Images_Digital_Edition_February_2020

INDUSTRY EVENT www.images-magazine.com 38 images FEBRUARY 2020 Marshall Atkinson is a production and efficiency expert for the decorated apparel industry, and the owner of Atkinson Consulting and co-founder of Shirt Lab, a sales and marketing education company, with Tom Rauen. He focuses on operational efficiency, continuous improvement, workflow strategy, business planning, employee motivation, management and sustainability. atkinsontshirt.com the system. This ink is the technology that makes the unit function and is called CSC REi. Like any hybrid printer, the white underbase is printed with a normal screen printing frame on the press. For this system, the ink used is a white that after being printed is nearly dry to the touch. You don’t have to flash after it goes down on the garment. The CMYK is added by their machine to produce the final image. For shops that are interested in digital hybrid technology at about a quarter of the price of the more established manufacturers, this may be an entry- level piece of equipment to review. Roq Print Now Imagine you are a facility that handles online web-to-print orders. Throughout the day, your production focuses on producing images onto multiple sizes and colours of garments, with hundreds of unique images. With a barcode scan on the garment, the Roq Print Now machine operator can pull up the design, load the shirt onto the press, and start printing. Everything is inline with the press. It starts with the pretreating step, and this is instantly dried at the next station. Then, an inline heat press station dries and flattens the fabric for a perfect print foundation. The digital white underbase is then printed, and dried before the CMYK inks are added digitally. At the end of the process is another heat press step, where you can manipulate the image to have a matte, glossy or textured effect. The Roq Print Now produces finished digitally printed garments at about 300 pieces per hour, depending on the size of the image. M&R Maverick M&R has a new two- platen digital printer on the market, and it looks really solid: h ere’s why… One of the biggest issues digital printing equipment has had is with how the white ink can settle and become unusable if not properly cared for by the user. The Maverick combats this by implementing agitators in the two white supply tanks. For the other colours, the recirculation system keeps the inks at peak performance by cycling the inks from the main tanks through the print heads and back. For any shop owner that has used and abandoned an older DTG press because of ink clogging issues, this system is the answer. The Maverick takes a unique approach by utilising two on-board digitally controlled heat presses not only to flatten the fibres prior to printing, but also to introduce some residual heat into the garments to speed up the white flash time. The prints at the show on the Maverick looked great. This is a hexachrome printer, which means it prints CMYK plus red and green. This accounts for a larger colour gamut for the final print and better colour accuracy and control. The Maverick runs at speeds of between 70-100 pieces an hour depending on the size of the image. The maximum image size is 15”x19”. Two platens on the Maverick can be used for separate images or to produce larger runs. The internal RIP software that comes with the equipment gives complete print parameters and job costing. If you want a rugged, industrial DTG printer in your line up, Maverick may just be the printer you are looking for this year!. The Roq Print Nowhas a production speed of around 300 pieces per hour M&R’s new two-platen DTG printer employs agitators in its white ink tanks