ISA 2025, April 23-25, 2025 Las Vegas, NV, Booth NO.: 545
SUPERINKS will show our sublimation ink, DTF pigment ink, reactive ink, dye ink, UV ink, eco solvent ink, solvent ink, etc. for textile, corrugated box, office, advertisement, gift and home decoration, packing, label printing, etc. Address: Las Vegas, NV
This is not only an exhibition, but also an opportunity for in-depth dialogue. We sincerely invite colleagues, partners and media friends from all walks of life to visit and give guidance, discuss new trends in industry development, share successful cases and build a bridge of cooperation. SUPERINKS looks forward to working with you to expand the market, share opportunities and create brilliance together.
Welcome to visit SUPERINKS booth at 545
Please pay close attention to our official channels for the latest updates, don’t miss out! We look forward to meeting you at the exhibition and writing a wonderful chapter for SUPERINKS together.
Let’s meet at the ISA exhibition in the United States and explore the infinite possibilities of the world of color together.
SUPERINKS will show our sublimation ink, DTF pigment ink, reactive ink, dye ink, UV ink, eco solvent ink, solvent ink, etc. for textile, corrugated box, office, advertisement, gift and home decoration, packing, label printing, etc.
You can check this exhibition URL for more information: https://www.apppexpo.com/?lang=EN. Address: National Exhibition and Convention Center (Shanghai) No.333 Songze Avenue, Qingpu District, Shanghai, China.
From October 14 to October 18, 2024, SUPERINKS participated in the 2024 ITMA ASIA, held in Shanghai. This annual exhibition provided a vital platform for engaging with both existing and potential clients, fostering meaningful dialogue and connections within the industry.
2024 ITMA ASIA, renowned as a premier event in the textile and garment technology sector, attracted a diverse array of exhibitors and visitors from around the globe. For SUPERINKS, by participating in discussions and exchanging ideas, we were able to strengthen relationships with current customers while also identifying potential collaborations with new partners.
We also received many visits from new customers at this ITMA exhibition.
As we look towards the future, we remain dedicated to upholding the standards of quality and service that define SUPERINKS, ensuring continued success in our endeavors, and we look forward to seeing you again at the APPPEXPO 2025 next year.
There are three relatively mature processes for printing on cotton: reactive ink printing, DTF ink heat transfer ink printing, and DTG paint direct printing. Reactive printing is often used for large-scale roll fabrics, while DTF ink heat transfer printing and DTG paint direct printing are often used for T-shirt garment printing.
Reactive ink has the best effect, with beautiful and bright colors and strong color fastness, without affecting the original feel of the fabric. Its disadvantage is that the process is extremely complex and the investment is large. It requires sizing-drying-printing-steaming-washing-drying, a series of complex processes, because sizing, steaming, and washing all require water, which pollutes the water a lot. The investment is also very large and is not suitable for small-format and small-scale printing. The best fabric printing effect currently on the market is the reactive ink process. But if you want to be cheap, easy to obtain, and effective enough, there is no complete solution yet. DTF ink heat transfer printing is a relatively cheap solution.
DTF ink heat transfer printing comes from the improvement of the DTG paint direct printing process. DTG has appeared in this industry for many years, but it has always had a shortcoming. The color fastness is not good and it is easy to be washed off. The ink cannot stick to the material and the color will appear dull. In order to improve the shortcomings of DTG since 2020, the industry has produced DTF ink, which is printed on a coated film, and then uses hot melt powder to combine the ink and the fabric. The essence of the hot melt powder is a glue, use hot melt powder to stick the ink layer on the film to the clothes, and the color will appear. The DTF process solves the problems of color fastness and vividness, but another problem arises, that is, the hot melt adhesive powder will form a thick film, which is not breathable and feels very thick. Moreover, this film is on the surface of the clothes and will crack and fall off after a long period of scrubbing. It is also these shortcomings that make the DTF printing process only applicable in the mid-to-low-end fabric printing market. Within 1-2 years, the DTF printing process has rapidly spread in the mid- to low-end T-shirt printing market and has been widely accepted.
In the process of large-scale sales of DTF ink, the supporting products of the entire industry have been improved, and the cost of ink and resin has become cheaper; the stability and adhesion of the resin have also been improved, so the quality of DTF ink has been improved grade. DTG and DTF inks are 80% similar. On this basis, it has also led to the improvement of the entire industrial support for DTG ink. In addition, the slurry technology of the direct printing process of paint has also been improved in recent years, which has improved the direct printing printing of paint effect.
If you ask industry foresights about their views on the fabric printing industry, most people will say: DTG coating direct-printing printing on roll fabric is the future direction. DTG process sequence: ① first apply pre-treatment coating on the fabric, ② dry the coating, ③ print, ④ heat to fix the color. This process is just pigmented DTG ink printed on cotton material. DTG’s current pre-treatment liquid coating has also been improved. If you coat light-colored or white fabrics and use DTG direct spray, the printing effect can basically be accepted by the current market and industry; dark fabrics use DTG technology, bright colors The strength and color fastness still need to be improved. The reason is that when processing dark fabrics, if the pre-treatment liquid is thick enough or heavy enough, the entire fabric will become very thick, affecting the breathability and feel. If you make it too light, the ink’s carrying capacity will not be enough. Especially if you need to apply a layer of white ink on the fabric and then print a color picture on top of the white ink, the adhesion between the ink layer and the cotton fabric will be very weak. This is an area that needs to be improved.
Another pain point of the DTG coating direct spray process is: sizing, drying, printing, and drying. This requires at least two sets of equipment and two transfers of materials. It requires a lot of equipment, takes a long time, and requires a lot of labor.
A new idea!
Can a series of processes including sizing, drying, printing, and drying be operated on one machine and formed in one go? Reduce equipment costs, improve work efficiency, reduce labor costs, and of course improve print quality.
Nowadays, the commonly used nozzles in the DTG paint direct-printing process are: Kyocera industrial heads, Epson i3200-a1 photo heads, etc. The nozzles of these nozzles are 1-5PL, small nozzles, suitable for high-precision printing. However, such a nozzle is not suitable for slurry printing. The slurry from direct spraying of DTG paint is viscous and needs to be thoroughly soaked into the entire fabric. The nozzle for printing slurry needs a large PL, such as XAAR 128 80PL, or Spectra Nova 128 80PL. At this time, control board technology has made it possible for a set of boards in a printer to control two types of nozzles at the same time. In this case, you can only apply sizing to the part of the fabric where the picture is printed, saving sizing and less affecting the original feel of the fabric.
Reactive ink printing
We saw HOMER(弘美数码), HPRT(汉印), HIINK(海印数码), etc. demonstrating this process at the ITMA Asia 2023 Shanghai exhibition. We look forward to receiving their samples and verifying the color fastness.
This idea is not only suitable for DTG printing, but also for dye-sublimation direct-printing, and even dtf-uv printing. In the future, one type of printing head will print coatings or glue, and another type of high-precision printing head will print ink. If such a printer model is mature enough, it will be a printing model that saves energy and materials while ensuring quality.
DTG printer ink, also named direct to garment ink, which is a kind of water-based pigment ink for the digital textile printers, and direct print on finished T-shirts.
Mostly, DTG inks are works on cotton textiles. When it prints on light/white/blank cloth, the printer only use KCMY, etc. colors. If it prints on dark/black color cloth, we have to print a layer of white first, and then print color picture, the printer will includes a white color.
With the development of technology, the DTG ink will prints on other textile types, like polyester, or polyester and cotton mix fabric. And it will goes to a rolling machine, for industrial-scale printing, pre-coating the fabric by an industrial-scale factory.
This DTG printer ink is suitable for which print heads?
Ricoh G5
Ricoh G6
etc.
Which colors does this DTG printer ink have?
Black
Cyan
Magenta
Yellow
There is pre-coating liquid in 1:10, and in 1:20, or other customized proportions. And the clean liquid is available.
This DTG ink’s main features are:
Color resistance can reach 4.5 levels,
With our own pre-coating, the printed garment can offer a very bright color and soft and smooth texture, as good as reactive printing.
Very fluent printing,
high concentrate, delivers vivid colors and a wide color gamut.
Applicable materials for DTG printer ink.
Pure cotton,
Fabric with more than 70% cotton,
Linen.
DTG printing working processes are:
1). Pre-coating the cotton garment,
2). Dry the garment,
3). Put the garment on the flatbed of the printer, fix it, and print,
4). Dry the printed garment,
5). We get a printed garment.
How is the Chinese market’s DTG printers situation?
Application of DTG ink on roll to roll machine
More than 10 years ago, there was Epson water-based print head DTG printers, the suppliers modified for Epson desktop printers like R1390, T50, T60 4880 9880 etc. They just do small modifications, and suppliers’ technology is weak, the printing is not stable, and the printers’ performance experience is very bad.
In the second stage, in about the year 2010, while Chinese printer companies on the ability to make good quality printers. There are totally new made DTG printers, with stable quality. But the color resistance of DTG ink is weak, at about 3-4 levels. To strengthen the color resistance, they add complicated pre-coating and after the coating processes. While the non-programmed manual operation coating process, the quality of color resistance is still not stable.
In the third stage, after the year 2020, after the DTF boomed up. There is one raw material, which works both on DTF ink and DTG ink and brings better adhesion for DTG ink. In light / white / blank cotton garments, DTG ink delivers a softer texture than DTF. Then DTG works on high-level products, DTF goes on lower.
Shake the ink well before putting it on the machine; It will be best if you can use it up within 1 week after opening.
Before using our products for the first time, please empty the ink cartridges, ink circuits, and dampers. If possible, please clean the ink circuit system and replace it with a new damper.
It’s very important to make an ICC profile to get brilliant colors if need makes an ICC profile, contact us, we will help.
Transport and storage conditions for digital printing ink:
Avoid direct light, and storage temperature at 15-30℃; after opening the seal of the package, please avoid dust and other sundries going into ink composition.
The goods are identified as Non-dangerous goods in accordance with IMO, RID/ADR, IMDG, ICAO, and IATA.
To do DTG printing, you need other related products except for DTG inks as:
DTG printer,
Pre-coating machine (by spray or by scratch), if don’t have this machine, you can do by hand,
Cotton garment.
What kind of ink does DTG use?
DTG ink is a kind of water-based pigment ink, environmentally friendly and harmless to the body.
How much does DTG printer ink cost?
In the year 2022, DTG ink suppliers in the Chinese market, for wholesale quantity more than 1000 KGS, DTG color inks (KCMY LC LM, etc.) price about ￥180-250 / KG, white ink in ￥250-￥400 / KG. The price ranges according to time and technology updates.
Does DTG use sublimation ink?
DTG ink is not sublimation ink.
Mostly, sublimation ink is water-based dye heat transfer sublimation ink, it prints on a kind of coated heat transfer paper, and then transfers to polyester textiles. And there is a kind of direct print on coated polyester sublimation ink too.
DTG ink works on cotton, and direct print on the cotton garment, with no need for transfer.
How long do DTG prints last?
In the garment market, we use color resistance levels to measure it. DTG prints’ color resistance level is usually between 4-5 levels. Compare to 5-level sublimation, DTG’s color resistance level is lower.
DTG ink, also named direct to garment ink, which is a kind of water-based pigment ink for the digital textile printers, and direct print on finished T-shirts. As long as the finished T-shirts printing area is small, the DTG printers are usually small size, A3 or A4 flatbed, with Epson i3200-a1 or 4720 or DX5 heads.
Mostly, DTG inks are works on cotton textiles. When it prints on light/white/blank cloth, the printer only use KCMY, etc. colors. If it prints on dark/black color cloth, we have to print a layer of white first, and then print color picture, the printer will includes a white color.
With the development of technology, the DTG ink will prints on other textile types, like polyester, or polyester and cotton mix fabric. And it will goes to a rolling machine, for industrial-scale printing, pre-coating the fabric by an industrial-scale factory.
This DTG ink is suitable for which print heads?
Epson i3200-a1,
Epson 4720,
Epson DX5,
etc.
Which colors does this DTG ink have?
Black
Cyan
Magenta
Yellow
There is pre-coating liquid in 1:10, and in 1:20, or other customized proportions. And the clean liquid is available.
This DTG ink’s main features are:
Color resistance can reach 4.5 levels,
With our own pre-coating, the printed garment can offer a very bright color and soft and smooth texture, as good as reactive printing.
Very fluent printing,
high concentrate, delivers vivid colors and a wide color gamut.
Applicable materials for DTG ink.
Pure cotton,
Fabric with more than 70% cotton,
Linen.
DTG printing working processes are:
1). Pre-coating the cotton garment,
2). Dry the garment,
3). Put the garment on the flatbed of the printer, fix it, and print,
4). Dry the printed garment,
5). We get a printed garment.
How is the Chinese market’s DTG printers situation?
DTG printer with 2 flatbed
More than 10 years ago, there was Epson water-based print head DTG printers, the suppliers modified for Epson desktop printers like R1390, T50, T60 4880 9880 etc. They just do small modifications, and suppliers’ technology is weak, the printing is not stable, and the printers’ performance experience is very bad.
In the second stage, in about the year 2010, while Chinese printer companies on the ability to make good quality printers. There are totally new made DTG printers, with stable quality. But the color resistance of DTG ink is weak, at about 3-4 levels. To strengthen the color resistance, they add complicated pre-coating and after the coating processes. While the non-programmed manual operation coating process, the quality of color resistance is still not stable.
In the third stage, after the year 2020, after the DTF boomed up. There is one raw material, which works both on DTF ink and DTG ink and brings better adhesion for DTG ink. In light / white / blank cotton garments, DTG ink delivers a softer texture than DTF. Then DTG works on high-level products, DTF goes on lower.
Available package:
1 KG bottle,
5 KG bottle,
20 KG drum.
DTG ink is a kind of direct-to-garment ink, a professional good method to print designs on finished T-shirts. And next, it’s going to print on roll textile on an industrial scale.
Shake the ink well before putting it on the machine; It will be best if you can use it up within 1 week after opening.
Before using our products for the first time, please empty the ink cartridges, ink circuits, and dampers. If possible, please clean the ink circuit system and replace it with a new damper.
It’s very important to make an ICC profile to get brilliant colors if need makes an ICC profile, contact us, we will help.
Transport and storage conditions for digital printing ink:
Avoid direct light, and storage temperature at 15-30℃; after opening the seal of the package, please avoid dust and other sundries going into ink composition.
The goods are identified as Non-dangerous goods in accordance with IMO, RID/ADR, IMDG, ICAO, and IATA.
To do DTG printing, you need other related products except for DTG inks as:
DTG printer,
Pre-coating machine (by spray or by scratch), if don’t have this machine, you can do by hand,
Cotton garment.
What kind of ink does DTG use?
DTG ink is a kind of water-based pigment ink, environmentally friendly and harmless to the body.
How much does DTG ink cost?
In the year 2022, DTG ink suppliers in the Chinese market, for wholesale quantity more than 1000 KGS, DTG color inks (CMYK LC LM, etc.) price about ￥180-250 / KG, white ink in ￥250-￥400 / KG. The price ranges according to time and technology updates.
Does DTG use sublimation ink?
DTG ink is not sublimation ink.
Mostly, sublimation ink is water-based dye heat transfer sublimation ink, it prints on a kind of coated heat transfer paper, and then transfers to polyester textiles. And there is a kind of direct print on coated polyester sublimation ink too.
DTG ink works on cotton, and direct print on the cotton garment, with no need for transfer.
How long do DTG prints last?
In the garment market, we use color resistance levels to measure it. DTG prints’ color resistance level is usually between 4-5 levels. Compare to 5-level sublimation, DTG’s color resistance level is lower.
