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Create full color digitally printed shirts in minutes - not hours as in traditional screen printing
No Chemicals, No Screens, No Reclaiming as in traditional screen printing.
Immediately be able to print shirts once the art is approved - No more down time!
More environmentally and employee friendly - no harsh screen printing chemicals
Make money on jobs you normally would turn away or couldn't print because of traditional screen printing costs and times.
FACT: Digital garment printing is the fastest growing segment of the apparel decorating industry.
FACT: Digital garment printing is changing the face and way we do business.
FACT: Digital garment printing can help you stay ahead of your competition and create awesome looking garments.
Isn't Digital Garment Printing SLOWER than Screen Printing?
It all depends on several factors. One is the production rates of the specific inkjet T-Shirt printer you are using. The faster the machine the more prints per hour you can produce, which increases your profitability. The Brother GT-541 prints on average a shirt in about 60 seconds. Smaller sized designs print faster, larger ones take a little longer.
Another factor to consider is that in screen printing you have to print film positives, prepare screens to be burnt, expose, washout screens, dry them, tape and block out the screens, setup, register, print, de-ink the screens, tear down the press and reclaim the screens using chemicals. With a digital garment printer you can be printing shirts as soon as the art is approved. This definitely gives the digital garment printer a speed advantage even though you might be able to screen print faster on a per-piece basis. On average it takes about 30 minutes per color in a screen printed design to get it burned, setup, registered and torn down. On a 6 color screen print this means you have at least 3 hours just in preparation not including printing time - if not longer. Imagine the cost of the first shirt! With a digital garment printer you could have already been printing for those 3 hours and making money. You can also print one shirt without worrying about set-up costs.
The more colors in the screen printed design the higher the quantity where the digital printer would be faster to print with over screen printing.
What about ink costs - Isn't digital garment printing more expensive than traditional screen printing?
This is another question that depends on several factors. Again, it will depend on the speed of your digital garment printer and the size of the imprint. You will see that because of increased production times it is often more profitable to print digitally than it is to traditionally screen print the jobs.
What about washability of the shirts - how does the ink hold up?
The inks used in the Brother GT-541 are water based pigmented inks developed by Brother to hold up well under normal washing and drying. It is similar to water based screen printing inks in that they give a really soft hand feel and wash well. In our own washing and drying tests the prints have held up well. 100% cotton or 50/50 poly-cotton shirts work better than others.
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