White only DTF on a heavy cotton sweatshirt.

[johnson4]

Turns out really well. Printed using a p400, heavy cotton sweatshirt, White ink only DTF. An otherwise unprintable( raised seam on the print area) garment due to its design with My DTG setup. 
 

I hadn’t used, shaken, cleaned or maintained the printer in 3 weeks. Shook the carts well, did two head cleans and this came out. Unimaginable with DTG due to clogging/drying out. 

Edited December 18, 2020 by johnson4

[skwakk]

6 hours ago, johnson4 said:

 

I hadn’t used, shaken, cleaned or maintained the printer in 3 weeks. Shook the carts well, did two head cleans and this came out. Unimaginable with DTG due to clogging/drying out. 

 

 

 

That's amazing! Did you intentionally not use the printer to see how it will perform without maintenance?

 

By the way, if you're only printing on white tees..do you still need a white underbase? Will the hotmelt powder stick to the cmyk ink?  Also have you tried 'storing' printed transfers yet for later use?

[johnson4]

4 hours ago, skwakk said:

That's amazing! Did you intentionally not use the printer to see how it will perform without maintenance?

 

By the way, if you're only printing on white tees..do you still need a white underbase? Will the hotmelt powder stick to the cmyk ink?  Also have you tried 'storing' printed transfers yet for later use?

Well, I knew I wouldn’t use it because this is a busy time for our business and I don’t implement things I’m not used to, usually. I did however intentionally not clean it, shake, etc for that time period. Just to understand it’s limits in that aspect. 
 

I tried cmyk only prints, and it does stick to it, but there is one issue there. When you use CMYK only, you need more ink down, so the powder can stick to it. In doing so, it will make the colors darker with more ink, and as well possibly blend( because there is a VERY fine line between too much ink, and enough to get it to get the powder to stick well). 
 

but I have done it successfully so it’s possible if you get the color vs ink volume down. Honestly though, it uses next to no ink. I can print that design easily 40-50 times with 10ml ink carts filled full, in all white (4 carts). That white backing doesn’t add any thickness to it, it’s all the powder. 
 

You would save money, but I’m doubtful it would be significant enough to deal with the potential issues from not using it, I’m a cheap A** but I’ll be using the white ink all the time.

I haven’t tried storing yet, but will be soon. I’d imagine if you protect them, from rubs/scratches, it won’t be an issue at all. Just like a standard plastisol transfer. 

 

Edited December 19, 2020 by johnson4

[krewdentials]

Johnson4, how did you get the white so white? Every time I press a white only design it comes out looking grey.

[johnson4]

I just used the most ink I could without it running, and made sure I wasn’t printing with “ separated” ink. It settles in 24-48 hours of it has sat and needs flushed or it looks like that too. Some of the films I’ve heard are bad about the amount of ink they can hold, but if you bought it from Andy it should be fine. 
 

I avoided this ink settling with the p400 for low volume printing at the moment since it doesn’t have ink lines, while Im busy making the “auto” curing station. 
 

Personally I feel any transfer looks better on a ringspun shirt instead of heavy cotton though. Other than that, no idea.

Edited January 25, 2021 by johnson4

[elliotiscool]

My staff has done around 500 sweatshirts so far and some of those were all white prints coming out looking great. I'm not sure what program you are using krewdentials but I use EK Print. If your white is looking grey, it means your underbase is too thin. I was running 100% for the base and 80% for the underbase for quite awhile but recently changed the underbase to 60% and I'm still very happy with the results. Your results may vary but I found a 100% underbase to be way too much and cause the ink to run (even at 80% for some of my large prints).

[Adam60529]

On 1/25/2021 at 12:48 PM, elliotiscool said:

My staff has done around 500 sweatshirts so far and some of those were all white prints coming out looking great. I'm not sure what program you are using krewdentials but I use EK Print. If your white is looking grey, it means your underbase is too thin. I was running 100% for the base and 80% for the underbase for quite awhile but recently changed the underbase to 60% and I'm still very happy with the results. Your results may vary but I found a 100% underbase to be way too much and cause the ink to run (even at 80% for some of my large prints).

Hi,

where exactly do you set that? Can you do a screen print?

[johnson4]

5 hours ago, Adam60529 said:

Hi,

where exactly do you set that? Can you do a screen print?

For ekprint, when you have underbase enabled, you have two different " settings" options. The "settings" right beside the place you check " underbase" will be the settings for your underbase, or white. 

For the CMYK, its the " settings" button at the bottom of the main window next to  the " print" button.  All of this is on the main "print" page.

For the white underbase, you will check transparency from the drop down menu under the underbase settings tab if you want white printed over every color pixel, or content based to print only the white in the image.

 

Personally, for Ekprint, I run 75% for solid white ( in white mode). I run 90-100% for CMYK only ( no white underbase). and 65%-75% CMYK, and 50% white underbase for CMYK prints with a white underbase. with this ink a little goes a long way, depending on your printer/film. I'm using the P400, I am able to print about 30 full size prints before needing to refill the 18ml cartridges, which end up being about 10ML each color that was used, to give you an idea of how much ink it uses.

Edited March 11, 2021 by johnson4

[johnson4]

Ekprint also has a manual for reference on every feature it has, it pops up on top when you google it.