Digital printingSUBMITTED TO: Sir hanif memon (Textile printing) PREPARED BY: (BS – T 7TH) SYED ASIM NAJAM 29 – MAY - 2009 INDUS INSTITUTE OF HIGHER EDUCATION NEAR NATIONAL Stadium KARACHI The five things which deserve your greatest anxiety to acquire: Have hope in God and none else. Be afraid of nothing but sins. If you don’t known a thing never feel ashamed to admit ignorance. If you don’t know a thing never feel hesitate or feel ashamed to learn it. Acquire patience and endurance, because their relation with true faith is that of a head to a body; a body is of no use without a head, similarly true faith can be of no use without attributes of resignation, endurance and patience. If you aim to reach high Make your motto, just do or die! Success lies in the way of those Who daily take the perseverance dose? Hard work is the key to the door, This makes you reach the success floor But you can’t get the success without your parents Who are the golden keys of your life? The one who depend only on fate, On reaching their destiny always late The world remembers only those names Who remembers god and its precious gifts? So it’s solely our choice; what to choose Do we want to win or simply to lose? The road of success is waiting your way, Get on to work; success is just a step away. Achieving TEXTILE competency is the first step in a lifelong journey towards greater knowledge and the interaction with more and better application of TEXTILE. The material in this project is designed to guide you toward TEXTILE PRINTING competency so you can become: A participant in the textile revolution. An intelligent consumer of machines. Better prepare of machines and other products. Knowledgeable about the wide variety of textile and services that can improve productivity, give you much needed information. TEXTILE competency is your ticket to ride. Where you go, how fast you get there, and what you do when you arrive are up to you. PREFACE DEDICATION WORDS OF WISDOM 1) INTRODUCTION TO PRINTING 1.1) Definition 1.2) History 2) Types of Digital Printing with New Developments 2.1) Textile Falcon 220 Textile Printers 2.2) Digital Textile Belt Printer 2.3) Digital Ink-Jet Textile Printer Belt System 2.4) Steam-X Digital Textile Printing Fixation 2.5) Digital Flat Bed Printer 3) Other Parts of Textile Digital Printers OF STUDENT 1 1 2 4 4 6 7 8 10 16 20 4) Digital Textile Printing Refill Cartridge Bulk Ink Feeding System 5) Conculsion 1.1) DEFINITION Digital printing is the reproduction of digital images on a physical surface. It is generally used for short print runs, and for the customization of print media. The process differs from lithography, flexography, gravure, and letterpress printing in several ways: • Every print can be different, because printing plates are not required, as in traditional methods. There is less wasted chemical and paper, because there is no need to bring the image "up to color" and check for registration and position. The ink or toner does not permeate the substrate, as does conventional ink, but forms a thin layer on the surface and may in some systems be additionally adhered to the substrate by using a fuser fluid with heat process (toner) or UV curing process (ink). • • 1.2) INTRODUCTION As little as 15 years ago digital printing of textiles, compared with paper for the relatively benign office environment, no doubt looked like mission impossible. The demands of the textile application are extreme. Among them: • more than a half dozen common types of synthetic and natural fibres, each with its own ink compatibility characteristics; dealing with a stretchable, flexible, often highly porous and textured surface; extreme use requirements including light, water fastness (sweat, too) through finishing operations and often outdoor use, heavy wear, abrasion, and cleaning; for some apparel applications, challenging registration requirements since separate pieces need to be assembled; • • • • • not just sight, but also touch requirement; much greater absorbency, requiring many times the ink volume compared with printing on papers. In the face of such odds, digital textile printing is happening. The traditional valve jet machines are digital and have been around a long time, but they are appropriate primarily for large volume, centralized manufacturing. The newer digital printing technologies open things up for a wide variety of incremental applications. Tremendous progress has been made, but there are still many challenges. However, the opportunities for high-value digital printer applications are so large that many hardware and chemistry vendors are investing heavily in textile and textile-related products and systems. It is still clearly new territory, but we’ve progressed beyond curiosity seekers, says I.T. Strategies. Printer and textile manufacturers know that this new opportunity is important to their companies. It’s a new frontier; it’s something like the old Wild West. Some of the energy is from the existing textile industry. Some from outside, like Color lab, Ltd. That’s the color processor in Providence, RI, who decided to refocus his business entirely on fabric printing. Their new company name is Practical Imaging. (See detailed case below.) Another thing new is the much wider variety of fabrics that can now be digitally printed: silks, polyester, car seats, and cotton. Actually, now almost everything can be printed. It’s something like the development of digital presses. At first they required a narrow selection of closely controlled papers. Now they are much more flexible. Textiles is already going this way. But each of these materials has its own ink requirements. And another problem is getting the ink to go through all the fiber. There are silk scarf’s and car seats. And non woven such as Tyvek®--incredibly different requirements. Indeed, inks are a major frontier and a number of ink companies want to know more. Other important issues include mass customization and how to deal with the reality that there need to be integrated solutions involving a sequence of operations such as pretreating, printing, finishing, cutting and sewing. This poses a contradiction: digital printing opens the door for on-demand and decentralized manufacture. But how do you deal with these pre- and post-printing requirements in an office or other decentralized environment? One long-term market trend, for example, includes the movement of textiles and apparel manufacturing to SE Asia. Less than 5% of the world’s textile printing production was said to still be in North America. And there are some negative fashion trends, such as increasing preference toward single colors rather than printed patterns. Will digital printing offset or accommodate such trends? 1.3) HISTORY OF DIGITAL PRINTING The earliest use of jet printing machines on textile fibres occurred some 25 years ago but this was confined to the carpet industry owing to the relatively low pattern definition of which the machines were then capable (10 to 25 dots per inch (dpi)). More recently high-definition ink-jet printers, used in conjunction with computer-aided design (CAD) software, have become established for preparing pre-production sample prints on textiles. However, a number of wide-format, ink-jet printing machines, together with suitable inks, are now being marketed and these can yield prints of acceptable quality and fastness properties on most textile materials. Jet printing may be defined as a process by which the desired pattern with its individual colors is built up by projecting tiny drops of ‘ink’ (special dye liquors) of different colors, in predetermined micro-arrays (pixels), onto the substrate surface. The first reason for increased interest in digital printing processes lies in the very common use of CAD systems followed directly either by laser engraving or exposure of screens coated with suitable lacquers. It is even more attractive to eliminate the making of screens altogether, and such is the possibility offered by direct ink-jet printing of textile materials. The immediate benefits are: Very quick customer response for both strike-off and bulk prints and wastage on pre-production sampling minimized No capital tied up in the screens, with major savings in storage space (patterns now stored on CD-ROMs or on similar storage media) and damaged screens eliminated The number of colors and the size of the pattern are virtually unlimited enabling the production of very long repeats (e.g. fully bordered bed sheets) and full tonal (photorealistic) prints Instant fitting of patterns at start-up, thus minimizing fabric and paste wastage Minimal downtime, because pattern changes and also color changes, when using CMYK inks, are virtually instantaneous Only the ink required for the design is laid down, thus eliminating any waste of print paste The amount of ink applied to the substrate is far less than that used in a screen printing process. Canon marketed its TPU0020 bubble jet printer, which achieved its relatively high production rate by printing a very wide strip (almost 100 mm at 360 dpi) of the fabric on each scan of a print head having 1360 jets. It has not enjoyed widespread success, however, since this printer requires a much higher capital investment compared with that of other machines. Zimmer, in conjunction with the Israeli firm, Jemtex, has developed the Chromatex charged-drop printer (Figure 9.14). The size of drop produced by this system is about ten times larger than that of most other jet printers and as the print definition is relatively low (100–120 dpi) the inks are pre-mixed to match the individual colors of each design, as in conventional printing. There is no super-pixel formation, so effectively the pattern definition is also 100–120 ppi Following the introduction of digital printers for textiles, stable inks were needed that met the fastness properties associated with each type of fibre and end use. Water soluble dyes are specially purified with respect to freedom from both particulates and electrolytes, and are controlled for viscosity, pH, surface tension, non-foaming characteristics and storage stability. Depending on the type of printer, inks are supplied either in pre-filled cassettes/cartridges or in bulk for user-filling of ink reservoirs. The ranges of special jet printing inks at present available are: (a) For cellulosic fibers: reactive dyes (stable liquid formulations) (b) For polyester fibers: disperse dyes (very fine dispersions) (c) For wool, silk and nylon: acid dyes (stable liquid formulations). . The main producers of these products are Ciba, BASF, Dystar, Avecia (mainly for OEM suppliers) and DuPont, although there are many smaller, custom ink producers. Some manufacturers have more recently introduced pigment printing inks, namely Irgaphor TBI (Ciba), Helizarin (BASF), Teno-Jet (Brookline Chemical), Artistri (DuPont) and Jetex P (Dystar) inks. For ink-jet applications the pigment particles are milled much more finely (to around 0.1 m diameter) than those used for conventional pigment printing. There are many types of digital printing which some of them are discuss below: Textile Falcon 220 Textile Printers Digital Textile Belt Printer Digital Ink-Jet Textile Printer Belt System Digital Fabric Printer Steam-X Digital Textile Printing Fixation Digital Flat Bed Printer Textile Falcon 220 Textile Printers Textile Falcon 220 textile printers are the newest 8-Colour Variable Dot Production Inkjet Printers, developed to meet the highest demands of the textile sampling and digital production market. Incorporating the very latest developments in piezo-electric drop-on-demand inkjet printing technology, the Textile printer combines high speed and highresolution output, making it equally suitable for short-run production printing and high-quality silk printing. This is a dynamic variable dot imaging technology. A pioneering feature incorporated into the TF 220 printer is “Dynamic Variable Dot Imaging Technology”. This feature enables the printer to independently produce multiple and unique dots and moreover to adjust the size of the ink droplets produced by each of the print head nozzles on-the-fly. The result is finer detail and smoother gradients in highlight areas and crisp colors in the mid tones and shadows. Ink drop size range reaches from 5.4 ng to 41.5 ng Wide Width Digital Printer Details 1. Unroll device, motor control with manual edge adjustment (optional automatic) 2. Tension control with metal sensor different weights possible 3. Roll transport, synchronized feed with tub for waste ink (print-through) 4. Optional fabric dryer with three heat levels for fabric width up to 223 cm 5. Tension control with metal sensor different weights possible 6. Up roll device, motor control with manual edge adjustment (optional automatic) Digital Textile Belt Printer DBP Digital Ink-Jet Textile / Fabric Printer Belt System: (1) The DBP digital fabric belt printing machine is now the newest textile printing equipment in the World. (2) It inherits the merit of traditional fabric printing, and adopts belt transportation. (3) Belt transportation in digital fabric printing optimize the textile printing. The textile belt print machine can print on any fabric for digital textile printing. (4) Up to 220 cm fabric printing width. (5) Precision printing now includes knitted fabrics and fine silk fabrics. (6) Thus more fabrics can be printed. (7) The digital textile belt printing machine brings in textile innovation. (8) The green manufacture process of low - consumption, no pollution, no noise can be realized. Digital Flat Bed Printer Pigment printing on to cotton t-shirts. Revolutionary sample printing on any fabric. Digital fast t-shirt production for shops and advertising services. Continuous patented digital T-Shirt printer. Made in Europe. Ink Jet direct printing on T-Shirts, textile, leather, wood signs etc. Consists of 430mm width printing size, continuous transport system allowing for any length of material, t-shirt mounting plates of any length, ink feeding bottle system. Uses water based pigment inks and prints on almost any kind of fabric type (White and light-colored), with very good wash fastness properties. The printing cost varies between 0.06 to 0. 2 Euro per print (20x30cm). High productivity up to 60 T-Shirts per hour @ 720dpi. Easy to use. Including RIP software. Ink feeding Open 200ml tank system Voltage AC 220V, 110V - 59W Environmental conditions Temperature 10-25 C / Humidity RH >50%, Extra equipment required Inks, PC, Dryer or Heat press or Heat fixation required at 150C 2-5 min (Dryer or heat press). Digital Ink-Jet Textile Printer Belt System Digital Fabric Printer This digital fabric belt printing machine is now the newest textile printing equipment in the World. It inherits the merit of traditional fabric printing, and adopts belt transportation. Belt transportation in digital fabric printing optimizes the textile printing. The textile belt print machine can print on any fabric for digital textile printing. Up to 320 cm fabric printing width. Precision printing includes knitted fabrics and fine silk fabrics. This digital textile belt printing machine brings in textile innovation. The green manufacture process of low - consumption, no pollution, no noise can be realized. Due to 16 industrial print heads with 256 nozzles printing speed of 140M2 per hour is now possible with this new advanced digital textile printer. The 1080 dpi resolution and four or eight colors printing choice can provide the vivid printing effect and perfect performance. HSP enjoys very reliable stability, high-quality belt transmission and automatic roll-to-roll system. It is equipped with automatic corrective devices to ensure the consecutive straight transportation of fabric; Also, efficient online fabric drying system, well-designed ink supply and print head moisturizing systems, all to ensure the continuity of production and ink-jet printing quality. HSP versatility is reflected in the adjustment of print head height to apply for the different thickness of the fabric; It can use various professional ink, reactive, disperse, acid ink and pigment ink for kinds of weaving, knitting and nonwoven fabrics printing, including cotton, linen, silk, wool, nylon, polyester and such a single or mixed fabrics. HSP is widely used in apparel, accessories, footwear, luggage, leather products, home textiles, outdoor textiles, automobile interiors, flags, banners and other products to meet the fast, high-quality, energy-saving, environmental protection market demands. o Specification Sheet Of HSP Digital Textile Printer 3 Models Technology Print head Height Media transmission belt Media take up Maximum Media Width Maximum Print Width Max media size Ink - Color Ink type Ink supply 160cm - 250cm - 320cm Width printing Industrial Piezo heads 4096 nozzles Up to 30mm Max 28mm thickness fabrics Self-adhesive Auto feeding roll up 3230 mm 3200 mm Unlimited 8 color , 2x 4 color or 1x 8 color output Acid, reactive, disperse, pigment Continues auto supply system Fabric types Cotton, flax, silk, wool, nylon, polyester etc. woven, knitted Printing Speed per hour High Speed: Standard Speed: High quality Speed: 360 dpi 720 dpi 1080 dpi 140sq/m 70sq/m 46sq/m Belt Auto belt correction system / Auto belt washing system Interface USB2 Operating Interface Work station Fabric Drying Power supply Frequency Touching screen LCD display Windows, P4/3.2G, 1G RAM, 160G HD Infrared drier and cool fans 380 VAC Consumption Working Environment 50HZ+0% 10KW Temperature: Humidity: 20 - 30°C 60 - 70 % Outer Dimension / Weight L4160mm x W1965mm x H1410mm / 1500Kg Principle of ink jet printing used for textile: Jet printing used for textile may be classified as being based on a selectivity deflected charged –drop (continuous drop production) principle or a drop-on-demand (DOD) method, in which drops are produced as required by some impulsive system. The aqueous print medium (i.e. the ‘ink’) used, is pressurized (3-5 Mpa) for a charged drop print heads, namely the bubble jet and plezo- electric types, Each system has certain advantages, such as lower fabrication cost and faster printing speed. Coupled with disadvantages such as inferior print definition or reliability. Charged drop printers In this system the ink is forced at high pressure through a very fine orifice(8-15 um diameter) which produces a train of droplets whose uniformity is further controlled by vibrating the jet outlet at high frequency( 0.5 – 1.0 MHz) with a piezo transducer. Because the droplets are produced in a continuous stream this is something referred to as continuous ink-jet (CIJ) technology. Charged droplets printer requires complex system. The first problem is to produce extremely uniform drops and then there is need to control both electrostatic and aerodynamics interacting between neighboring drops whilst in flight, as these affect both their velocity and path to the substrate surface. Drop on demand printer: DOD printer depend on some means of imparting as electro-mechanical or thermal shock impulsive to a printer ink, which is held at atmosphere pressure close to the jet orifice, capillary forces prevent the ink from leaking out but when the jet is fired a pressure pulse passes through the liquid and a tiny droplet is ejected. Although various types of DOD printer have been developed over the years the market is now dominated by two system, namely bubble jet types and pieze types. The design of both types of print head is modular in concept and their fabrication is based on the construction of multi – layer/multi channel silicon or ceramic wafers using essentially microchip fabrication techniques. Steam-X Digital Textile Printing Fixation Steam-X 1850 RDA In a world first, the Steam-X has revolutionized the digital inkjet textile printing industry. The Steam-X is the missing link that has allowed for the continuous digital textile inkjet printing and curing of fabrics. Extremely versatile, the Steam-X cures fabrics printed with any type of digital printing dyes, i.e. acid, disperse and reactive. The Steam-X can be used with any digital inkjet printer available. The printing speeds of the inkjet printers are not compromised. The fabric travel through the Steam-X is synchronized with the printing of the inkjet printer. Simple Smart Printing Digital inkjet printer is the most recent innovation in the textile industry, however the curing of fabrics has been performed separately after the printing process has been completed, and therefore causing delays in finishing. Steam-X is the solution, which has streamlined the process into one continuous procedure. The Steam-X features a fabric feed-in mechanism, with edge control alignment, that feeds fabric directly into an inkjet printer. Following the printing process, the fabric travels through the steam chamber of the Steam-X, where temperatures of up to 180°C are reached and therefore curing of the printed dyes is completed. Following the steam process the fabric is rolled up automatically. Superior Steam Curing Steam-X automatically feeds fabric into the inkjet printer, then through its built-in steam chamber where the dye is fixed. The fabric then feeds out of the unit and is automatically rolled - all in one continuous process. Whether you're using reactive, disperse or acid dyes, Steam-X cures it all in the same simple process. The unit is operated from a compact control with LCD display, with clear step by step instructions; the temperature is controlled and regulated using a temperature controller with digital output. Also included are a 20 liters water tank, steam generator and stainless steel steam chamber. Optional features: Monitoring software to track the performance of the Steam-X in real time. Outputs such as temperature, humidity and production performance collected and via a computer link can be stored in Excel file format. Specifications: Specifications: Natural Fibre (Reactive Dyes) Silk (Acid Dyes) Polyester (Disperse Dyes) Fabric 1830 Maximum mm Width Steaming C Temperature Maximum sqm/hr Speed Steaming min Time Fabric Length 6 m inside the Steamer Machine 2m Length Machine Width 2,5 m Machine High 1,3 m Water Tank 20 ltr. Capacity Power 7 kW Consumption Power Supply 102 44 15 102 22 30 175 110 6 220/380V, 50Hz, 3PEN (5 wire) or 110/220V, 60Hz, 3PE (4 wire) Fabric Roll Diameter max. Fabric Feeder Steam Generator 200 mm 5l Included Complete with boiler and safety and control mechanisms to meet the A.S.M.E. Code, Section 1, latest addenda. Note: Quoted speed values are dependent on material weight, quality and thickness 3) Adjustment and Trimming Unit Of Digital Textile Printers 3.1) Fabric Roll Winding Table First winding unit for roll preparation before and/or after inkjet printing. 3.2) Sidewinder Highlights Perfectly rolled fabric ready for inkjet printing automatic edge control and correction system for fabric width up to 250 cm operation speed up to 20 m/min optional edge cutting and sealing device 3.3) Inkjet Device with Fabric Rolls Printing on an inkjet device with fabric rolls that are not coiled up well is very problematic. The fabric is moving to and fro and the print is not being placed correctly on the textile. In addition to this a lot of folds are created because of this effect. These problems are solved now. 3.4) Side Winder Sidewinder is developed to make straight inkjet printing on textiles possible. The fabric is constantly controlled by an edge sensor and automatically corrected by a motor. The result is a perfectly winded roll of fabric, ready for being printed on your inkjet printer. 3.5) Edges of the Roll For proper processing of inkjet printed textiles it is important to have the edges of the roll straight all the time; before, while and after printing. Sidewinder, the winding table for textile rolls, makes it possible. By the way; the optional cutting device will take care for the lengthwise cut automatically. 3.6) Optional Cutting and Sealing Device Ultrasonic cutting and sealing upgrade for Sidewinder, automatic cutting and sealing in lengthwise direction of the fabric during the winding process. 4.1) Bulk Ink System for Solvent and Water Based Large Format Printing The cartridge got a shut of float keeping ink at a constant ink level in the cartridge. Thanks to the mechanical float control type, the ink level can be controlled as precisely as 0.001g to supply ink at constant ink level in the cartridge. Since no electronic control device or automatic and manual valve is required, there is no ink overflow or failure. It is the safest and most reliable system on the market and at the best price. To be fitted on JV4, JV3, JV5, TX series printer and more The capacity of the reservoir is 1.5 L and Cartridge capacity is 220ml. Unique design of combining bottle with cartridge allows easy installation of each color into the slot of printer Along with combined type, we can provide system which a reservoir can be separated from cartridges As there is an ink drain system at the bottom of the cartridge, the ink cartridge can be refilled after the remaining ink is fully extracted off, when foreign objects like dust get inside the cartridge or when there is a problem with the ink. With a floater inside cartridges, the level of the ink can be precisely controlled by adjusting the level of the floater valve. Easy Installation As the cartridge and the reservoir are already combined in the single-unit type, the ink cartridge is easily installed in the printer and does not require a special space. Suitable for Bulk inks users Even while printing, ink can be supplied by opening the cover of the reservoir and refilling it with the amount of ink needed. Stable Ink Supply Ink can be stably supplied as the interval between the reservoir and the cartridge is maximally short. Digital printing of textiles has already established itself for initial sample production since this offers very fast customer response, versatility and economy. The integrated systems now available are capable of yielding repeatable sample prints that are sufficiently reproducible to be used for initial customer selection/acceptance followed either by: (a) Small scale production (for rapid response, niche markets) using a jet printer, or (b) Larger scale, laser-engraved screen printing based on an integrated recipe prediction system, with pre-production approval of conventional strike-off sample prints.