Rhys Handley
Tuesday, July 16, 2019

DGI will release two new textiles printers later this year.

The Poseidon, a 1.6m-wide dye-sub printer aimed at mid-level production houses, will ship from August. It will be followed in Q4 by the Apollon, a 1.9m-wide 16-printhead direct-to-textile system.

Both machines will be distributed exclusively in the UK and Ireland by Barnsley-based Sabur Ink Systems, with the Poseidon expected to cost around £40,000 and the Apollon circa £250,000. First shown to the public at ITMA last month, they will come with three-year warranty as standard.

Sabur digital development director Aaron Burton said: “The Poseidon was developed to meet the demands of customers who have mid-to-high volumes of sublimation printing that want the production speeds of an industrial printer with Kyocera printheads, but also the flexibility of a plotter printer to easily change designs and job runs efficiently.

“The Apollon is capable of printing onto natural fibres including cottons and silks. It has a sticky belt system to improve media transport and to handle challenging fabrics. It was developed to respond to the growing demand for reactive printing with companies transitioning from traditional printing methods to digital.

“Both machines were received extremely well with very positive feedback. We have the official launch of Poseidon on 30 July at DGI headquarters in South Korea with several UK customers attending who are excited to see this exciting new sublimation printer.”

DGI has designed the Poseidon to sit between the FT-1608 and the HSFT III in its portfolio of sublimation printers. Developed with the sportswear and customisation markets in mind, it can print at production speeds up to 120sqm/hr.

It is available in an ‘SE’ model which adds an extra Kyocera printhead for spot colours and fluorescent inks alongside CMYK, while a mini jumbo roll enabling the loading of up to 2,500m (linear) of transfer paper will be available later in the year.

The Apollon prints direct-to-textile with 16 printheads running reactive inks at speeds around 250sqm/hr. It will be targeted at the fashion and interior décor sectors.