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Dear All, Pls see actual process of sublimation and digital with their advantage & disadvantage along with comparison. Hope this would help you ! Best, Sukhvir
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Sublimation Printing
The sublimation name is applied because the dye transitions between the solid and gas states without going through a liquid stage. Many consumer and professional dye-sublimation printers are designed and used for producing photographic prints.
Sublimation printing process is that process which uses heat to transfer dye on to medium materials such as a piece of special paper and use heat to transfer the picture from the paper to the fabric
The dye sublimation inks are a pigment suspended in a liquid solvent, like water. The images
are initially printed on coated heat-resistant transfer paper as a reverse image of the final design, which is then transferred onto polyester fabric in a heat press operating at a temperature around 180 to 210 C (375 F). Under high temperature and pressure, the dye turns into a gas and permeates the fabric and then solidifies into its fibers.
Sublimation Sampling Process
Sublimation sampling can be done on Digital printing machine. But digital is not production friendly due to more lead time and cost per meter is high.
We can do production using Roller printing machine only for bigger run.
Sublimation Production Process
Process-the required design is 1st printed on paper on a roller printing machine for bulk production and then this paper along with the fabric sandwich together and passed thru heated continues paper press to transfer the print from paper to fabric.
Roller printing machine is a machine where copper rolls are used for printing and any design with multiple color merging, ombray effect can be achieved for bulk production, since the copper roll are very- very expensive so this printing machine is no longer used in Indian textile industry but frequently used in china and Korea to achieve excellent print result in heat transfer/sublimation print. Any print that digital printing machine produced and rotary can’t do, can be achieved using roller printing machine thru sublimation process.
The combination of heat and pressure cause the sublimation ink to convert into a gas, which is received simultaneously by the substrate’s opened polymers. (This is an over-simplified explanation of the process, but it works for our purposes.) After the heat application is completed (about a minute), the transfer paper is removed and discarded. When the product cools down, the sublimation dye is encapsulated within the surface (instead of on top). The result is a high-resolution, permanent coloration that won’t peel or crack. And in
the case of apparel, sublimation will not fade, even after multiple washings.
Cost for production
So for the print where we can’t achieve desired result on rotary printing machine we have option of going for sublimation print thru roller printing machine (true for only polyester fabric), but because of the cost of the rolls, sampling is problem (cost of one copper roll appx 50000 to 60000 rupees ),
We take the route of printing of paper by digital printing machine using low sublimation disperse dyes and transfer on to the fabric using hot paper press for sampling only.
Cost-sublimation/heat transfer in the bulk is cheaper than the normal rotary print but the quantity per print should be more than 20000 meter otherwise the cost of printing will be high because of copper roll cost.
Advantage of sublimation
Any image can be printed all over the fabric The result of heat transfer printing and digital printing using
low sublimation disperse dyes would be the same. Colors can be extraordinarily brilliant due to the bonding of the
dye to the transparent fibers of the synthetic fabric. Truly continuous tones can be achieved that are equivalent to
photographs, without the use special techniques such as half-screen printing.
Disadvantage of sublimation
Back side of fabric always be white as it only prints the surface of the textile.
Sampling cost is high. Cost and lead time will be high for smaller run. Not success for light weight qualities like chiffon, ggt. If we stretch the fabric 20% or more then you lose a whole stack of
color depth when the white shows through the fabric/knit ribs (dark blue suddenly becomes light blue, black becomes grey).
Sublimation heat transfer is suitable for polyester fabric only. The limitation of sublimation is that it only works on polymer-based
surfaces,
Digital Printing
Digital fabric printing is relatively new technology with tons of applications. It is described as any ink jet based method of printing colorants onto fabric.
Digital can print any design on all kind of fabric, like cotton, poly or silk etc.
Pre-Treatment for digital print
Before going to digital print all fabric need to coated with chemicals and prepared for digital printing.
Digital Printing Process
During the printing process, the fabric is fed through thr printer using feed roller and ink is applied to surface of fabric in the form of thousand tiny droplets.
fabric is printed by digital printers with the design prepared on computer using ink jet based method of printing colorants onto fabric.
The fabric is then passed through steam/heat chamber to cure the ink.
Then steamed fabric required washing and drying.
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Cost for production
So for the print where we can’t achieve desired result on rotary printing machine we have option of going for sublimation print thru roller printing machine (true for only polyester fabric), but because of the cost of the roller sampling is problem (cost of one copper roll appx 50000 to 60000 rupees ),
We take the route of printing of paper by digital printing machine using low sublimation disperse dyes and transfer on to the fabric using hot paper press for sampling only.
The result of heat transfer printing and digital printing using low sublimation disperse dyes would be the same. Cost-sublimation/heat transfer in the bulk is cheaper than the normal rotary print but the quantity per print
should be more than 20000 meter otherwise the cost of printing will be high because of copper roll cost.
Advantage of Digital Printing
The image can be printed all over the entire item, with no difficulty in printing all the way to the edges.
Colors can be extraordinarily brilliant due to the bonding of the dye to the transparent fibers of the synthetic fabric.
It is time saving for sampling as compare to rotary process. Truly continuous tones can be achieved that are equivalent to
photographs, without the use special techniques such as half-screen printing.
Time saving for sampling only.
Sublimation Vs Digital
Sublimation Printing Paper image is transfer on the surface of
the polyester fabric. There is no need of fabric to be coated. Base fabric should be synthetic or 100%
polyester, Disperse dyes are used Sublimation will not fade, even after multiple
washings Sublimation dyes does not penetrate the
surface of fabric. So back side of fabric always white.
Production feasible and less costly for bigger run.
Digital Printing The inks are printed directly to the coated
fabric. There is need of fabric to be coated . All fabric can used as base except polyester
or synthetic. Reactive dyes are used Digital print can get fade after multiple
washing. In this dyes penetrate the surface of base
fabric. Digital relying on molecular bonding,. It is not production feasible , Ideal for
sampling only.
