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What Should You Consider When Choosing a DTG Printer?
There are many types of DTG printers that range in price and quality, so it’s important you find the best one for the way you work. Here are six key areas to consider to make sure you get the most out of your investment.
1. What is your daily production?
DTG printing is a substantial investment, so it depends on your print volume whether it makes sense. With the aeoon Maikuro, you’d want to be reaching a minimum volume of 150 shirts/day. The aeoon Compact is best for 300 shirts/day and the KYO is ideal for 800 shirts/day+.
2. Is the pretreatment process kept offline?
Separating critical processes is crucial to minimise failure points and downtime, and maximise efficiencies. Machines that integrate printing with other processes – such as pretreating and drying –have far too many failure points that put your entire operation at risk.
3. Are quality and ink usage optimised?
The higher the print quality, the more your customers will be coming back. Print head performance is crucial in order to achieve the best possible results. When you consider buying a DTG printer, ask about the smallest picolitre droplet size, that the printheads are able to produce, and the maximum DPI (dots-per-inch).
4. Is continuous training and responsive support provided?
You’re not just choosing a printer, you’re choosing a partner. DTG is an evolving market and the learning curve can seem overwhelming at times. Your partner should be consultative and collaborative, helping determine and develop the best solution for the way you work. Continuous training should also be provided.
5. What is the useful life and cost per print?
The total cost of ownership includes initial price, weekly output, ink costs, operator costs and more. Ideally, you want a printer that’s capable of the highest output with one operator to achieve the lowest cost per print. True industrial-grade printers like the aeoon KYO have a useful life of more than 17 years which can be more than double the life of other available printers.
6. Will the printer integrate and be scalable long-term?
Avoid printers that come with proprietary software. Proprietary software limits your ability to choose the software that best matches your business model, and restricts your ability to change or add software solutions. Choose a printer that will integrate with a software solution of your choice to ensure the solution is scalable as your business grows.