Ricoh USA have announced a pair of new Direct To Garment (DTG) printers, the RICOH Ri 3000 and Ri 6000.
These printers, Ricoh boast, provide an incredibly short route from design to print, thanks to intuitive software and print speeds as fast as 27 seconds a shirt. 
These devices print at 600 dpi quality even on traditionally difficult media, such as dark poly 50/50 blend. Meanwhile, Ricoh's own industrial-grade printheads empower businesses to reliably produce high-volume orders as well as custom one-off prints. These features combine to provide an excellent springboard for those looking to launch garment printing as a standalone business or who want to expand their print portfolio.
The RICOH Ri 3000 and Ri 6000 printers build upon AnaJet's (a Ricoh company) history of fast, high-quality garment printing. These printers are efficient, flexible and highly productive enabling users to print directly to shirts, socks, and canvas grocery bags, and to produce metallic foil applications, whilst creating eye-catching output.
Media options can include high-quality, durable prints on natural fibers, light poly and dark garments with up to 50/50 blends. Water-based inks deliver soft, long-lasting and eye-catching vibrant designs. Built-in white ink circulation dramatically improves ink flow and minimizes waste while making high-quality prints viable on even the darkest of garments. The 2.3 inches of laser-assisted table height automatic adjustment eases printing on thick materials, such as hoodies with zippers. Granular drop-size controls help create even sharper applications.
These devices have low turn times and high-quality outputs and are designed specifically to make DTG printing fast and easy. A new, easy-to-use color touch screen control panel further streamlines the print process. The included AnaRIP software enables users to print files directly from a USB flash drive or any networked PC – without manual color separation, a time-consuming process traditionally required for screen printing.
Designs can be easily previewed and modified based on the color of fabric they are being printed to, so designs look the same on the screen as they will on the garment. This minimises the need for costly test prints and in-depth technical tinkering. A print can be finished in as little as 27 seconds on the RICOH Ri 6000 or 51 seconds for RICOH Ri 3000 and then the ink is cured via heat press or tunnel dryer. Optional Spark software, designed to seamlessly integrate with AnaRIP, offers intuitive personalisation, various features and effects, and a customizable proposal system for instant quotes and more.
"Branded garments are one of the most popular graphic arts applications in the world. Offering them can encourage customers to turn to your business for more work. But for many businesses, it's difficult to find a powerful, capable, flexible device they can use comfortably and efficiently," said John Fulena, Vice President, Commercial and Industrial Printing Group, Ricoh USA, Inc. "So, we wanted to make DTG printing both as flexible and as streamlined as possible”.
The RICOH Ri 3000 and Ri 6000 features Ricoh's stainless steel, industrial-grade printheads, which are self-cleaning and self-maintaining, and are rated at 100 billion actuations for higher output, promoting uptime. These durable printheads are manufactured under strict quality standards in an ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 certified factory in California.
Ricoh
