Sorry... I wonder where I got the idea of an epson 1200 from. Hmm. Even my own post in another forum mentions the Epson 2200 as being the cheaper candidate for this project. Bleh. Sorry for the confusion. Epson 2200 it is! :)
My heart skipped a beat then... thought I’d been wasting my time on the 2200 ;)
I haven't had much of a chance to get started on the printer but am planning to get down and dirty with it this weekend. After doing a bit of planning I have realized that I am going to need to get some fairly high grade components (Cogs/Wheels, Rails etc - if anyone knows of a good manufacturer/company in the UK that would sell those bits let me know).
The main problem I foresee is removing ‘base’ of the printer so that a t-shirt can be fed through on a platen. The base contains all the circuitry and power supply and I’m guessing (without opening as yet) that the cables/leads/wiring will not have the extra slack to move the parts around.
I am going to give it all a go this weekend and put some plans to paper. I will let all know how it goes.
I've seen some really good catalogues of mechanical parts (gears, bearings, shaft couplings, and so on) from UK suppliers. I'll look them up again and post a list.
You can get lots of tools, and some parts, from the model engineering suppliers such as Axminster:
Check out the above pic. I think what the DTG manufacturers have done is to just use the internals of the 2200 with a self-built frame.
i've kinda annotated the pic to show what the problems are with the stock frame
1. Some lever mechanism (have no idea what it does but it looks important) 2. This bit of metal sits below where the paper sensor is and completely blocks the way for any platen to move through 3. The main paper roller would have to be completely removed and attached to the platen somehow 4. FYI the paper feeder stepper motor 5. The 'post' printing paper feed rollers - also driven by the stepper through cogs.
To be honest it looks like i am going to have to take the angle grinder to the chasis as there is more getting in the way than there is helping.
I have a seiko 63s wide format printer. Originally it was roll feed. I just modified it to run as a flat bed printer. How it works is i had to rais the heads, the material feeder, and i took off the front cover. I can also still fun rolls through the printer.
Now the whole desk-top printer turned into a flatbed t-shirt printer is a task I would like to try. I have a few ideas and concernes on it though.
Instead of having your t-shirt move on a conveyor belt or anything like that. why not do like the Ghandi Innovation Jetti Flat-Bed Printer? The entire heads not only move left to right they also move front to back (at increadible speeds!). Also a concern is the ink, the ink is water based so when you wash it the inks may fade. Instead of using water based use a solvent based ink. Too much solvent and you would eat through the t-shirt, so you could use a lighter solvent ink like eco-solv inks. BUT if you were to use solvent based inks that would cause most desktop printers heads to practicly melt. Also what if you were to have a blue shirt, and you needed to print say a white logo on the front? You would have to run a white inks. White inks all have a certain type of metal (don't remember what metal it is but i do remember hearing it in a confress i attended) and you cannot let them sit long or the metal will began to settle to the bottom of the ink cartridge or bottle on bulk ink systems.
Here's a few websites that might answer some questions:
The inks are not a problem... there is no sense in reinventing the wheel here. The stock epson pigment inks work fine after the curing process (as I'm sure the aftermarket equivalents do as well). The curing process is required if most [if not all] of the commercial DTG printers --- that step simply requires you to press it in a heat press for X seconds at Y temperature.. similar to pressing a t-shirt transfer from paper.
There are a few commercial RIP's available targeted specifically for DTG printing, and you could probably even get away with just using photoshop or the like. You wouldn't need to write your own.
Using the Epson based printers is probably the best bet since this is what several commcerial DTG printers are already based on.
I finally decided to start a group on yahoo for discussing how to make a homemade dtg printer. Daenris gave a very promising link. I found a better description of that same project after some digging. Looks like, we will all be printing DTG style in no time!! Oh...here is the forum link. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/homemade_dtg
By the way...thanks Atari for starting this. It has been a year and I still have not given up!!!
gentlemen i have watched this discussion for a long time (since the beginning). i have researched and watched the garment printing industry since its beginning waiting for a specific type of machine to come down the pike. so far, it has not happened. so, i am seriously considering either contracting to have someone build it or trying to do it myself.
having shopped for garment printers i have had the opportunity to speak with several makers of these machines and may have some knowledge to add to the thread.
the first thing is that to actually build one that is functional should not be very difficult for a person with the proper knowledge of switches and electronics. the biggest problem is making one for mass production. in that case you need to make it pretty and have to build it around a machine that will be around for a while. most are based on the epson 4800 (which is no longer being produced). it seems that this is done because of the ease of getting parts and the fact that it uses piezo heads.
why piezo heads? well, in garment printing most system use a pigment ink with binders that are heat set. piezo heads do not use heat in the process of praying the ink... thermal heads do. so that eliminates lexmark (and lexmark head machines), also eliminates canon & possibly hp.
so, if your using epson your going along the right path. however, you are not going to get lightening speeds out of it. you could use an alternative to garment inks in a thermal head system to get faster speeds, but thats another topic. in short don't worry about the ink... you have bigger fish to fry.
move the head or move the bed? most systems move the bed however, i'm not convinced that that is the right way to go. the argument is that the bed is lighter, but in most cases the system is more like a drawer system and i doubt most are any lighter than the printer head.
one manufacturer that i got to speak with a great length moves the head over the substrate and the argument there is that you always know the weight of the head so you can engineer for that weight. then you can print on anything from a light t-shirt to a brick. personally i would move the head in my set up...
anyway, enough for one post. i let that digest and post again later. keep at it!
it's been a long time and i've had a half disassembled Epson 2200 sitting around not pleasing the other half. I got round to tearing off most of the bits between the head and the table ( only the roller to go). I've run into a problem: I turn the printer on and it goes through its usual checks... print head home position is correct then the paper feeder is in the correct home position. Now this is getting very annoying as i just want to remove the paper feeder completely. Does anyone have any ideas how to skip the start up process completely? I've read of some people using micro controllers but i may as well manufaccture myself a new printer if i do that..
I am brand new here an have not read all the post but it would be great to be able to make your own DTG. I have a new HP PhotoSmart Pro B8300 - print up to 13 X 19. I would appreciate it if someone would bring me up to date on this idea. Thanks
If you haven't already done so, check out t-shirt forums .com @ www.t-shirtforums.com/direct-garment-dtg-inkjet-printing/t4203.ht... www.t-shirtforums.com/direct-garment-dtg-inkjet-printing/t4203.html They have a forum thereabout it too
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