Gandinnovations Jeti 3324 AquaJet

Gandinnovations Jeti 3324 AquaJet.

Every ink set, every ink chemistry favors some colors. With the AquaJet the ink is being sublimated, so what you first see on the textile is not the same as the lovely colors that pop out after heat sublimation. The best colors of the AquaJet can be bright reds, bright greens, blues. This system produces good skin colors. The image of the colored chameleon on their test print are excellent.

If the image you are printing is pure graphic design (in other words, not a photograph) you can often make it look better on fabric than you could a photograph. With a photograph often the shadows will lose detail because of the inherent nature of the heavy ink saturation that are needed for textiles.

But if your image is a photograph, it can also turn out gorgeous on a textile printer such as the AquaJet if the photograph is not filled with shadow areas.

At Sign Africa show one printshop bought both the AquaJet and also at the same time bought a Gandinnovations 3348 UV JetSpeed RTR (roll-to-roll UV printer for billboards and banners). The AquaJet is for soft signage on polyster.

Most dye sublimation machines are at entry level. This Gandinnovations Jeti 3324 AquaJet direct to textile dye sublimation is a robust grand-format sized production printer for round the clock production. You may notice the heavy-duty fabric feeding rollers have ribs in their rubber-like surface. This is a new trend that I have seen in grand format inkjet printers.

Dye sublimation is for inkjet printers; thermal dye transfer is for desktop sized photo printers

Do not confuse “dye sub” with “thermal dye transfer.” Many desktop photo printers use “dye sub” chemistry, but these are thermal dye transfer ink systems. If the printer uses wax ribbons, then it is thermal dye transfer. Kodak, Sony, and other companies make these. Matan had the only wide-format thermal dye transfer printer.

Sample printed by Gandinnovations Jeti 3324 AquaJet.

Dye sublimation inkjet printing utilizes heating to sublimate the ink

Dye sub means the ink is turned into its full brilliance and saturated color after the application of heat. The heat turns the disperse dye ink into a gas and fixes it in or on top of the material you wish to decorate.

There are two ways to do this: print on transfer paper and sublimate the ink OFF the transfer paper onto the end-product (some kind of a polyester material, or metal coated with polyester if you wish to print onto aluminum or tiles or whatever). Obviously dye sublimation onto hard rigid materials is done with a flatbed heatpress. To sublimate banner or billboard sized material you would normally use a calendering machine. This is how the first-generation Gandinnovations dye sub printer system worked.

The second way to sublimate is direct sublimation. This is done by placing a heater unit directly onto the front of the printer. This is how the new generation of AquaJet handles the sublimation.

The advantage of inkjet sublimation is that you don’t see the dot structure of the droplets; the sublimation process creates a better image with no evidence of inkjet nozzle technology. You get continuous tone, as in a real old-fashioned photograph. The downside, however, is that you can sublimate most easily onto a polyester fabric or onto other materials with a polyester receiver coating. Just realize that this is a dye ink, and not intended to last for eternity.

The best way to learn about dye sublimation is to visit the Gandy demo room; the one I visit is at the main world headquarters and factory, near the Toronto airport in Canada. Just make a reservation and you can do test prints and learn about the ink chemistry and all the applications that the AquaJet will produce. For example, learn the difference between oil-based sublimation inks and water-based sublimation inks. The AquaJet uses a water-based disperse dye sublimation ink.

Recently Nicholas Hellmuth spent some days inside a Gandinnovations Factory. Here is inspecting the Jeti 3324 AquaJet.

First posted September 2008.