiao He, Xiao He also lost". DuPont Co in 2007 launched the second generation of white ink, said stability was improved, according to the author's test, the new ink in the white degree and resistance to washing, but the stability is still poor, blocking the head frequently.

Pure cotton T-shirt printing is basically a past tense. It is proved that, for relatively expensive investment, unstable equipment and ink, it is very difficult to achieve stable earnings. If there is a large customer base of manufacturers, as investment Kornit and brother professional printers. But cotton ink formulation and development, for pure cotton fabric broad, digital printing production provides valuable experience. From the beginning of 2012, digital printing process of cotton fabric wide have appeared in various trade fairs, the digital printing equipment manufacturers, software manufacturers, ink manufacturers began to integrate, and provide reliable printing process. This will become a hot spot in the next 2-3 years.