Learn more about the DTG G4 patented vacuum platen.
The first part of printing a t-shirt is “hooping” the shirt. This is the process of putting a shirt onto a platen so it can slide into the DTG printer and receive the ink. That shirt has to be kept absolutely still.
The OLD way to do that would either to “tuck” the shirt into rubber gaskets or lay it onto a sticky surface and put a ring on the top to hold it place. Both are time consuming and frankly, skills you have to learn over time. Because if you don’t do it right it’s hard to tell until AFTER THE SHIRT IS PRINTED.
The Vacuum platen is so easy in comparison!
You simply drape the shirt over the platen. A strong vacuum holds in place.
It takes about 5 seconds to “hoop” it. And anyone can do it right!
Did you know that one of the reasons that DTG Printers used to need that daily maintenance is because of ink spray?
DTG Printers are Inkjet printers that squirt the ink directly onto the t-shirt. But not all of that ink ends up in the garment.
Some is sprayed into the air, or bounces off the shirt, and ends up on the print heads, the encoder strip – it just makes the inside of the printers a mess.
The Vacuum Platen prevents that by maintaining the vacuum the entire time it prints.
Instead of the ink spraying into the air it’s pulled down into the t-shirt where it belongs.
And what else do you think sucking more ink into the shirt does to the quality and vibrancy of the print?
The DTG G4 prints FAST.
But when every direct to garment printer manufacturer talks about how fast they print they’re measuring from once the t-shirt is actually IN the printer and the inkjets fire – until the inkjets stop.
They don’t include how much time it takes to hoop the shirt, adjust the platen height, load the design, un-hoop the shirt and cure.
We tested the difference in loading a shirt onto a platen vs laying it on the vacuum platen. Using a certified DTG Printing PRO operator to do it.
It took him a little over :15 to hoop the shirt
Then about :20 to remove the shirt (you have to be a little more careful because the ink it wet.
To compare, we grabbed a random ColDesi employee walking through the halls and it took him about 5 seconds to do each one. Lay the shirt on – :05. Take the shirt off – :05
Twenty or thirty seconds per shirt may not seem like much – but if you’re printing 1,000 shirts per month you spend an extra 5.5-6 hours just hooping!
