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Direct to Garment => DTG - General => Topic started by: tbarnes on October 29, 2020, 02:57:04 PM
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Greetings,
We are looking at adding a more efficient DTG machine given the current market. I am currently drafting a comparison of the M&R Maverick vs. the Kornit Avalanche. Does anyone have any input in comparing the two machines? Anyone currently own either machine and want to hit me with some pros and cons? Looking for maintenance, troubleshooting, pricing analysis (I never trust the salesman price analysis) etc.
Any info is greatly appreciated.
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I don't own one, maintain one or plan on getting one. But we have had a few things printed on both units. The Maverick blows any Kornit out of the water in quality. Now, some of that could be the places we get stuff from, but the final product from the Maverick is just amazing.
Kind of unfortunate because I own Kornit stock ;D
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We have the Kornit Avalanche at our shop.
All I can tell you is that it hasn't worked for two years. That may be due to the people before me didn't take good care of it and stopped using it...didn't prepare it for sitting and all of the heads dried up. Those two don't work here anymore. When I started with this Co. it wasn't working, so I looked into getting it running and all heads would need replaced. $80k to do so. Then, if I wanted to upgrade the inks to be able to print on any type garment like bleeders (comfort colors), it would be another 80k upgrade. We decided that for the amount of DTG work we want to have in our shop, it's best to let it sit and eventually get heads replaced and sell it.
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Thanks for the feedback guys.
Just want to bump this and keep this relevant since I need to move pretty quickly on it.
Anyone care to share any other experiences they have had with either machine, positive or negative?
Thanks again.
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Real question, how come almost nobody is talking about the Maverick?
I assume most people doing DTG are on the basic hobbist stuff like the basic epson/brother stuff. But next tier, I dont see any one talking about it.
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Real question, how come almost nobody is talking about the Maverick?
I assume most people doing DTG are on the basic hobbist stuff like the basic epson/brother stuff. But next tier, I dont see any one talking about it.
Yea, I would’t even know there was a Maverick if it were not for a couple people mentioning it. LOL. (This being the 2nd place I’ve seen mentioning it).
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Because everyone into this is talking about the new commercial grade Epson that can print roughly 40 to 60 (or more) shirts a hour depending on image size. And at 1/4 the price with a warranty that includes tech and head replacement. And when this tech changes every 1 to 2 years the price does not make sense unless you have 3 shifts working a day with each shift printing non stop.
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Real question, how come almost nobody is talking about the Maverick?
I assume most people doing DTG are on the basic hobbist stuff like the basic epson/brother stuff. But next tier, I dont see any one talking about it.
Bumping this one last time before I give up and let the thread die.
Brandt, to weigh in on your point, I think that most people are starting off with the entry level machines like Brother and Epson because the $300k price tag (don't quote me on that, not sure what the exact cost they're selling it is) on the Maverick and the even higher price tag on Kornit scare people away. Also, the technology has been evolving a lot in the last few years and the market will need some time to catch up. We stayed away from digital for the longest because the print felt like crap, smelt like crap, sometimes looked like crap, etc. and then seeing the improvements in the last couple of years we decided to get a Brother last November. Not because we are a small shop (have 15 auto machines, 3 taggers, full service with fulfillment, embroidery, sewing, the whole shabang) but because the 25k for a brand new brother machine seemed more feasible to get our feet wet on the digital side of the industry.
The Brother machine has worked well for us, we dialed in printing on a lot of substrates and have images looking crisp. The problem is the cost of the ink just isn't efficient for the long term ROI and the speed of the printer is another issue. Given the state of the world right now our on demand business has been growing substantially, and I think as the world returns to normal that need for on demand printing is going to stay. That's why we are looking at options to get our price per piece down and trying to find the most efficient machine.
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Real question, how come almost nobody is talking about the Maverick?
Because it costs more than a couple of your sports cars combined! There is a place in Bellingham that got a Maverick that I've sent a few orders to, the first production order is actually in the works right now. Imprintmaker.com (http://Imprintmaker.com), the samples I got (I did 12 images and two of each so I could do wash tests), generally looked pretty nice, and feel good for DTG. However, the prints on fleece looked terrible, there was some issues with under bases poking out, and there is a known issue with spotting of the white on large areas that for the price I think is unacceptable being sold before that is addressed.
And, you still have to pretreat separate which is nice with the Kornits that pre-treat is one step (are they still doing that?) but may also be why their prints aren't as crisp.
Because everyone into this is talking about the new commercial grade Epson.
Do you know anyone that has one of these that does contract printing? I'd be interested to send some work to an Epson printer to see the quality. I really want DTG to be viable, but right now I'd rather find a network to outsource to so they can deal with the headaches, a $50 new setup for DTG orders which includes a pre-sample I think is fine for my customer, and that could cover shipping both from the vendor and drop shipped to the customer, and then a 24 piece minimum, as I don't want to deal with low quantities.
Given the state of the world right now our on demand business has been growing substantially, and I think as the world returns to normal that need for on demand printing is going to stay. That's why we are looking at options to get our price per piece down and trying to find the most efficient machine.
If you look at all the larger on demand printers, they have more of the lesser cost printers, since redundancy is important. I think if the new Epson printers are like 40K, you could get 6 for the price of the Maverick, or 12 for the cost of a higher end Kornit, then you have a single operator running 3 machines, you'll have more throughput, lesser cost of entry and you can scale up as necessary, and when one goes down, the others stay running.
I think that DTG is best suited for on demand printing and split shipping, because even if the prints aren't great, they are generally split shipping to multiple people, so rather than one unhappy customer with 48 shirts, you have 48 people with 2 unhappy customers you can just refund and have them keep their shirt and you are still making a product.
The issue with outsourcing is finding reliable places that know quality.
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Real question, how come almost nobody is talking about the Maverick?
Because it costs more than a couple of your sports cars combined! There is a place in Bellingham that got a Maverick that I've sent a few orders to, the first production order is actually in the works right now. Imprintmaker.com ([url]http://Imprintmaker.com[/url]), the samples I got (I did 12 images and two of each so I could do wash tests), generally looked pretty nice, and feel good for DTG. However, the prints on fleece looked terrible, there was some issues with under bases poking out, and there is a known issue with spotting of the white on large areas that for the price I think is unacceptable being sold before that is addressed.
And, you still have to pretreat separate which is nice with the Kornits that pre-treat is one step (are they still doing that?) but may also be why their prints aren't as crisp.
Yikes my Ferrari was 344k, so its over 700k for one of those? I wouldn't even look its direction for that.
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Yikes my Ferrari was 344k, so its over 700k for one of those? I wouldn't even look its direction for that.
Ok, well at least they can claim it costs less than a Ferrari! I believe they are in the 300k range.
Unfortunately I only know what a loaf of bread costs, and not super cars.
I'll post some photos of the print samples I got
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Real question, how come almost nobody is talking about the Maverick?
Because it costs more than a couple of your sports cars combined! There is a place in Bellingham that got a Maverick that I've sent a few orders to, the first production order is actually in the works right now. Imprintmaker.com ([url]http://Imprintmaker.com[/url]), the samples I got (I did 12 images and two of each so I could do wash tests), generally looked pretty nice, and feel good for DTG. However, the prints on fleece looked terrible, there was some issues with under bases poking out, and there is a known issue with spotting of the white on large areas that for the price I think is unacceptable being sold before that is addressed.
And, you still have to pretreat separate which is nice with the Kornits that pre-treat is one step (are they still doing that?) but may also be why their prints aren't as crisp.
Because everyone into this is talking about the new commercial grade Epson.
Do you know anyone that has one of these that does contract printing? I'd be interested to send some work to an Epson printer to see the quality. I really want DTG to be viable, but right now I'd rather find a network to outsource to so they can deal with the headaches, a $50 new setup for DTG orders which includes a pre-sample I think is fine for my customer, and that could cover shipping both from the vendor and drop shipped to the customer, and then a 24 piece minimum, as I don't want to deal with low quantities.
Given the state of the world right now our on demand business has been growing substantially, and I think as the world returns to normal that need for on demand printing is going to stay. That's why we are looking at options to get our price per piece down and trying to find the most efficient machine.
If you look at all the larger on demand printers, they have more of the lesser cost printers, since redundancy is important. I think if the new Epson printers are like 40K, you could get 6 for the price of the Maverick, or 12 for the cost of a higher end Kornit, then you have a single operator running 3 machines, you'll have more throughput, lesser cost of entry and you can scale up as necessary, and when one goes down, the others stay running.
I think that DTG is best suited for on demand printing and split shipping, because even if the prints aren't great, they are generally split shipping to multiple people, so rather than one unhappy customer with 48 shirts, you have 48 people with 2 unhappy customers you can just refund and have them keep their shirt and you are still making a product.
The issue with outsourcing is finding reliable places that know quality.
we bought the EPSON and will be doing contract printing, but not ready yet. We have another week or so to dial things in and then all of our capacity is sold until January. We will have the time to do samples and maybe a small number of orders, but nothing serious until the holiday rush is over.
Once we are fully set up, we will offer print on demand with fulfillment. We will be able to tie into your system electronically if needed.
pierre
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Real question, how come almost nobody is talking about the Maverick?
I assume most people doing DTG are on the basic hobbist stuff like the basic epson/brother stuff. But next tier, I dont see any one talking about it.
Bumping this one last time before I give up and let the thread die.
Brandt, to weigh in on your point, I think that most people are starting off with the entry level machines like Brother and Epson because the $300k price tag (don't quote me on that, not sure what the exact cost they're selling it is) on the Maverick and the even higher price tag on Kornit scare people away. Also, the technology has been evolving a lot in the last few years and the market will need some time to catch up. We stayed away from digital for the longest because the print felt like crap, smelt like crap, sometimes looked like crap, etc. and then seeing the improvements in the last couple of years we decided to get a Brother last November. Not because we are a small shop (have 15 auto machines, 3 taggers, full service with fulfillment, embroidery, sewing, the whole shabang) but because the 25k for a brand new brother machine seemed more feasible to get our feet wet on the digital side of the industry.
The Brother machine has worked well for us, we dialed in printing on a lot of substrates and have images looking crisp. The problem is the cost of the ink just isn't efficient for the long term ROI and the speed of the printer is another issue. Given the state of the world right now our on demand business has been growing substantially, and I think as the world returns to normal that need for on demand printing is going to stay. That's why we are looking at options to get our price per piece down and trying to find the most efficient machine.
the new EPSON is not an entry level machine. It is 72"'x 73" (so rather big and requires a lot of floor space) and it prints a full size front in about 45 seconds. It has redundancy built int as well as remote access from the factory service department and other industrial grade features. The cost of ink is much lower than the entry level printers your are thinking about. We are bellow $1 per print in ink as of right now (very early on in setup and testing though). If you get 2 the ink is $140 per liter and you can net over 100 shirts per hour. To get the same from Kornit you will have to pay about 3-4 times as much and will still be fighting the color gamut issues.
3070 can print a full front at really good quality in about 40-45 seconds. That's 80+ full fronts per hour if you don't count loading times. In our initial testing we are seeing/expecting about 50-55 full fronts per hour. If you add in some left chests it will go up. Cost of ink is looking to be right under $1, few pennies under to be more precise, but that is for good quality print. you could get it down to $0.75 if you don't need paper white. This has a lot to do with pretreat though, so your numbers will vary.
List price is $50k, but by the time you are set up you are over $60k. With additional inks and maintenance consumables you are probably looking at $65k. I have a friend who had a factory with many, many Kornits and he says there is no comparison. It is not even close!
pierre
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we bought the EPSON and will be doing contract printing, but not ready yet. We have another week or so to dial things in and then all of our capacity is sold until January. We will have the time to do samples and maybe a small number of orders, but nothing serious until the holiday rush is over.
Once we are fully set up, we will offer print on demand with fulfillment. We will be able to tie into your system electronically if needed.
pierre
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I would like to know when you are ready with this! Happy to sen anything your way come spring.
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3070 can print a full front at really good quality in about 40-45 seconds. That's 80+ full fronts per hour if you don't count loading times. In our initial testing we are seeing/expecting about 50-55 full fronts per hour. If you add in some left chests it will go up. Cost of ink is looking to be right under $1.
List price is $50k, but by the time you are set up you are over $60k. With additional inks and maintenance consumables you are probably looking at $65k. I have a friend who had a factory with many, many Kornits and he says there is no comparison. It is not even close!
What are you using to pretreat?
How do you like the quality of prints?
Are you doing mostly photographic stuff, or is still a lot of the work more spot colors?
Who did you purchase this through?
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As promised, here is the photos of 3 samples of 12 images that I got from the Maverick.
Also today I got my first production order (of 5 pieces) that will go to a customer. We also have a 60 piece order in production but are waiting for a pre-production sample to arrive before that is approved.
These photos were taken on a phone. So some quick commentary, the White tee looks great, and it held up well to its first wash. The one posted is unwashed. Looks really nice.
The Grey tee, pre wash looks amazing, there is a slight discoloration from the pre-treat, but that goes away in the wash. However the black after washing fibrillated quite a bit, and to the eye (not camera) looks much more off black than in the photo. However with the vintage subject it looks great, but if that isn't the affect you are after may be possible to have the printer print more black (but not really possible when contracting).
Navy Tee, this one doesn't have enough going on, and I don't think the quality of this print looks good. The Pantone is Pantone 2995, and is lacking the opacity for a solid print. Also I'll follow up on the next post with the real issue with this one.
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Also I'll follow up on the next post with the real issue with this one.
This is what happened on the white, this is on a 100% cotton ASColour blank which is probably one of the most ideal tees to print on since they are so tightly woven.
Michelle is now working on dialing in the Maverick so hopefully this will be fixed, said it's something to do with head temperature.
However, this to me is an unsellable tee, I'm sure 80% of people would be fine with it, however wether user error, equipment error, pretreat error, whatever it is, makes me apprehensive to contract out if that is what will get sent out with no pre-samples (adding time / cost), which again makes it not so viable for small orders.
However, in reality we would just screen print this image, so I don't know if it is the best way to judge anyhow.
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Also I'll follow up on the next post with the real issue with this one.
This is what happened on the white, this is on a 100% cotton ASColour blank which is probably one of the most ideal tees to print on since they are so tightly woven.
Michelle is now working on dialing in the Maverick so hopefully this will be fixed, said it's something to do with head temperature.
However, this to me is an unsellable tee, I'm sure 80% of people would be fine with it, however wether user error, equipment error, pretreat error, whatever it is, makes me apprehensive to contract out if that is what will get sent out with no pre-samples (adding time / cost), which again makes it not so viable for small orders.
However, in reality we would just screen print this image, so I don't know if it is the best way to judge anyhow.
My Mlink would have out performed that print easily. On a worse shirt even. He's got something wrong going on there I suspect.
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Why did they stop the M-Link for this newer equipment does anyone know?
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Why did they stop the M-Link for this newer equipment does anyone know?
bad head design by Ricoh (?). I think those were the 4th gen heads that were really hard to keep going well long term. Can't remember exactly who made them, but i heard from another manufacturer that sold the same exact machine (they were China imports and rebranded by several companies M&R included) that it was really hard to keep them running.
pierre
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the new EPSON is not an entry level machine. It is 72"'x 73" (so rather big and requires a lot of floor space) and it prints a full size front in about 45 seconds. It has redundancy built int as well as remote access from the factory service department and other industrial grade features. The cost of ink is much lower than the entry level printers your are thinking about. We are bellow $1 per print in ink as of right now (very early on in setup and testing though). If you get 2 the ink is $140 per liter and you can net over 100 shirts per hour. To get the same from Kornit you will have to pay about 3-4 times as much and will still be fighting the color gamut issues.
List price is $50k, but by the time you are set up you are over $60k. With additional inks and maintenance consumables you are probably looking at $65k. I have a friend who had a factory with many, many Kornits and he says there is no comparison. It is not even close!
pierre
Pierre is not lying. His friend really does have rows and rows of Kornits. The Ink Kitchen did a feature on it awhile back. I mean Kornits as deep as the eye can see. If those guys and girls are recommending this Epson that's a good thing. We are most likely getting this over the Brother in Feb / March
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Jumping back in this thread as I am starting to seriously consider the Epson machine as a contender.
Anyone that is currently using the Epson Surecolor machine care to share any kind of consumption reports and/or production numbers with the class? I would love to jump on a call with somebody currently using it in their shop.
No offense to the salesmen out there, but I hate getting my numbers from you people lol they always seem to be "in a perfect world" numbers and the print world is far from perfect.
Thanks in advance.
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Jumping back in this thread as I am starting to seriously consider the Epson machine as a contender.
Anyone that is currently using the Epson Surecolor machine care to share any kind of consumption reports and/or production numbers with the class? I would love to jump on a call with somebody currently using it in their shop.
No offense to the salesmen out there, but I hate getting my numbers from you people lol they always seem to be "in a perfect world" numbers and the print world is far from perfect.
Thanks in advance.
no numbers yet. we are still testing and setting up (print on demand software and RIP are not yet fully configured).
for a 12" wide image I am guessing about $1 in ink and $0.25 in pretreatment (EPSON stuff is expensive, but seems to work the best).
Your cost will depend on how many you print per day. We have ours do a cleaning before printing. if you keep it running all day, you will not see many cleanings. If you stop for a bit (20 min?), it will clean again before printing. Lotsa starting and stopping will increase your maintenance expenses. Also, the cost of the printer is $11 per hour. If you only print 10 shirts per hour you will be adding a $1 to your cost. If you run 50 shirts per hour then your overhead is $0.20 per shirt. that is a big difference!
I can answer any other questions if you have them.
pierre
p.s. we are putting down a lot of ink to make the prints really vibrant. Most shops would be OK with a lot less ink. I think $1 for ink and pretreatment might be possible.
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no numbers yet. we are still testing and setting up (print on demand software and RIP are not yet fully configured).
for a 12" wide image I am guessing about $1 in ink and $0.25 in pretreatment (EPSON stuff is expensive, but seems to work the best).
Your cost will depend on how many you print per day. We have ours do a cleaning before printing. if you keep it running all day, you will not see many cleanings. If you stop for a bit (20 min?), it will clean again before printing. Lotsa starting and stopping will increase your maintenance expenses. Also, the cost of the printer is $11 per hour. If you only print 10 shirts per hour you will be adding a $1 to your cost. If you run 50 shirts per hour then your overhead is $0.20 per shirt. that is a big difference!
I can answer any other questions if you have them.
pierre
p.s. we are putting down a lot of ink to make the prints really vibrant. Most shops would be OK with a lot less ink. I think $1 for ink and pretreatment might be possible.
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Do you have a ballpark as to how many 12" prints on dark garments the machine is capable of in an hour? Our operators are basically feeding our DTG machines directly after the print finishes (we stay booked to capacity). The GTX is really only capable of like 30/hr on darker colored garments (on the high side). Factor that with the cost of their inks and pretreat and the margins suck.
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no numbers yet. we are still testing and setting up (print on demand software and RIP are not yet fully configured).
for a 12" wide image I am guessing about $1 in ink and $0.25 in pretreatment (EPSON stuff is expensive, but seems to work the best).
Your cost will depend on how many you print per day. We have ours do a cleaning before printing. if you keep it running all day, you will not see many cleanings. If you stop for a bit (20 min?), it will clean again before printing. Lotsa starting and stopping will increase your maintenance expenses. Also, the cost of the printer is $11 per hour. If you only print 10 shirts per hour you will be adding a $1 to your cost. If you run 50 shirts per hour then your overhead is $0.20 per shirt. that is a big difference!
I can answer any other questions if you have them.
pierre
p.s. we are putting down a lot of ink to make the prints really vibrant. Most shops would be OK with a lot less ink. I think $1 for ink and pretreatment might be possible.
Do you have a ballpark as to how many 12" prints on dark garments the machine is capable of in an hour? Our operators are basically feeding our DTG machines directly after the print finishes (we stay booked to capacity). The GTX is really only capable of like 30/hr on darker colored garments (on the high side). Factor that with the cost of their inks and pretreat and the margins suck.
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full fronts we are printing in a min. it is taking 10-15 seconds to load and pull the shirt so we timed about 50 per hour with full fronts. if you add some left chests in or other smaller prints you could get close to 60 net per hour.
at ISS they were printing a 14" tall front in 42 seconds and it looked great. so there is probably some more tweaking we can do to speed things up. . .
pierre
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Hey Guys!
Michelle here. We fixed spotting whites on Maverick. AND I made some curves for auto sep that I think match screen prints, send me samples, let me show you...
....AND I gave it full control capability, so you can make the Maverick sing and dance if you want, as an additional option, Which we will train.
...AND if you want to control your auto sep (tailor it to your style, build out multiples, etc) I’ll show you how.
Make it as easy or customized as you like.
Exciting times.
Check out this video for more examples
https://youtu.be/4DHSjn1GizU
#evolvetheprint
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Also I'll follow up on the next post with the real issue with this one.
This is what happened on the white, this is on a 100% cotton ASColour blank which is probably one of the most ideal tees to print on since they are so tightly woven.
Michelle is now working on dialing in the Maverick so hopefully this will be fixed, said it's something to do with head temperature.
However, this to me is an unsellable tee, I'm sure 80% of people would be fine with it, however wether user error, equipment error, pretreat error, whatever it is, makes me apprehensive to contract out if that is what will get sent out with no pre-samples (adding time / cost), which again makes it not so viable for small orders.
However, in reality we would just screen print this image, so I don't know if it is the best way to judge anyhow.
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Hi Michelle!
thanx for stopping by and that video. Would you mind giving us some info on the target market and performance of the Maverick?
Any thoughts you'd like to share would be great.
'welcome to start a new post so it will get more exposure.
thanx,
pierre
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Greetings,
We are looking at adding a more efficient DTG machine given the current market. I am currently drafting a comparison of the M&R Maverick vs. the Kornit Avalanche. Does anyone have any input in comparing the two machines? Anyone currently own either machine and want to hit me with some pros and cons? Looking for maintenance, troubleshooting, pricing analysis (I never trust the salesman price analysis) etc.
Any info is greatly appreciated.
Go join the Kornit Facebook group. After 30 mins of reviewing posts you’ll run away as fast as you can. It’s amazing anyone actually buys those machines after reading the posts through out that group.
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We currently have an Avalanche (sold by Hirsh) at the time of purchase. All I can say, is that when our people (no longer here) let the heads dry up, it cost 80k to replace all heads. Add to that, if we wanted to incorporate the NEWer head system to accommodate bleeder garments such as Comfort colors, it would cost an additional 80k on top. Currently, It's a paper weight so if anyone wants to purchase one at a really good price, Call me. :) You would have to replace all print heads.
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We currently have an Avalanche (sold by Hirsh) at the time of purchase. All I can say, is that when our people (no longer here) let the heads dry up, it cost 80k to replace all heads. Add to that, if we wanted to incorporate the NEWer head system to accommodate bleeder garments such as Comfort colors, it would cost an additional 80k on top. Currently, It's a paper weight so if anyone wants to purchase one at a really good price, Call me. :) You would have to replace all print heads.
$80k for new heads? That's stupid money.
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Thanks Michelle!
I always enjoy seeing your work. Those prints look fantastic and speak volumes to the capabilities of the Maverick. I think you are one clear, outlying pro that pushes M&R far above Kornit in most of our books.
Thanks again.
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We own and like several M&R machines in screen department. But their track record in DTG is, well lacking....
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We own and like several M&R machines in screen department. But their track record in DTG is, well lacking....
I think Michelle is working on sorting those things out. They are also focusing on digital so things will get better. It will eventually, hopefully pretty soon, be on par with their other stuff.
pierre
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We own and like several M&R machines in screen department. But their track record in DTG is, well lacking....
Personally, we have i-Images in our screen department. I am a lot more impressed with the Maverick and the work Michelle has been doing on the digital side of printing over their screen development technology.
We have a digital squeegee that we have produced some awesome prints on. Michelle has really killed it with the R&D on the DS, right now we are happy with the images that the machine produces we are just anxiously waiting for the ink companies to continue catching up to the level of R&D that M&R has done for hybrid printing.
Personally, I would take the Maverick over the Avalanche for a number of reasons. I started this thread to get some conversation flowing and get some ammunition to hit my finance and executive team with.
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We own and like several M&R machines in screen department. But their track record in DTG is, well lacking....
Personally, we have i-Images in our screen department. I am a lot more impressed with the Maverick and the work Michelle has been doing on the digital side of printing over their screen development technology.
We have a digital squeegee that we have produced some awesome prints on. Michelle has really killed it with the R&D on the DS, right now we are happy with the images that the machine produces we are just anxiously waiting for the ink companies to continue catching up to the level of R&D that M&R has done for hybrid printing.
Personally, I would take the Maverick over the Avalanche for a number of reasons. I started this thread to get some conversation flowing and get some ammunition to hit my finance and executive team with.
What are the ink limitations you are seeing with the Hybrid technology? Is it with the digital inks or the bases and tie coats?
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We own and like several M&R machines in screen department. But their track record in DTG is, well lacking....
Personally, we have i-Images in our screen department. I am a lot more impressed with the Maverick and the work Michelle has been doing on the digital side of printing over their screen development technology.
We have a digital squeegee that we have produced some awesome prints on. Michelle has really killed it with the R&D on the DS, right now we are happy with the images that the machine produces we are just anxiously waiting for the ink companies to continue catching up to the level of R&D that M&R has done for hybrid printing.
Personally, I would take the Maverick over the Avalanche for a number of reasons. I started this thread to get some conversation flowing and get some ammunition to hit my finance and executive team with.
What are the ink limitations you are seeing with the Hybrid technology? Is it with the digital inks or the bases and tie coats?
Our biggest complaint is the stiffness of the print from the final coat. We are printing at the max sizes (19" H) and the top coat we have been using makes the print feel pretty stiff. It isn't really noticeable on thicker substrates like fleece, but when we put it on a soft style the stiffness is pretty noticeable compared to a screen print or even a full digital print.
I just spoke with our rep and he said they released a hybrid top coat at the end of last year that I guess missed our shop...so we are going to give that a try and he assured me it is a lot softer. I think we need to push R&D internally as well and try some different mesh/squeegee combinations to see what will give us the best feel while still being durable and holding a good wash fastness.
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Our biggest complaint is the stiffness of the print from the final coat.
This. Couple months back I was close to pulling the trigger on my 3rd press and DS to go on it, but once I got samples in. The feel for me was a full stop no go zone.
Michelle and staff was great on the samples and I will continue to pay attention as things change.
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Our biggest complaint is the stiffness of the print from the final coat.
Have you been doing any discharge bases?
I'm wondering if you did discharge base with the top coat, and then flash / hot head or stamped it if you could get the feel you are after. Or even just a hot head or stamp before the dryer.
Couple months back I was close to pulling the trigger on my 3rd press and DS to go on it.
I feel they need to go on an oval with at least 10-12 stations prior to the DS, and then another 10-12 after, not all need to be print heads but since for us to be happy with an HSA base takes us 3 screens, there is no way we could be successful putting this on a round press.
The samples are getting better and better all the time.
Follow https://www.instagram.com/tryckhuset/ (https://www.instagram.com/tryckhuset/) if you aren't for some real production images.
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On a separate note, the printer I've been outsourcing to with the Maverick has upgraded their dryer, and got some software updates to their DS so the more recent images we have sent to them have been looking even better. I think it's a good resource, I still don't want one, but just want a network of people to outsource that can figure out those headaches :)
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Our biggest complaint is the stiffness of the print from the final coat.
Have you been doing any discharge bases?
I'm wondering if you did discharge base with the top coat, and then flash / hot head or stamped it if you could get the feel you are after. Or even just a hot head or stamp before the dryer.
Yes we use discharge base. I think one thing that set us back was using a full, solid underbase screen instead of dithering it and using halftones in it. That definitely makes the print feel heavier.
We have been able to get it to feel really smooth and soft, but the larger images have a bit of a stiffness to them. I will let you guys know how the stiffness is effected by the new top coat we are getting. I think we are going to have really positive results.
To help with your curiosity about using the hot head after the top coat, it will not help with the stiffness. If the print isn't smooth it will definitely help smooth it by flattening the surface. But it will not make the print feel softer or make it any less stiff. I did try that lol and tried heat pressing after curing too. Actually makes it feel even more stiff tbh.
It is an awesome machine though and I would definitely stand by the purchase. Worth the money in my opinion.