How-to: DIYDTG

For those unaware, the little acronym above stands for Do-It-Yourself-Direct-ToGarment printing. In laymans terms, printing your own shirts and designs. Commercial
DTGs can cost anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000 which for the hobbyist who only
wants a few shirts is ridiculous. So you would think this field of technology would be
hacked to no end, but weve actually only seen one other fully finished and working
DIYDTG. So we took it upon ourselves to build a DIYDTG as cheaply and as
successfully as possible.
We would like to take this moment to thank [makemygraphix] for his original designs,
as ours is heavily based off his. And Tshirt Forums, for their valuable input.
For your own DIYDTG youll need a few parts, (we honestly just used what we had
lying around)
-3/4 inch particle board/plywood/MDF
-1/2 inch particle board/plywood/MDF
-1/4 inch plywood
-1 and 1/2inch wood screws
-24inch ball bearing drawer track
-scrap aluminum (1/16 thick)
-Epson printer (more on this below)

The printer you choose is the most absolutely crucial part of this hack. We took apart an
HP DeskJet 3845, Canon iP1500, Brother MFC420CN, Epson Stylus Photo 820 and an
Epson Stylus c40. Why so many? We literally purchased every printer the local thrift
store had (at $6 a printer, its not that bad actually), that way the reader wouldnt have
to. Our findings were thus; the HP and the Canon both had rotary encoders on the paper
feed shaft and ended up being a total peta to try to align and get working, both not
recommended. The Brother was an all-in-one that would not function unless every part
was connected, making it too large and bulky for our needs. Both Epsons used stepper
motors, were very easy to take apart, and only had one easy to manage paper sensor. Go
with Epson! (We ended up using the C40 because it had the 3 ink CYM system instead
of the 5 CYMLCLM system the 820 did).
As for the ink you will be using in your printer, we found DTGinks.com to be a good
resource.
For software for your Epson, we found the default drivers worked well enough. There is
RIP software out there, but we couldnt find any that supported the c40. We will
recommend the SSC Utility program though. Allowing you to quickly and easily lie to
the printer about how much, what kind, and replaced ink cartridges (for Epson only).
For tools we recommend the following
-measuring tape
-square
-pen/chalk line
-table saw
-circular saw
-jigsaw
-Dremel
-drill press/drill (and an assortment of bits)
-sand paper/file
We started off by taking apart the printers. Every printer is different, so we cant give
you details but its relatively simple process. By the end youll only need the head and its
carriage, the paper feed motor and its shaft, and the power supply.

Youll need to cut the wood as follows, (it should be noted, these are slightly different
then what we actually used)
For the 3/4 inch,
1 x 26inch by 11 and 1/2 inches.
1 x 26inch by 10 inches.
For the 1/2 inch,
2 x 26inch by 5inch,
2 x 26 inch by 1 and 3/4 inches.
First clamp the two 26x5 boards together. Now 6 from the end and 2 and 3/8 from
the bottom drill a 5/8 hole through both boards at the same time. This is where your
paper feed shaft will go.
Here is a tricky part, the metal track. We mounted the outer part 3/4 from the top on
one of the 26x5(doesnt matter which you choose) pieces and made the stop/back/end
of the track flush with the end of the board (this isnt very high priority) . And the inner
part of the track goes 1 and 1/8 from the top on one of the 26x1 and 3/4 pieces.
Normally we do recommend that you use metal L brackets to attach corners of wood,
but as long as you pre-drill a hole slightly smaller than your screws, youll be fine (we
also counter sunk most of our screws, but thats optional). Attach the two 26x1 and
3/4 to the 26x10. Do the same with the two 26x5 and the 26x11 and 1/2 pieces.
All that was a little tricky, so here is a picture to help out. For those wondering, the top
tray rolls towards you in this image.

And a shot without the top tray, as you can see our shaft wasnt long enough, so a
simple 2x3 piece was put in place. Make sure the shaft spins freely and without
binding, with and without the top tray in.

The next interesting part is mounting the drive motor. It needs to be snug against the
gear of the shaft, yet not too tight to make it grind against the wood. It also needs to
have a way of preventing the shaft from popping out. We solved both problems
relatively simply.

Take your assembly, remove the top shelf, and prop it on its side. Position your motor
where it will be mounted on top/inside the 26x5 piece. Drop in the shaft, get
everything aligned and draw a circle around the motors base. Using a straight edge and
tangent lines you can approximate the center of your circle.

Use a large hole saw cut it out (it doesnt have to be perfect). Sand/file it so the motor
easily fits in without bending any pins. We pop riveted a 1x3 piece of aluminum to the
motor to make mounting a little easier.

Drop in your shaft and make sure everything lines up. Finally, to prevent the shaft from
slipping in, we used the washers and C clamp from the extra printer parts (you didnt
throw away, right?) on the other 26x5 piece. And to avoid the shaft from slipping out
we took a 1x10 piece of aluminum, bent it in a _n_ shape, drilled a hole for the
shaft, and used a cut up spring from the extra printer parts. A picture is worth 1000
words,

Bare with me, were almost done!

Youll need to modify the printer carriage now, simply cut off the slot that paper used to
come through,

Youll want to mount it on-top of the two 26x5 pieces about 6 back. We were lucky
and found two of the previous mounting screw holes on the carriage fit perfectly,
however other printers you might need to bend or make your own. (This picture taken
before we made our nifty _n_ bracket).

Now we made our platen, this is the thing your shirt goes on. Its really up to you how
its made, and were not even totally happy with our design, so play around and find
what works best. Ours is 24x9 and 1/2 piece of 1/4 plywood mounted to the top of
two 20x2 and 7/8 pieces of 1/2 plywood. The height measurement completely
depends on the height of your head. For those wondering, we never got an answer for
how far the shirt should actually be from the head, but weve found about 1/8 works
well enough. (The legs you see on our platen were later taken off.)

Mount your power supply and solder it, alongside your motor, to the driver board.

Now there is one part weve neglected to mention until now. And that is the paper feed
sensor (remember that one sensor we mentioned earlier?). Well its because we spent 3
days trying to get that sucker to work with our platen. We tried everything, different
timings and positions of the platen, even programming an MCU to try to trick the
printer into thinking the platen was paper. In the end, we just broke it off.
By accident.
And it worked (no really!) It takes a little timing on our part but by hand to trigger the
sensor, but weve never had a misprint like we did with the platen. (Pictured below, one
of our tape attempts at triggering the paper feed sensor, this one worked about 1 out of
50 times).

Powered on,

Send a print job, hand trigger the paper feed sensor, and we have a print!

Here is just a short video if it in action, most notably you can see us hand triggering the
paper feed sensor. The orange was a test print, as you can see if your platen isnt 100%
flat and level relative to the head, youll get some smudging and general print errors.
The white shirt was a perfect (well, test) print that we did a little earlier.
(Yes, we know the video was blocked earlier. We have re-uploaded it, thank you for
your patience; it should work now.)
*Disclaimer, using tools without proper ear and eye protection can result in a visit to the
hospital. And HaD is in no way responsible for any damages. Be smart, be safe.*