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 The Veloci-Jet XL digital garment printer, available through EquipmentZone in the U.S., features a spacious 13″ x 24″ print area and is designed for heavy-duty use. It comes with RIP software and graphics program aids like EZ Artist. The printer uses cost-effective bulk ink, automatically adjusts print head height up to 6.5 inches, and offers faster print speeds with relatively lower operating costs compared to some competitors. Additionally, EquipmentZone provides a SpeedTreater for efficient pretreatment of dark shirts.

Printing in Content Based Mode Printing Without Content Based Mode Print Head Nozzle Check What Pretreatment does. Preteatment is a primer/bonding agent that is only necessary when using white ink. (MSDS Ingredients list available).   Required tools A sprayer that can spray a fine mist, A Wagner HVLP (High Volume Low Pressure) sprayer is recommended, you can also use a Hudson sprayer that will deliver a fine mist.     The AnaJet Pretreatment Booth will allow you to move the pretreatment indoors, away from wind, rain and cold. It keeps the undesirable spray mists under control, by venting outside with the provided exhaust tubes, so the operator can concentrate on spray operations. The twin exhaust blowers force all your mists through a multi-stage filter system and then outside. Swing doors allow easy loading of garments.     Application Procedure Apply Pretreatment in slow EVEN passes. Since the pretreatment has a white caste when wet, look for an EVEN grayish wet sheen across the garment. If the pretreatment soaks through to the back or begins to run or drip you are applying more than you need. Going in only one direction even out the pretreatment using a card squeegee to assure EVEN coverage.   Drying options                 Line dry, Flash Dry, Conveyer dry, or heat press by hovering the heating element above the garment. *Note: When drying the pretreated garment with a heat press, be sure to hover the heating element above. If you clamp the press down, you may cause the pretreatment to glaze as shown. Storage Once completely dry, shirts can be folded and stored until needed.   Effects of poor pretreatment:In this case the pretreatment was applied unevenly with the lighter areas allowing the white ink to soak into the fabric causing a mottled appearance.    White Ink Pigment Separation Since the titanium dioxide pigment in the white ink is so heavy, when the white ink is not used for a few days the pigment may begin to settle in the ink tubes. Before printing with white ink check the white ink tubes where they enter into the print carriage. If they appear milky or bluish the pigment has settled and you will need to advance past this settled ink.            White Ink Pigment Separation If the pigment in your white ink has settled, a good way to advance past this settled ink is to print a square of just white ink underbase. Use a setting of Heavy Drop Size, Level 3. You will see when the printing begins that the white inks appear milky and grey but as the print continues the white ink will become stronger. When the underbase is satisfactory press the cancel key. This process will advance just the white ink without wasting any CMYK ink. You will then be able to print with a strong white underbase.  Fabric Fibers  The image above shows a close up view of the fibers of a standard t-shirt. To achieve the best results when printing it is necessary to flatten these fibers. The images below show the results of printing when the fabric fibers have not been pressed down.                           Fabric Fibers & Heat Press Settings To flatten the fibers of a pretreated garment place it in the heat press and clamp down for about 5 seconds. A higher pressure setting may be necessary to flatten stubborn fibers. After the garment is printed, place it on the heat press and hover the heat element over the garment by approximately ½” (15mm) for 15 seconds. (This procedure allows the layers of ink to set up before applying pressure, this keeps the white underbase layer from pushing up through the color layer resulting in fading of the image.) Place parchment on the garment and clamp down the heat press with medium pressure for 90 seconds at 330˚F,165˚C.     White Ink and Polyester Fabrics When printing on blends of cotton and polyester keep the following in mind. Since the ink will not adhere to the polyester fibers in the garment the underbase will not be a vibrant and this will in turn lead to the colors also appearing muted. The higher the polyester content in the fabric blend the greater this effect will be.  This becomes even more pronounced after heat pressing.

• Once ink is introduced to the printer it should remain powered on 24 hours a day for the user-set auto printhead maintenance to run.  If the printer will sit idle for more than 3 days or for storage or transportation then flush ink out with Garment Printer Refillable cleaning solution Cartridges for the Anajet .• The printer must remain level at all times, gravity plays a huge role in ink flow and print quality. Use a level tool and adjust the feet as needed. See your User Manual page 3 for more detailed instructions on the procedure. • Print table must be adjusted to the proper height using the gauge height adjustment block. • Keep the printer away from heat such as direct sunlight or a heat press. The heat press dries out the air around it. • Keep the Relative Humidity at the printhead above 50%, 24 hours a day while the printer contains ink. • Purchase a certified hygrometer to monitor humidity. Inexpensive hygrometers are available at cigar shops or the reptile department in a pet shop. These gauges have an adhesive backing and can be stuck right on the hood of the printer within a few inches of the printhead. • Air conditioning significantly dries out the air. If the printer is in an air conditioned room a humidifier is required. Having a humidifier though does not guarantee proper humidity. For larger spaces more than one humidifier may be required. We recommend a commercial humidifier with a large reservoir that alerts you when low and will not require refilling over long weekends. • In especially dry desert climates you can supplement the effort of humidifiers by adding a wet sponge on a dish inside the printer. Be sure to keep the sponge wet. • Do not place the printer in a direct line with fans, air conditioning vents, exhaust ports from other equipment, or any focused air stream. Image Quality – garbage in garbage out • Images from many websites are designed to accommodate download speeds and are intentionally low resolution. For example thumbnails with 72 dpi are a poor choice for T-shirt graphics – once they are scaled up they become pixilated. • The AnaJet Digital Apparel Printer prints at a resolution much higher than T-shirt fibers can support so we recommend using TIF or PNG image formats with a resolution of 200 to 300 dpi. • All images for printing must be prepared as RGB not CMYK. The AnaJet RIP software will perform the conversion for printing. • Many images are giant squares and don’t make good T-Shirt graphics. If you are a designer we recommend the use of transparent backgrounds to limit ink use and produce better results. • You can make images look bigger by printing them wider across the garment; this is easily achieved by using the landscape mode of the RIP software. Pretreatment Proper pretreatment is fundamental to the use of white ink and to get good print results on dark fabrics. Too little pretreatment leaves untreated areas where ink soaks in and fades. Too much pretreat causes ink to stand on the garment rather than curing into the fibers which impacts wash longevity. So how do we get consistent and proper results? Here is a list of tips to help: • For adequate coverage spray pretreatment evenly from about 12 inches away from garment. Spray until the garment has a wet shiny appearance without the pretreatment running or pooling. • Squeegee pretreated area firmly in ONLY one direction to push the pretreatment into the texture of the garment and press the fibers flat. • Hang garments until dry to the touch. • If the back of the garment will also be printed, after drying, repeat the pretreatment process on the back side. • Flush pretreat sprayer with hot water after use, periodically disassemble and clean with mild soap. • If you are having trouble determining the right amount of pretreat to use try this. Pretreat three garments - on the first use the coverage you feel is right, on the second half as much, on the third twice as much. Permanently mark each garment then print and cure using the same settings and wash all three together and observe the results. • Pretreated garments may be stored once completely dry. • Before printing:     * Use the heat press to fully press the print area for 10 seconds to remove excess water and flatten fibers.     * Do not touch or brush the pressed area or it will risk raising fibers.     * Place hoop over garment and gently tug loose edges downward to make garment flat. Do not pull tightly because stretched fibers slowly rebound over the course of the print causing the underbase and color layers to misalign. White Ink tipsThe proper amount of White Ink underbase is easy to achieve along with garment longevity. The principle factors are proper pretreatment, ink volume and heat press settings.   Here are some tips to printing with White Ink: • Unused Inks have a limited lifespan. It is not recommended to use inks beyond their lifespan.     * White Inks have a 6 month lifespan. These cartridges are marked with a manufacturing date. To calculate white ink expiration dates add 6 months to the decanting date.     * CMYK Inks have a 1 year lifespan. These cartridges are also marked with a decant date. • Print on 100% natural fibers such as cotton, bamboo, and hemp. • Do a nozzle check before starting a run of prints. If the check is poor, perform a printhead clean and recheck. Repeat a second time if needed. • Shake White Ink cartridges prior to a fresh job run or several times a week whichever comes first. • If you have not used the white ink for a day or so, before starting a job run print a 4x4 square of white on a waste garment to get the white inks moving. • Do not flood a garment with ink; use just enough to get a nice white. • Reconsider any software settings where previously heavy ink saturation was used to overcome improper garment preparation or inadequate pretreatment methods which are covered in this document. • Excessive ink levels on the white underbase which cause pooling of the ink must have sufficient time to dry before laying down color ink. If the color layer is printed on wet, puddle white ink then both layers will swirl together. On the next print adjust these white levels down so that the underbase is ready to be printed on immediately. Heat press Considerations • To achieve vibrant colors it is necessary to hover the heat press about a half an inch above the garment for 15 seconds to evaporate some of the water and flash cure the ink before placing the parchment and applying pressure to fully cure the ink. This causes some of the ink to remain on top of the fibers during curing and prevents a phenomenon where tiny ink fissures bubble up through the color layer. • Use heat press settings of 330˚F for 90 seconds for garments where white ink is used. • Periodically check heat press for proper temperature, pressure and a flat surface area when clamping down onto the garment. A poorly adjusted or damaged heat press with cool spots will not cure ink evenly.  Proper Garment Washing • Read manufacturing labels on garments for special instructions. • Remove items from garments and empty pockets. • Turn garments inside out so printed areas are on the inside. • Avoid color bleeding by separating lights and darks, do not wash together. • Use gentle stain removers, detergents, and softeners. • Use short machine wash cycle, cold water, and gentle agitation. • Hang drying is ideal, however keep in mind wet garments may stretch when hung and colors may fade after short exposure to sunlight. • Use coolest temperature settings when machine drying. • Turn Garments inside out to iron and fold as desired.  

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ripAnswer: The settings in your Photoshop in the color management section should be "Let Printer Handle Colors", and the rendering intent setting should be set to PERCEPTUAL, not Relative Colormetric. Also when sending the image to the printer, first you must select the DTG Kiosk with White ink as the printer to print to, once you select this printer as your intended output device, you will need to go to PAGE SETUP and once in there you would then navigate to PROPERTIES and then ADVANCED. This will open up the Rip settings where we can select the correct interpreters of our image so the RIP software can match what we have on our screen. In the Printer Features section of these advanced settings, you will find the Source Profiles for RGB images as well as CMYK images, it is important that you select the correct interpreters here so the Rip can accurately decipher the correct language of our postscript code to closely match the colors and resolutions of our image. The correct source profile for RGB images should be set to NTSC 1953, and not the defaulted value of Rip-Default, and the correct interpreter for all CMYK images is NONE. Make sure these are set and the settings in Adobe Photoshop for color handling are set as well as the printer is selected to handle color and not the software. I hope this information is understandable and helps to get your blues to work more closely to what your intended color is. Also one other thing make sure that in the printer features of the advanced settings, that you have photo normal selected instead of Vivid Darker. Choosing Vivid Darker will saturate more color into your image instead of normal ink output. This setting "Vivid Darker" is only intended for printing on terry or thicker substrates where more ink saturation is required.    Buy the DTG RIP Pro Version 6 Upgrade here Read a review on the DTG RIP Pro here

The next move would be to write down the hex code (or take a picture), turn off the machine, then figure out why there is a wire hanging. The wire may not have anything to do with the problem, so keep an open mind. it sure sounds like the sort of thing which can cause that sort of problem. Wires generally are cut to fit, so there is probably only one option to where the wire is intended to go.

ANSWER: When that message is showing and the levers are down hit the pause button once quickly and just wait! If the resetter is not getting a green light you will need to reset the chip until it does. If it won't reset, one possiblity is to clean the chip with a pencil eraser. The chips can be damaged by static so make sure to ground yourself before resetting them.. Also if the cartridge is not sitting perfectly in the slot so that the chip aligns with the pins, gently move it until the square is solid on the printer display and slowly lower the levers while holding it in place.

ANSWER: When encountering the servo error there are a few things you can try ( though if the power supply failing is the problem this won't work.) Turn off printer and base. Carefully clean and lube the rails. Clean the screw drive from the very front all the way to the very back, and then lube generously especially where it connects at the front and at the back and printer. Turn base on and wait 1 minute, then turn printer on and wait one minute. Press the green button and see if it will move forward /back without servo error. It is possible you might need to manually turn the screw drive to move the printer home- then turn on in sequence, you can try it again. If this does not work you can also loosen the rail screws and try to run the printer forward and back with the rails loose. If this has success, then very gently tightening them back, run it forward and back and see if the servo error remains gone- if not loosen more again.

When you talk about having ink flow issues with just one channel, it tends to be one of the following issues: - Problem with the ink cartridge / bottle or the height of the bottle to the print head if it is a gravity feed system. - A crack or a seal in the ink tube line - A blockage in the damper or the damper not seated properly. - A damage print head Since it is only 1 channel, I would not expect it to be a problem with the maintenance station. But you may want to make sure that this is very clean as well. Since it is a new print head, I will leave that option alone as well. Do you have the same problem if you put your cleaning cartidge into this channel? Just trying to eliminate that the cartridge or bottle is not the problem. Have you tried to use a syringe to gently pull the ink from the bottom of the damper to cartridge? The reason why I ask is the damper is basically a small resevior of ink that the print head will use to pull ink from. If there is a clog in the damper, then you will have resistance with getting ink from it. Just replace the damper. If replacing the damper does not work, then there might be a clog or airblock from the ink line to the cartridge. If you are able to get ink out through the damper, then you might not be putting the damper in properly (some people call this seating the damper). Make sure there is an o-ring at the bottom of the damper that makes a tight seal with the print head. You might need to clean the bottom of the damper and where is goes into the print head for it to create a tight seal. ------------------ I did trim a small amount of the line where it connects to the elbow, thinking that maybe it had a crack in it. That didn't change much as far as I can tell. I ordered some new cartridges today from Dan and I hope that will help with the flow. It does seem a little harder to manually plunge ink up from the cyan cartridge than the others, but it is hard to tell just by gauging the pressure I have to put on it. I forgot to mention that I got all new dampers with the new head, so I don't think the dampers would be an issue. Of course, a defective one cannot be ruled out I guess. ------------------- Sounds like you are covering the standard items. There is the slight chance that it might have something to do with the ink. I have not heard of anyone else complaining about any type of ink in a long time. I know a lot of users like to strain their ink before putting it into the cartridges. If the ink was bad, putting new dampers or a print head into the printer would not resolve the problem. But again, I have not heard any problems with the ink in a long time. --------- You said that there are some cyan nozzles firing when you do a nozzle check. Are they consistent between multiple nozzle checks? If they are than that tells me it most likely is in the head. If they vary between nozzle checks than it could a damper or ink starvation issue. I have had incidence where I replaced dampers and they failed from the start. You can try checking the damper and if it is hard to pull through or the ink doesnt pull through smoothly almost like it sputters than it is probably a the damper. If you are unsure try pulling with another damper. The in should flow smoothly into the syringe with very little effort when you pull back on the plunger. Also check the nib in the bay. Make sure that it is not caked with dried ink. If it is get a foam swab with a little bit of CPS or cleaning solution and clean it of. As for the difference in why the print head pulls ink when your cleaning but may not fire when you try to print is because when you do a clean the capping station is actually pulling the ink through the head. The print head works by a process called piezoelectriciy or micro-piezo. In a nutshell this is when electricity is sent to a piezo material usually made of crystal or ceramic. When this happens these materials can expand. In side of the head there are channels were the ink is feed. On the walls of these channels is the piezo material. So when the printer is told to fire it sends electricity to that material which expand pushing just the right amount of ink threw the nozzle. This process allows for greater control of the droplet size and produces very little heat among many other benefits. Now I may be off a little bit but if you would like to learn more you can check out this website which is very informative on the process and its many uses.  

The only reason for the model change was that Epson had to alter the magenta ink, doing so caused an issue with potential clogging so they coated the head to over come the issue. The performance between the 2 are identical. There have been some quirks with the ink protection software that could cause the end user grief on the 4480 platform. Using the 4800 print engine is still desirable for these applications at this time since it's been put into practice for a few years now. If there was an appreciable difference between the 2 print engines more energy would be directed toward it. If your not going to be using Epson vivid M,C then there really is no advantage only potential problems with the ink counters. So the 4800 will be the preferred print engine until the ink counter systems among other systems within become stable on the 4880.