Matching matters

Managing director at YES Group, John-Paul Burton, emphasises the importance of testing, trouble shooting and researching before purchasing DTF supplies.

The most common technical support calls we get here at YES Group for our direct to film printers – across brands, models and manufacturers – doesn’t have to do with actual equipment issues.

Of course, there are service calls to be made and print heads to be replaced. Some because of lack of proper maintenance, some because parts do wear out with use, and some due to mechanical failure (very rare). But it’s the experimentation with different DTF films, bulk adhesive powders and even DTF inks that cause the most vexing issues.

Before a manufacturer, or a distributor like YES Group, releases a new product, a lot goes into finding the right combination of film and adhesive powder that works best with the ink set, printer and software that comes with it.

When you change one or more of these you may get results that include anything from cracking and lower washability to faded prints or a significant change in the colour the printer produces – the latter can be because the software is “colour profiled” for the combination of inks/powders and the printer.

And those issues can be caused by other things as well like tunnel dryer speed/temperature problems, heat press issues, environmental changes and more.

Consequences of mismatched or untested DTF supplies

Clearly the motivation for switching from a manufacturers/distributors supply set for your industrial DTF printer is either cost or availability. But changing sources can actually cause critical issues with both.

After hours of troubleshooting and sometimes days of downtime for the user, here are some of the real-world issues that have impacted printing businesses due to mismatched supplies:

• One large scale custom T shirt printer was having issues with ink running during higher resolution prints. It took an on-site visit before they mentioned that they had switched film suppliers. In this case the ink didn’t fix correctly to the film before powdering – the prints were not usable. A distributor like YES Group will run tests on different combinations of supplies at a variety of resolutions to confirm this works.
• In another case a customer was using different film and different powders to what is recommended and vocally blamed the machinery. We had our tech visit them and the powder they were using was the size of salt grains and had no chance of melting correctly.

In both of these recent circumstances the customer lost revenues that far exceeded any cost savings on supplies.

Supply chain consistency  

If you are purchasing supplies from directly overseas or through a coop of some kind, make sure and examine each new shipment carefully for changes.

Most times low-cost providers will aggregate supplies from different manufacturers based on the current price.

Troubleshooting new supplies

Firstly, if you have switched suppliers already and are having issues with prints, inform your dealer or tech support supplier at the beginning of any support call. That way, they can more quickly diagnose the issue as being mechanical, due to software, or that the symptoms are likely due to one or more supply changes.

To head off issues with a new supply item, test each new item separately, methodically and at different resolutions.

In other words, if you do risk a new adhesive powder supply make that the only change. Then test print with each different RIP profile setting – low and high resolutions, heavy white ink and none, etc. all the way through the print to application process. Then if that works properly, test a different film in the same way.

DTF is a very profitable business, so before tripping over pounds to save pence by supply shopping – make sure you build in the time for testing, troubleshooting and any attendant downtime. Then do the math to make sure any cost savings bring you a better bottom line, not worse.