“We specifically designed our Direct-on- Garment digital presses to be industrial
strength machines,” says Sarel Ashkenazy, marketing manager of Kornit. “They are
manufactured by ITS, a company who makes large format presses, with a lot of experience making machines for high-volume uses.”

Kornit introduced its new presses, the 930 and 931, at SGIA ’04 in October of this year, looking for interest from mainstream, industrial mass production shops. And from all reports, they found it. “We aimed these presses at three main markets,” Sarel says. “First, garment decorators, those folks now printing t-shirts by traditional methods. Second, fashion decorators, because our press allows them to use process colors, which they prefer. And third, the promotional market. This last market includes the big digital shops doing large format work for events, things like indoor signs, public relations and promotional work. They are used to working with digital processes, and they are already in the business where their clients are buying promotional items. Why not allow them to digitally print garments for these same clients? In fact, our first three sales at the show were straight into this market space.” Speed and print quality will be key to Kornit’s success, Sarel predicts. The 930 and 931 can print a garment in 15 seconds, compared
to an average two minute print speed for some other direct-to-garment printers. And the print quality is outstanding. “For printing on cotton, you ideally want to put 100 picoliter ropes of ink onto the fabric because it is so absorbant,” Sarel explains. “Our competition can put roughly 3 to 18 picoliter ropes onto garments, while our presses put 78 picoliter ropes down.” This is due to the attention Kornit paid to their print heads. “We use Spectra print heads,” Sarel says. “Print heads are the main issue when printing digitally on garments. Our print heads are manufactured to withstand industrial use, and they will last for years. They run very smoothly with solvent-based inks.” Kornit also developed its own inks. “Our chemical division has one of the best ink chemists in Israel,” he says. The inks are specially designed for durability an color-fastness on fabric. Solvent-based, the garments must be cured after printing and the ink then becomes part of the material. “We can print on any fabric that can be cured at 320 degrees Fahrenheit for one minute,” says Sarel. This includes:
• Ribbed cotton
• Towels
• Satin
• Silk
• Velour
• Linens
• Shanizane
• 100% polyester
“And very importantly, we can print on the microfiber material commonly used for sports shirts such as bicycle shirts,” Sarel adds. “That creates a huge market opportunity for anyone using our presses.” The Kornit ink does not feel rubbery, as it was formulated for a digital system with a high liquidity for printing ink jet heads. It also performs well in tests of light fastness, wash fastness, crock fastness, perspiration fastness, water fastness, and ironing fastness. In addition to its new digital garment printing platform, Kornit has developed consumables for the finished garments printing application. The textile ink formulation developed for the Kornit presses has resulted in the introduction of the Kornit Ink line of garment inks, which is fully compatible with many fabric types, including cotton,
cotton blends, lycra, viscose and many others. The new inks allow vivid colors and high image resolution, followed by high washability and UV resistance. Kornit Digital Ltd. is a young, dynamic company whose goal is to become a leading player in the garment and apparel printing industry. The company was founded by seasoned professionals with extensive experience in the digital printing industry.