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Home Made DTG Printer
Home Made DTG Printer
net 2009
This description shows you how did I build a Direct To Garment printer with a ready-made Epson
printer from the market. Before you try on your own, you really need to be aware that it is not an easy
task. I strongly suggest you have a greater search on Internet to deeply understand what you are doing
for. There was no guarantee to lead you into success with the information from this description.
Heat pressing is the main secret; it makes ink drops and coating layer malt into fabric to
achieve the permanent and washing resistant result. The coating layer is basically provide
addition protect on the printed image and giving a deeper malt into fabric to hold the ink drops
stronger and therefore a longer image life. By the latter experiment printing, the clear Acrylic
enamel (water based) is good enough to provide such effect. Of course, Polyurethane related
resin should give an even better result theoretically, but it is more costly.
Within the main brands of ink suppliers, only Epson is clearly states their ink’s type and detail to
each cartridge model. How ever, the Epson ink cartridge come with the chip it may leading you
to buy their new ink cartridges again and again before you actually use off the ink.
3. My plan
With the material I have, I decide to have a rolled external transmit carrier bad to moving the
object under through the printer head and using the origin paper- feeding roller with the stepping
motor to drive it up. And, the modified printer need still having the head cleaning function
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works. This requires keeping the printer’s head parking-bay as it was and have a way to drive the
head cleaning gear moving synchronal with the external transmit carrier.
450
Printer
Printing object holder
(Height adjustable) Paper feeding roller & gears
Disassembled from printer
300
85
750
The steps:
1. Disassemble the printer and taking out the paper feeding roll and the stepping motor. Do not
break any parts and any cables.
2. Cut off the part under the paper-feeding roller from the original case to enable the printing object
moving through under the printing head freely.
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70
225
265
30
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3. Extend the cable of stepping motor for 50 cm. Please make sure that the cable you chosen have
enough diameters for the current flow.
3. Make the roller transmit carrier with the paper feeding-roller and some other rubber rollers,
which are come from other resource.
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400
4. Cut off the print-head positioner from the paper tray gear system. This gear will attach to the
head-cleaning unit and make the cleaning unit moving on.
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A big trick here is that Epson T20 printer uses this piece plastic, said positioner, to determine
the print-head position data during the boot up stage. Without this piece plastic will drive you
into crazy, you will never get printer working for you. It is painful and time consuming to
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figure it out if you ignored this piece plastic. So, you need observe your printer carefully and
have the plan to make it still functioning.
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Positioner
6. Reassemble the printer head and it’s moving track system back to its position
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7. Reassemble the printer head parking positioner gear with a timing belt or similar stuff.
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positioner
14. Install software to PC and follow the instruction provided by Epson to set up modified
printer. Then have fun with your printer.