Selecting the best heat press can be surprisingly hard. A lot of factors like size, cost and also the type of machine comes into play. A wrong purchase can send you back by as large as $100,000. You should keep in mind a few factors when buying a heat press to work with the dye sublimation printer.
Cheap will always turn out to be expensive
If you buy cheap, you will be forced to spend huge amounts of money later on. There are a number of reasons as to why some machines go for a song. They have lower build quality. These cheap machines cannot take sustained heat and also pressure for the longer term. Both of them are needed to generate professional results at the time of transference of graphics. It is good to trust your instincts when buying a machine. A good machine will have a much heavier platen and will feel robust. Quality is clearly felt.
A Perfect Press
Do understand that size is important. Smallest heat presses comes in 6” x 8” dimensions while the largest ones come in the region of 44” x 64”. The choice should depend on the kind of work you want to do on it. You can either customize a product or apparel, or go for soft signage, fabrics and similar bigger scale sublimation. If you have problems in deciding which press to buy, go for bigger ones. However, smaller heat presses are best employed for customizing apparel and t-shirts. The chosen machine must show consistency in heat and pressure. A pressure gauge must be present to maintain uniformity in the image. Presence of pressure gauge shows the amount of pressure being added at the time of printing. The finished product will have much image and color consistency.
Type of press
Different kinds of press work with different kinds of media. The Clam Press is ideal for transferring images into small items like metal signs, tiles and apparel. It also finds use in the production of smaller fabric color proofs prior to full production printing. The Swing Away Press is of more advanced technology than the Clam Press and can manage a number of media thicknesses. Images can be transferred into a number of items like photography frames and plaques. Calendar Presses are another kind of heat transfer press where electrically heated drums are utilized to transfer the heat from paper to fabric.
