What Is Digital Textile Printing?

Textile printing is a process of limited dyeing on a predetermined area of fabric.

Textile printing

Right!

Textile printing is a process of limited dyeing on a predetermined area of fabric.

Chinese name

Textile printing

Foreign name

textile printing

Attributes

artwork

Pinyin

fangzhi yinhua

Pinyin: fangzhi yinhua

(textile printing)

explain in detail

The process of limited dyeing on a predetermined area of fabric includes the preparation of color paste, development and fixation, and the addition of thickeners to limit the color paste to be within the predetermined range of the fabric. (Textile printing pattern).

1. Prepress processing

1) Textile screen printing. Pattern design, black-and-white color separation draft (that is, positive film), and continuous photo-sensitive platemaking are generally used. In addition to the independent flower shape, it is mainly manual operation, which requires high technical quality and low work efficiency. Plate-making photosensitive materials need to be water-resistant.

2) Non-textile screen printing. The pattern is usually completed by photography or scanning. Most of the color separation is four colors. Most of the printed patterns are independent. There is no plate connection process. Most photosensitive materials are solvent-resistant.

2. Screen material

It is the main material of screen printing. Silk screens have been replaced by nylon screens. Although nylon screens have high strength, abrasion resistance and elasticity, they are easily affected by changes in temperature and humidity, and have a large stretchability. , Affects the accuracy of the registration, so polyester (polyester) screen is commonly used when printing high-end products. There are also metal screens, such as nickel screens for rotary screen printing and stainless steel screens for circuit boards. There are many types of wire mesh specifications, with a width of 36 to 90 inches and a mesh size of 80-500 meshes / inch, which can be selected according to different purposes.

3 Screen printing equipment

Screen printing equipment is very complicated. From simple homework workshops to modern complete sets of equipment, there is a big gap, which can only be briefly distinguished here.

1) Textile screen printing is divided into round screen and flat screen. Flat screen equipment includes printing platen, automatic flat screen printing machine and turntable printing machine. Among them, the automatic flat screen machine has a maximum width of 3.2m, a length of about 60m, and a maximum of 24 colors. It belongs to large-scale equipment. Textile screen printing is generally continuous printing. Even independent handkerchiefs and tablecloths are printed continuously and cut. Made of, clothing pieces and T-shirts are mostly printed on a turntable.

2) Non-textile screen printing equipment is more complicated. Due to different substrates, it has a unique printing method and special printing effects. It is necessary to select printing equipment according to the printing target. In general, there are desktop manual, semi-automatic, fully-automatic flat screen printers, cylinder type, curved surface, three-dimensional printers, etc., and there are many special-purpose equipment, and the difference in printing area is also large. Their common feature is independent printing. The main control method is to print one workpiece and one workpiece separately.

4 Printed material differences

Simply put, there is a difference between water-based and solvent-based (commonly known as oily).

1) Textile printing is generally based on dyes, especially on silk fabrics, and corresponding dyes should be used according to different fiber properties. The technical process and supporting equipment are relatively complicated. The printing paste for printing is used as the printing material, and some people call it "water-based ink". Due to practical requirements, the color of textile screen printing must have a certain fastness (not easy to fade), and at the same time, its color changes greatly, so the paste and color materials are generally sold and stored separately. Pulp. In addition, there are many special functional coating printing pastes, which are often not restricted by the fiber properties of the fabric, so the screen printing of coatings occupies a certain position.

2) Non-textile screen printing ink. This type of ink is almost all solvent-based. Its biggest feature is "exclusiveness", which is what kind of ink is used for printing. Secondly, most of the ink's color is sold in finished products, such as four-color ink. In addition, there are some special functional inks, such as foaming inks, bright inks, and fluorescent inks. In recent years, the variety of screen printing inks has been increasing without comment.

5. Post-press processing

In the textile screen printing process, post-printing treatment is very important. It must be fixed by high-temperature steaming or baking to combine dyes with textile fibers to ensure color fastness. After fixing, it should be washed with water to remove the carrier and unfixed dye in the printing paste, so that the color is bright. Even if the coating process is used, it needs to be baked at high temperature, but it can be washed without water. The post-processing of non-textile screen printing is generally relatively simple, but it is also necessary to take some necessary processing according to the quality requirements of the printed product, such as UV curing of UV ink. ^[1]