Add DecoNetwork as a preferred source for industry insights.
SuperGamut brought more than faster DTF printers to PRINTING United Expo. In the video, DecoNetwork’s Zach Dewhurst talks with Rob Super of SuperGamut about updates across the Kraken, Hydra, and Sentinel systems focused on better color, less manual cutting, and more automation throughout production.
The bigger story is where DTF printing is heading. Printer speed still matters, but color accuracy, finishing, automation, and the number of manual steps required to complete an order are becoming just as important.
SuperGamut Pushes DTF Color Further
One of the biggest developments is the Kraken Color Beast, a 13-color configuration designed to push DTF color beyond standard CMYK.
The system adds colors including red, green, blue, orange, fluorescents, gray, and Super Cyan. SuperGamut also worked with NeoStampa on the color-separation process needed to use the expanded ink set.
For print shops, the value is color accuracy. Expanded gamut DTF printing gives shops more color information to work with when standard CMYK struggles with a customer’s brand colors.
Zach uses Wendy’s red as an example. Reproducing a specific brand color can be difficult when you rely on CMYK alone.
For transfer sellers, better color accuracy creates another way to compete beyond price and turnaround time.
SuperGamut Is Taking Manual Work Out Of DTF Production
Printing transfers quickly only solves part of the production challenge. Someone still has to cut and prepare them.
The SuperGamut Sentinel uses camera-based recognition and laser cutting to locate individual transfers and cut them even when they are positioned differently across the film. Rob says the standard Sentinel can process more than 750 transfers per hour.
That can mean less cutting with scissors, cleaner edges, fewer manual touches, and more consistent preparation for pressing.
Cutting may only be the beginning.
Rob identifies cutting, sorting, and sequencing as an important next step for DTF automation. The longer-term goal is matching each transfer with the correct garment automatically.
For high-volume DTF production, removing those repetitive steps could become just as valuable as increasing print speed.
The Hydra Pushes DTF Toward More Automated Production
SuperGamut is also bringing more automation into the printer itself with updates to the Hydra.
Magnetic-drive technology from the Kraken has been added to the platform. An optical film sensor can detect when film begins lifting from the platen and stop the carriage before it reaches the print heads, helping reduce the risk of a head strike.
The printer also communicates with the powder and dryer system, allowing downstream equipment to pause when printing pauses.
Together, these changes are designed to keep DTF production running with fewer interruptions and less operator intervention.
DTF Competition Is Moving Beyond The Printer
The next stage of DTF competition may not be decided by printer speed alone.
Color accuracy, automated cutting, fewer manual touches, and better-connected production could become just as important. SuperGamut’s latest equipment points toward a DTF production workflow where printing, cutting, and automation increasingly work together.
For shops using DecoNetwork to manage quotes, orders, artwork, online stores, and production, that same shift matters on the software side too. The more connected the production workflow becomes, the easier it is to keep jobs moving with fewer manual handoffs from order to output.
