Hybrid silk screen and direct-to-garment printing machine and process

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-12565050-B2
Application number	US-202418417358-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jan 19, 2024
Priority date	Aug 14, 2015
Publication date	Mar 3, 2026
Grant date	Mar 3, 2026

Abstract

A hybrid printing machine is described having both silk screening stations and a direct-to-garment digital printing station with a raster image processor to control a portion of a printing process.

First claim

We claim:

1 . A hybrid digital and screen printing system comprising:
at least one digital-to-garment (DTG) printing station positioned proximate a conveyor and having a print head moveable into a printing zone, the print head has a plurality of print heads positioned in an array of rows and columns; a direct to screen (DTS) printing machine for preparing a silk screen for use in the DTG printing station; and a raster image processor (RIP) electronically coupled to the DTG printing station and the DTS printing machine, the RIP having a processor, and a memory storing computer-readable instructions.

2 . The hybrid digital and screen printing system of claim 1 wherein when the computer-readable instructions are executed by the processor it takes the following steps:
store in the memory a digital art file containing an electronic representation of the colors and their locations to be printed on the substrate to produce an indicia;
sending a first signal to the DTS printing machine representative of a base coat of the indicia; and
sending a second signal to the at least one DTG printing station representative of the cyan, magenta, yellow, and black colors of the indicia.

3 . The hybrid digital and screen printing system of claim 1 wherein the printing zone has a length dimension and a first width dimension and the print head is mounted for movement exclusively along the length dimension of the printing zone.

4 . The hybrid digital and screen printing system of claim 1 comprising an endless conveyor.

5 . The hybrid digital and screen printing system of claim 4 comprising a plurality of object supports connected to the conveyor and spaced from one another and moveable with the conveyor, each of the object supports defining a printing zone having a length dimension and a first width dimension.

6 . The hybrid digital and screen printing system of claim 1 comprising 1 to 10 print heads in each row.

7 . The hybrid digital and screen printing system of claim 1 comprising 4 to 20 print heads in each column.

8 . The hybrid digital and screen printing system of claim 1 wherein each row is dedicated to a single color.

9 . The hybrid digital and screen printing system of claim 1 wherein the rows follow in an order of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black.

10 . The hybrid digital and screen printing system of claim 1 wherein a first row will have n number of print heads and an adjacent row will have n-x number of print heads where x is from 1 to 3 print heads.

11 . A method of printing an indicia on a substrate with a hybrid digital and screen printing press from a digital art file containing an electronic representation of the colors and their locations to be printed on a substrate to produce the indicia, the method comprising:
providing a digital-to-garment (DTG) printing station having a print head for printing in a printing zone; providing a direct to screen (DTS) printing machine for preparing a silk screen for use in the DTG printing station; sending a first signal to the DTS printing machine representative of a base coat of the indicia; and sending a second signal to the DTG printing station representative of the non-base coat colors.

12 . The method of claim 11 further comprising the step of electronically processing the digital art file into a first file representative of a base coat portion of the indicia and a second file representative of the non-base coat colors.

13 . The method of claim 11 wherein the non-base coat colors includes cyan, yellow, magenta and black.

14 . The method of claim 11 further comprising printing with the DTS machine a base coat on a first substrate.

15 . The method of claim 14 further comprising conveying the first substrate to the DTG printing station and printing the non-base coat colors on top of the base coat to complete the indicia.

16 . The method of claim 11 wherein the print head has a plurality of print heads positioned in an array of rows and columns.

17 . The method of claim 16 wherein there are from 1 to 10 print heads in each row.

18 . The method of claim 16 wherein there are from 4 to 20 print heads in each column.

19 . The method of claim 16 wherein a first row will have n number of print heads and an adjacent row will have n-x number of print heads where x is from 1 to 3 print heads.

Assignees

• M & R Printing Equip Inc

Inventors

• Hoffman Jr Richard C
• Baxter Geoff

Classifications

• B41F17/003

  Special types of machines for printing textiles (using the screen printing process B41F15/00; printing on knitted fabrics B41F17/38) · CPC title

• B41F15/0863

  with a plurality of flat screens mounted on a turntable · CPC title

• B41F11/00

  Rotary presses or machines having forme cylinders carrying a plurality of printing surfaces, or for performing letterpress, lithographic, or intaglio processes selectively or in combination · CPC title

• B41F15/10

  for multicolour printing · CPC title

• B41J11/0015

  for treating before, during or after printing or for uniform coating or laminating the copy material before or after printing (selective coating B41J2/2114) · CPC title