Images_Digital_Edition_April_2019

www.images-magazine.com 34 images APRIL 2019 D o you have a DTG printer in your business? Even if the answer is no, the chances are that you have considered it in the past or are considering it now. The question is, how do you find the correct printer for your business? There are many DTG printers out there and plenty of salespeople trying to sell them to you. The professional printers range in price from around £7,000 right up to just short of a million. Basically, there is a DTG printer out there to suit everyone. First of all, you need to work out your production needs. It could be that if you are just building a business up and want to see if DTG printing could be a benefit, you would be better off trying one of the many DTG fulfilment printers out there. These companies will print your order, from one shirt upwards, and then ship them with your label direct to your customer. If you’ve decided to invest in your own DTG printing set-up, at the smaller, entry-level end of the scale you could spend between £7,000 and £12,000 for a good quality printer that will produce around 100 prints a day on dark shirts and 140 on light coloured shirts. If you pay, say, £17,000+, you could have a printer that will print around double that number on a single platen system. Some print shops opt to purchase two of the lower cost models to give them more flexibility. You could buy two printers for around £18,000, produce the same amount of shirts, but have the security of two separate units: if you have a breakdown on one, then you still have the other to work on. One of our larger customers has around 40 TexJet printers all working in a modular configuration. The next step up is to multi-platen systems. DTG Digital has systems with up to eight platens for medium to large volume production; the DTG multi- platen printers start at £15,600. The fully industrial printers from Kornit and Aeoon are ideal for high volumes and are built to withstand 24-hour production. These printers are priced from £150,000 upwards, depending on the production and quality required. The Kornit also has an integrated pre-treat, which speeds up the production process. Just as some printshops buy multiple £9,000 printers rather than a single £17,000 printer, some printshops prefer to install multiple £17,000+ printers instead of Peter Wright of Amaya Sales UK discusses the questions to ask when choosing the best DTG printer for your business Peter Wright