D-Gen Heracle direct textile printer.

There are many companies that make or distribute textile printers. One that we know for many many years is DigiFab. We have evaluated their printers and here are the results.

Dual printhead carriage gantries are popular on mid-range to high end machines. When I visited the A-tex factory (Honghua, China) I saw their manufacturing of dual-gantry textile printer systems. The DuPont Artistri is probably the best known double-gantry textile printing system.

Moving transport belts are popular on Italian-made textile printers as well. FLAAR has been covering these systems since 2008.

d-gen Teleios.

The d-gen Teleios is based on a Roland printer so comes in widths of 74-inches and 102-inches. Like most d-gen printers it is a combination of a Roland-made print engine with a d-gen made roll-to-roll fabric handling and a d-gen made heat fixation system.

d-gen Teleios is an entry level printer, the smallest of the d-gen family of textile printers. It is an economical solution if you don't want to invest on a larger printer such as the Teleios GT or the Artrix GT, industrial models. The Teleios can be used with a heat fixation unit if used with dye sublimation or disperse inks, or with a steamer if used with acid or reactive inks.

Honghua is the factory that produces a double-gantry Atex printer and several other textile printers. Our reviews are increasingly based on inspecting the factory of the manufacturer. When possible we also like to inspect the ink factory too. A-tex kindly opened their entire headquarters and factory on a Saturday, as this was the only day during my visit to Shanghai that I had free; I appreciate the Honghua and Xaar printhead staff for arranging this visit. As soon as a visit can be arranged to the d-gen factory in Korea it will be possible to upgrade our comments on the d-gen Heracle and d-gen Teleios textile printers.

d-Gen Teleios printer at FESPA, Hamburg 2011.

Other textile systems: from Mimaki, Mutoh, Roland, Yuhan-Kimberly, etc.

The Mimaki TextileJet Tx400-1800D and TX3-1600 TextileJet textile printer, Mutoh Viper TX, Yuhan-Kimberly UJET MC2-P Digital Textile Printer (this model does not longer exist), and various versions of the Roland VersaArt RS-640, SolJet Pro III XJ-640, and FP-740 textile printers both with ATPColor system are alternatives.

Of all these printers, my knowledge is best on the Yuhan-Kimberly UJET MC2-P Digital Textile Printer. Again, it was a Saturday which was the only day available during a business trip to be trained at Dilli on their UV printers. I sincerely thank the entire textile design staff and management team of Yuhan-Kimberly for opening up on a Saturday so that I could be exposed to their digital inkjet printing program for fabrics.

Most recently updated August 26, 2011.