WHAT IS GOOD - digital fabric printing

1.  Fabric

Fabric comes in many different properties such as natural fiber, synthetic, stretch, etc. Each fabric can be digitally printed and you have choices of ink that allow you to print on these fabrics. Many of our customers use natural fiber, non-coated fabrics with our NanoColorant Pigment ink because of how easy it is to fix after printing. However, some customers must use dye inks for their fabrics because of the desired color gamut and how the finished product will be used. Knowing your fabric helps define the printing solution.

2. Ink

The biggest question to address when it comes to digital textile printing is what ink to use, and the answer is determined by the desired fabric and use of the fabric.

• Pigment – Currently the ink we sell the most of is the NanoColorant pigment ink. This ink is similar to a pigment ink in that there is a pigment along with a binder system in the ink. The binder enables the ink to adhere to the fiber after fixation. There are 8 colors in the ink set including; Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black, (true) Gray, Orange, Violet and Red. This ink set provides for a good color gamut, though the color gamut is not as wide as is possible with dye-based inks. This ink can also print onto the widest range of fabrics including cotton, silk, rayon, cotton/poly blends, and some polyester in a variety of weights. No pre-treatment is necessary on the fabric so you can purchase fabric from the open market.
• Dye Based Inks – There are 3 different types of dye based inks available to digital printers. See the chart below for a general description of what ink is used on different types of fabrics and the necessary finishing steps for each ink. The dye-based inks require the use of a fabric with a specific pre-treatment. Acid and Reactive inks require moist heat as in steaming for fixation. The dispersed dye inks require dry heat fixation. The advantage of the dye-based inks is the color gamut is wider. A general rule of thumb is that the same type of ink should be used digitally in an application that is printed by screen printing.

3. Printers

There are several types of printers in the market, but all of them can be placed into 1 of 4 classes based primarily on speed.

• Class 1 type printers generally run at speeds of 5 square yards per hour up to 15 square yards per hour, and they can use all four types of inks with Epson printheads. Only our MC3 has a roll type fabric handling system that can feed light weight and heavy-weight fabrics up to about 3mm in thickness. It can also run knits, as the fabric handling system can deal with stretch fabrics to some extent.
• Class 2 printers run at speeds of 20 square yards per hour up to 40 square yards per hour and typically have a sticky belt fabric handling system. Class II uses Epson printheads, so all ink types can be used in the printer.
• Class 3 printers run at speeds of 70 square yards per hour up to 400 square yards per hour using Kyocera printheads. At this time, reactive, acid, and dispersed dye are the 3 inks available. Ink manufacturers are developing and testing pigments with binders for the Kyocera print heads.
• Class 4 printer runs up to 70 meters per minute using a fixed array of Kyocera print heads.

www.expandsystems.com/how-digital-textile-printing-works