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Direct to Garment => DTG - General => Topic started by: Appstro on October 17, 2015, 10:54:35 AM
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Can someone tell me how I can justify buying the brother DTG with the cost being so high. I cannot wrap my head around this. The printer and pre treat are about $25000.00 When I use the brother ROI calculator and input realistic numbers I come up with 6-7 years before I see a profit. Won't the printer be pretty much toast at that point? I would love to read some positive info and suggestions on making the DTG thing practical. I get quite a few requests for small runs but the pricing and known white ink issues with DTG have me running away.
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Can someone tell me how I can justify buying the brother DTG with the cost being so high. I cannot wrap my head around this. The printer and pre treat are about $25000.00 When I use the brother ROI calculator and input realistic numbers I come up with 6-7 years before I see a profit. Won't the printer be pretty much toast at that point? I would love to read some positive info and suggestions on making the DTG thing practical. I get quite a few requests for small runs but the pricing and known white ink issues with DTG have me running away.
Perhaps it's not for you. The right shop making and selling just 50 shirts a week would do fine. Folks like you or I who need a month or two for that kind of output just may need to farm it out.
Hey, just think, if you offered that service for shops like ours, it could be paid for in no time!
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Be careful, DTG printers need to work a lot.
Not only from the financial aspect of the cost of the machine.
They have to maintained regularly and heads cleaned with expensive ink.
This has to be done all the time even if you are not printing.
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Be careful, DTG printers need to work a lot.
Not only from the financial aspect of the cost of the machine.
They have to maintained regularly and heads cleaned with expensive ink.
This has to be done all the time even if you are not printing.
Another reason for investing in one and offering the service to other printers may be a great plan.
Of course, like any biggish business move, it needs to be studied, planned, and marketed well.
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I've been considering this for a while, since I get a few orders a week that would seem to work well on a DTG. But I've been looking into Epson based printers that come with a smaller price tag, under $20K and some closer to $10K including an auto Pre Treat machine and other fees. The thing that makes me hesitate is that I don't feel it will be as simple as just plug it in and print shirts with the press of a button. From my research it seems that getting all of the little variables with the machine, ink, pretreat, artwork, shirt type, etc. to all work correctly takes a great deal of learning and practice before you are really printing shirts in a production manner. They also need to be constantly used and maintained even in the slow months. But the technology is moving really fast and with inks that now cure in 35sec and on a wider range of fabric types... it's hard to resist.
Than again, for my shop, this budget may be better spent towards an Automatic screen printing machine 8)
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Can someone tell me how I can justify buying the brother DTG with the cost being so high. I cannot wrap my head around this. The printer and pre treat are about $25000.00 When I use the brother ROI calculator and input realistic numbers I come up with 6-7 years before I see a profit. Won't the printer be pretty much toast at that point? I would love to read some positive info and suggestions on making the DTG thing practical. I get quite a few requests for small runs but the pricing and known white ink issues with DTG have me running away.
Appstro: Your question about whether DTG is a good fit for your business and whether you will achieve a satisfactory ROI on introducing this technology is really going to come down to the customer and market segments that you are serving. When it comes to DTG printing with purpose built machines like the Brother, the good new is that they really have the process down. Users of their equipment can expect reliable and predictable results printing on light and dark colored garments and a range of other specialty items. Nazdar SourceOne has many hundreds of customers who have purchased Brother DTG systems from us, who have achieved profitable revenue growth in their businesses. From my perspective the two most important factors for anyone looking to purchase and implement DTG printing are: (1) Understand what your true cost of production is, and (2) make sure that you have access to a source of customers who are willing to pay the premium associated with acquiring short run, mass customizable, garments with full color graphics. As a rule these people are different than your traditional screen print customers who are looking for a deal on a one, two, or three color print on 50 shirts.
When it comes to crunching the numbers, as much as I respect the folks from Brother I am reluctant about using a non-customer specific ROI Calculator. I try to encourage customers to run the numbers based on their real world situation, to see if they support the investment in any new equipment. Making a decision on the viability of investing in DTG for a shop that already has screen-printing in house, and that is servicing a customer base that’s used to paying screen-printing prices for their printed garments can be a challenge, given the differences in production costs between screen-print and DTG. The attached files are PDF’s of some work that we did a number of years ago comparing typical screen-print production costs to include all elements of the pre-press, on press set-up, on-press production, and post press screen cleaning and reclaim processes to the “almost” Plug & Play of Digital DTG printing. As you’ll see in the examples DTG comes out a mile in front in total print production cost as the number of colors in the print increases, and the quantity remains low.
Screen-printing definitely has a production cost advantage when the design only calls up one or two colors and/or the total quantity of garments being printed increases. As a general rule the speed of screen-print production is much higher, and cost of consumables is much lower, than it is for digital. The challenge that screen-printing faces in this comparison comes from the fixed “make ready” costs that are incurred to output films, prepare and image screens, set them up on press, load ink, squeegees and flood bars, then having to clean everything down to prepare for the next job. These expenses are largely the same regardless of whether you print 1 shirt or 1,000. One last comment is that these examples are probably 6 or 7 years old and were comparing prints on light colored shirts using the Brother GT-541 versus screen-printing. I will make it a project to refresh the numbers to take into consideration the additional costs in both screen-printing and DTG to print on Dark colored shirts and repost the updated numbers.
Note: I have the complete Excel workbook that the PDF examples were developed from and would gladly share it with anyone at TSB who is looking for a quick and reasonably accurate method to calculate their screen-printing or DTG production costs. Just email me your contact info and I will send it across.
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I kind of remember a few years ago, not too many years ago, that the buzz among us was DTG was going to put all of us traditional printers out of business or at least hurt us a bunch.
The other thought that hit me from this topic is never trust the fox to tell you the chickens are safe.
Lastly I think Sam SoCalMF bought a DTG owned it for about 3 minutes and dumped it because it was not generating $$$$$$$.
Don't know where Sammy is today but a call to him might be wise as he seems to peel the onion back pretty well and can probably offer some real world view.
mooseman
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I kind of remember a few years ago, not too many years ago, that the buzz among us was DTG was going to put all of us traditional printers out of business or at least hurt us a bunch.
The other thought that hit me from this topic is never trust the fox to tell you the chickens are safe.
Lastly I think Sam SoCalMF bought a DTG owned it for about 3 minutes and dumped it because it was not generating $$$$$$$.
Don't know where Sammy is today but a call to him might be wise as he seems to peel the onion back pretty well and can probably offer some real world view.
mooseman
And, unfortunately, within those three minutes, mine was one of the (late)jobs to be done on it.
To be fair, he had an i-Dot (which unfortunately looks a bit like idiot) which was M&R's less-than-stellar Epson-based first attempt in this field.
Add to that, he relied on staff, who apparently in this instance did not keep him apprised of issues in a timely fashion.
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Frog, on a side note I see you changed your by-line, I just figured out what the last one meant then you go and change it.
By the way do you know the meaning of "And the papers want to know whose shirts you wear"
mooseman
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Frog, on a side note I see you changed your by-line, I just figured out what the last one meant then you go and change it.
By the way do you know the meaning of "And the papers want to know whose shirts you wear"
mooseman
I guess if you figured out what the last one meant, it was time to change the furshlugginer line!
As for the current one, I may not know what it originally meant, but it seemed appropriate here. Oh, I did hear him playing "You'll Never Walk Alone" in the background.
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"And the papers want to know whose shirts you wear" translation what football (soccer) team do you root for.
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"And the papers want to know whose shirts you wear" translation what football (soccer) team do you root for.
Hence his love of "You'll Never Walk Alone" and his shirt is red ;) (Tom is a Liverpudlian)
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Can someone tell me how I can justify buying the brother DTG with the cost being so high. I cannot wrap my head around this. The printer and pre treat are about $25000.00 When I use the brother ROI calculator and input realistic numbers I come up with 6-7 years before I see a profit. Won't the printer be pretty much toast at that point? I would love to read some positive info and suggestions on making the DTG thing practical. I get quite a few requests for small runs but the pricing and known white ink issues with DTG have me running away.
(2) make sure that you have access to a source of customers who are willing to pay the premium associated with acquiring short run, mass customizable, garments with full color graphics. As a rule these people are different than your traditional screen print customers who are looking for a deal on a one, two, or three color print on 50 shirts.
I also think this really important and that the customer base for digital prints is growing. I think there are a lot more customers out there that understand the difference now between screen printing and digial and are seeking this work out... it's just a matter of marketing yourself in front of them.
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"And the papers want to know whose shirts you wear" translation what football (soccer) team do you root for.
Hence his love of "You'll Never Walk Alone" and his shirt is red ;) (Tom is a Liverpudlian)
Frog
youz is just toooooo many lilypads ahead of me :)
mooseman
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If you don't like the price tag, consider going to a contractor who has the biggest fastest machines, because the lower pricing will be reflected. We bought a used Brother GT-541, which worked pretty well for a while, then sales fell way off, and the machine went south. Expensive lesson learned. I use AIR Conway in Philadelphia. Good work, decent price, good communications, they do have a 12 piece minimum. If you want 6, you pay for 12, no further discussion. I know it will be done right, and we can spend our money elsewhere. Were we to adopt a different business model which would need to have the printing in house, because it would pay off and we would have more control, then it would make more sense.
Steve
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Around this area, the only one i really know of is a place in the mall. They have a couple embroidery machines and a DTG. To me this scenario would work, due to the mall traffic, mostly around the holidays. BUt for us, the traffic we get would not really pay for it.
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Thanks or all the input guys. I really appreciate it! I am going to go for it. I have managed a deal that will lower my monthly payments and Im hopeful my online idea will work. I will post updates when I receive and get trained on my new GT-361. If you need digital shirts I may be a good channel for you! :)
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Though I usually wouldn't recommend Tshirtforum.com, they have much conversation there regarding all of the different machines and processes, and though you need to determine the wheat from the chaff, there is a lot of info there...
Steve
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We started our in-house production adventure with DTG. It works fine if you buy a decent machine and have someone dedicated to it 24/7. Do not - for a second - leave it alone. It needs A LOT of tlc all the friggin time!
We bought a Anajet mP5i, I regretted it 5 minutes later. It also cost us 25.000€ and did not come with a pre treat machine, which was a huge mistake on our part. Printing on dark garments never really worked so after a while we removed the white ink and let the lines dry. We've been working with it for the last 2 years only printing on light garments. If it was today I would have bought a DIY Epson printer for a fraction of the cost.
Unless you have a steady stream of work and somewhere where you can control COMPLETELY humidity and temperature, don't go for it. For the love of god, do not go for it! If you can work every day and control those factors, sure, go ahead
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Well I pulled the trigger and the install is next Tuesday and Wednesday. I am trying to think of questions to ask the installer. Like what is the best resolution for the images? What color shift to expect from on screen to actual print? Do you have any suggestions???
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Good post, we just looked at an Anajet at the SGIA show and got a sample shirt or two and really like the feel and how it works, I was going to start a thread but this is giving me plenty of info. We think having a DTG machine might work for us doing the smaller jobs which we do get a call for almost everyday that screen printing price's just runs them away, we will have to study this more before we decide. I look at the Epson DTG printers as well but I know from first hand about the epson print heads and the anajet use's a different type print head.
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We started our in-house production adventure with DTG. It works fine if you buy a decent machine and have someone dedicated to it 24/7. Do not - for a second - leave it alone. It needs A LOT of tlc all the friggin time!
We bought a Anajet mP5i, I regretted it 5 minutes later. It also cost us 25.000€ and did not come with a pre treat machine, which was a huge mistake on our part. Printing on dark garments never really worked so after a while we removed the white ink and let the lines dry. We've been working with it for the last 2 years only printing on light garments. If it was today I would have bought a DIY Epson printer for a fraction of the cost.
Unless you have a steady stream of work and somewhere where you can control COMPLETELY humidity and temperature, don't go for it. For the love of god, do not go for it! If you can work every day and control those factors, sure, go ahead
We bought one of the first ones out there. :'(
With the DTG, the above statements are impairitive to purchasing one. Have the work for it being #1. (can not stress this one enough)
The biggest thing is having it run every day or just about every day.
The biggest mistakes we made was switching it over to do white ink. Should have left it for light colors only.
Now we have a 20K paper weight. Lesson learned.
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DTG really is a pain. Unlike screenprinting presses, that are built like a tank, these are computers and they're so unstable that you cannot predict what is going to happen next. We are now in the process of changing our entire warehouse to accommodate the printer with better conditions. We had to change one of the printheads in May and it cost us 2300€. That's almost 10% of what it cost us in the first place.
It's an adventure and I love the look and feel of DTG but, knowing what i know today, I would have bought an Epson or any other brand except Anajet
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DTG really is a pain. Unlike screenprinting presses, that are built like a tank, these are computers and they're so unstable that you cannot predict what is going to happen next. We are now in the process of changing our entire warehouse to accommodate the printer with better conditions. We had to change one of the printheads in May and it cost us 2300€. That's almost 10% of what it cost us in the first place.
It's an adventure and I love the look and feel of DTG but, knowing what i know today, I would have bought an Epson or any other brand except Anajet
We certainly won't do it again. I'd much rather have someone with the biggest fastest printer that can give good pricing do the work, plus they've worked out all the details. Unless you have the work for it, it can be a lot of trouble.
Steve
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Someone posted about reading the threads at t-shirtforums and honestly there is a lot of info there.
Here is what I have picked up just reading around over there:
- Brand makes a HUGE difference, both when it comes to the quality of the machine and support down the road.
- There are sort of two camps, on one side you have people building their own machines essentially from scratch (brother, epson), and on the other side you have people who are building machines based on other companies printheads (anajet, neoflex, spectra).
- The Anajet seems to have a pretty poor track record on both fronts compared to many of the other options out there.
- The Brother 361 you got seems to be popular and have a good track record on support and the machine not crapping out randomly.
- The Epson F2000 also seems like a good option.
- Lots of people are switching to the Spectra 3000 or 600 now as well, which is a sort of new and much smaller company, and their machines are based on the Epsons. Seem like a good value and has good support.
- Neoflex seems to have gone from a popular choice for the epson based machines to a steadily less popular choice due to issues with support and lagging behind on innovation vs the spectra.
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We run a brother 381. We ran a 541 for years. The 541 was damn near bulleproof, but add white and it's a game changer.
I am still not a huge fan of white ink. It's slow, costly and not perfected. That being said some of the new pretreats out there really make it easier.
Brother is probably one of the more reliable and easier to use machines aside from the pretreating aspect. Kornits have built in pretreats but you pay for that.
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Someone posted about reading the threads at t-shirtforums and honestly there is a lot of info there.
Here is what I have picked up just reading around over there:
- Brand makes a HUGE difference, both when it comes to the quality of the machine and support down the road.
- There are sort of two camps, on one side you have people building their own machines essentially from scratch (brother, epson), and on the other side you have people who are building machines based on other companies printheads (anajet, neoflex, spectra).
- The Anajet seems to have a pretty poor track record on both fronts compared to many of the other options out there.
- The Brother 361 you got seems to be popular and have a good track record on support and the machine not crapping out randomly.
- The Epson F2000 also seems like a good option.
- Lots of people are switching to the Spectra 3000 or 600 now as well, which is a sort of new and much smaller company, and their machines are based on the Epsons. Seem like a good value and has good support.
- Neoflex seems to have gone from a popular choice for the epson based machines to a steadily less popular choice due to issues with support and lagging behind on innovation vs the spectra.
I agree, I've also done my research including info from tshirtforums and I've narrowed my choices down to a Brother GT-361, EPSON F2000, or BelQuette MOD1 (GENESIS maybe?). They all seem to have positive reviews and good support.
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If I was to buy a new DTG machine right now, I'd either go with Brother or Epson. Probably Epson due to support in my country BUT knowing it would cost me (Epson sells Ink, they make A LOT of random cleanings that cost $$)
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Someone posted about reading the threads at t-shirtforums and honestly there is a lot of info there.
Here is what I have picked up just reading around over there:
- Brand makes a HUGE difference, both when it comes to the quality of the machine and support down the road.
- There are sort of two camps, on one side you have people building their own machines essentially from scratch (brother, epson), and on the other side you have people who are building machines based on other companies printheads (anajet, neoflex, spectra).
- The Anajet seems to have a pretty poor track record on both fronts compared to many of the other options out there.
- The Brother 361 you got seems to be popular and have a good track record on support and the machine not crapping out randomly.
- The Epson F2000 also seems like a good option.
- Lots of people are switching to the Spectra 3000 or 600 now as well, which is a sort of new and much smaller company, and their machines are based on the Epsons. Seem like a good value and has good support.
- Neoflex seems to have gone from a popular choice for the epson based machines to a steadily less popular choice due to issues with support and lagging behind on innovation vs the spectra.
I agree, I've also done my research including info from tshirtforums and I've narrowed my choices down to a Brother GT-361, EPSON F2000, or BelQuette MOD1 (GENESIS maybe?). They all seem to have positive reviews and good support.
I just bought a MOD1/Edge. Haven't set it up yet but all of my research led me to that. (The Genesis is not available yet.)
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I may pull the trigger on a Brother 381 this month or so.
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I highly suggest you guys check out our new Mlink X!
Per dollar it is the best investment for DTG based on speed and ink consumption.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Give us a price point please.
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Ya due tell. Brother has some attractive stuff going on. Id need to be wow'ed.
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Alex M. Sent me this a 7/30/15. Impressive compared to gt-381 that was shown as test in house.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/dij0dbezi2caen9/M-Link%20X%2014x9%20print%20black.mp4?dl=0 (https://www.dropbox.com/s/dij0dbezi2caen9/M-Link%20X%2014x9%20print%20black.mp4?dl=0)
Price for m-link is $39,995
Dark shirt in 2:45
Light shirt in 1:00
Price for m-link X is $74,995
Dark shirt in 1:00
Light shirt in 0:35
I don't know if these are confirmed price or ?
You still have to pre-treat and heat press after.
I would by a new auto or upgrade for that. But that is me.
Shane
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Brother also has zero percent 36 months, 26k with heat press and pretreat machine. Gotta do it by December 31.
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Brother also has zero percent 36 months, 26k with heat press and pretreat machine. Gotta do it by December 31.
great deal!
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After seeing it in person, Slow printing. Unless you are able to charge 18-20 for a t-shirt printed hard to coop money. But that is me. You almost need 2 machine with brother to get the thru put. big difference is white and colors are printed together with M&R not with brother prints all white, then color.
My thoughts. Financing is a nice extra.
Shane
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I'd be charging $20-$30 for under a dozen.
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Each?
Shane
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Hard to see the quality of the M&R digital print in the video.
It prints fast because it's a long narrow print that's printing in the direction of the heads.
Turn the image 90 degrees and it could take three or four times as long.
You'll have a lot more head passes.
Not clear how the shirts are loaded, one at a time? On the same platen?
This could also slow down the printing. I'd like to see a video of the loading unloading and also the cleaning process.
I think with any equipment purchase you have to do the maths. If you get a loan/lease on a 50,000 machine over 3 years it will cost roughly 1,500 a month, if you can make USD10 per shirt after other expenses you need to sell 150 a month to cover the costs.
The early DTGs were a disaster but they've improved the technology and the inks so today's machines are much more reliable. One thing to remember DTG's need to work, you cannot leave them unattended. I have a Kornit, even if we don't have work we have to clean the heads and print a test pattern every morning. This takes time and uses a fair amount of ink. If you take a week off I the summer you come back to a machine with blocked heads.
If you buy a machine, check carefully the ink costs. Over time you are going to spend a lot more on the ink than on the machine itself.
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Each?
Shane
Yes, if you want a custom made t-shirt you are going to pay $25-$30 for that shirt.
Honestly, that's pretty reasonable. No one else in town is even doing them.
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Our intention is to put about 500 designs in our online store to start with, $20 each, see how it goes. If even a few % of those buy per day, im good with it. We'd add our own line of shirts with funny and motivational sayings. Maybe some religious and political humor as well. Then we could offer 1 off shirts and bill people artwork as well which later could lead to more screen printing. Also would be great to have when a customer decides they forgot a shirt on a order. I can think of a lot of uses.
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I am still at ITMA in Italy. Once I get back I will add some info on here.
Dark under 1 minute for 12x12
Light under 40 sec for 12x12
Ink cost is very low on the machine. I will post images and price to print once back.
While you do have to prep offline this allows the machine to run full capacity with printing all the time and not eat up time for prep.
We will also be displaying our new pretreat machine at LB show!
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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. big difference is white and colors are printed together with M&R not with brother prints all white, then color.
My thoughts.
Shane
That isn't correct with the 381...the heads are stacked so it prints white and color at the same time. The 782 had 2 different carriages that would need alignment frequently.
Also, with the GT I recommend not printing with 1200dpi. 600 is fine, but we bump the ink a bit and it prints quickly.
What heads are in the M&R? Ricoh? I know they wanted to move away from Epson.
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I could be wrong on they printing part. Yes Heads are ricoh.
Shane
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Each?
Shane
Yes, if you want a custom made t-shirt you are going to pay $25-$30 for that shirt.
Honestly, that's pretty reasonable. No one else in town is even doing them.
If that fits your business model then it makes sense. I do not want to answer the phone or talk to a customer for $100.00 order. I really would be hard pressed to deal with someone for $30.00.
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I've been looking at some cheaper DTG machines for one was the Anajet, but don't think people are liking it very much from what I've read, but at the show the machine printed and looked solid and it printed white and color at the same time using ricoh print heads as well, I think the ink was dupont. Trying to all my homework before we jump on one might even hit the used market don't know Pros/Cons about the used market anyone.
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I've been looking at some cheaper DTG machines for one was the Anajet, but don't think people are liking it very much from what I've read, but at the show the machine printed and looked solid and it printed white and color at the same time using ricoh print heads as well, I think the ink was dupont. Trying to all my homework before we jump on one might even hit the used market don't know Pros/Cons about the used market anyone.
1. Keep in mind that machines at shows are almost always performing at their very best and have experts right there to tweak if needed.
Remember that gadget (now sitting way in the back of the top shelf in the kitchen) you bought at the county fair ten years ago?
2. Just recently, someone weighed into another thread with the warning that used DTG machines have often sat unused for a while which spells doom.
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I picked up Anajet's 'book' (more like a sales brochure,) a few years back and read through it once.
From the stuff in there about screen printing I would be extremely wary of doing business with them.
I'd recommend it if you want to believe their DTG farts rainbows and poops profit, while screen printing kills puppies inefficiently and unprofitably.. ;D
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I've been looking at some cheaper DTG machines for one was the Anajet, but don't think people are liking it very much from what I've read, but at the show the machine printed and looked solid and it printed white and color at the same time using ricoh print heads as well, I think the ink was dupont. Trying to all my homework before we jump on one might even hit the used market don't know Pros/Cons about the used market anyone.
1. Keep in mind that machines at shows are almost always performing at their very best and have experts right there to tweak if needed.
Remember that gadget (now sitting way in the back of the top shelf in the kitchen) you bought at the county fair ten years ago?
2. Just recently, someone weighed into another thread with the warning that used DTG machines have often sat unused for a while which spells doom.
1. You mean the guy buzzing around with sweat on his brow while the salesman does the pitch?
2. Buying a used DTG=epic fail.
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I believe that, if available, factory re-furbs may be the compromise option
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I've been looking at some cheaper DTG machines for one was the Anajet, but don't think people are liking it very much from what I've read, but at the show the machine printed and looked solid and it printed white and color at the same time using ricoh print heads as well, I think the ink was dupont. Trying to all my homework before we jump on one might even hit the used market don't know Pros/Cons about the used market anyone.
1. Keep in mind that machines at shows are almost always performing at their very best and have experts right there to tweak if needed.
Remember that gadget (now sitting way in the back of the top shelf in the kitchen) you bought at the county fair ten years ago?
2. Just recently, someone weighed into another thread with the warning that used DTG machines have often sat unused for a while which spells doom.
1. You mean the guy buzzing around with sweat on his brow while the salesman does the pitch?
2. Buying a used DTG=epic fail.
Yep, did that, not again without a solid market for it...
Steve
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I've been looking at some cheaper DTG machines for one was the Anajet, but don't think people are liking it very much from what I've read, but at the show the machine printed and looked solid and it printed white and color at the same time using ricoh print heads as well, I think the ink was dupont. Trying to all my homework before we jump on one might even hit the used market don't know Pros/Cons about the used market anyone.
1. Keep in mind that machines at shows are almost always performing at their very best and have experts right there to tweak if needed.
Remember that gadget (now sitting way in the back of the top shelf in the kitchen) you bought at the county fair ten years ago?
2. Just recently, someone weighed into another thread with the warning that used DTG machines have often sat unused for a while which spells doom.
1. You mean the guy buzzing around with sweat on his brow while the salesman does the pitch?
2. Buying a used DTG=epic fail.
Yep, did that, not again without a solid market for it...
Steve
Actually, if you had the market and a booming business, a problematic machine would be even worse!
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I believe that, if available, factory re-furbs may be the compromise option
Maybe, but still be careful. We bought demonstrator Kornit Breeze and it has not been plain sailing.
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I believe that, if available, factory re-furbs may be the compromise option
Maybe, but still be careful. We bought demonstrator Kornit Breeze and it has not been plain sailing.
It won't be plain sailing even if it's new out of the box. The issue with used machines is they've been sitting somewhere for a few weeks/months. They're mostly ruined.
I always laugh when I see listings with "DTG machine as new, works great" and then "just installed new print heads".
1. if you're selling it, I'm sure it doesn't work that great.
2. you just installed 1000/2000€ printheads and you're selling the machine for half what you paid for it?
Refurbs might be an option if they bring support from the manufacturer, otherwise don't bother. Even then I'd be wary.
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I've been looking at some cheaper DTG machines for one was the Anajet, but don't think people are liking it very much from what I've read, but at the show the machine printed and looked solid and it printed white and color at the same time using ricoh print heads as well, I think the ink was dupont. Trying to all my homework before we jump on one might even hit the used market don't know Pros/Cons about the used market anyone.
1. Keep in mind that machines at shows are almost always performing at their very best and have experts right there to tweak if needed.
Remember that gadget (now sitting way in the back of the top shelf in the kitchen) you bought at the county fair ten years ago?
2. Just recently, someone weighed into another thread with the warning that used DTG machines have often sat unused for a while which spells doom.
1. You mean the guy buzzing around with sweat on his brow while the salesman does the pitch?
2. Buying a used DTG=epic fail.
Yep, did that, not again without a solid market for it...
Steve
Actually, if you had the market and a booming business, a problematic machine would be even worse!
Which is why I send them to AIR Conway in Philly; they have the big Kornit, which for a dozen is well worth it, at 3 dozen, even better. They do very good work, and are very professional. If you order from one of the vendors in Philly, and ship to AIR Conway, it's free freight; then when AC ships to you, that's the only freight you'll see. Beats the crap out of doing it myself, and I'm a real DIY kind of guy, but I know when to hand it off.
Steve
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Pulled the trigger. Installed Tuesday and Wednesday. I got the viper one pretreat too. Neat set up. They only recommend shaking the white cartridges and white agitation daily. The machine wants you to do a flush every day on the menu read out though so not sure if I should do it or not. The brother actually retrieves the white ink from the lines now before doing the weekly flush which saves ALOT of ink.
The white is not as vibrant as I would like it to be, even on the ring spun shirts. Solid blocks of white seem to be only for screen printing and a hell of a lot cheaper. The installer told me a rule of thumb "on the high side" would be to figure $1.00 a CC for prints that are white "only" once you figure in the flushes and cleaning solution. CMYK costs pennies. a typical white only logo 8 x 8 inches was about $4.00 / 4.18 cc
I cant wait to see what I can do with this thing.
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Pulled the trigger. Installed Tuesday and Wednesday. I got the viper one pretreat too. Neat set up. They only recommend shaking the white cartridges and white agitation daily. The machine wants you to do a flush every day on the menu read out though so not sure if I should do it or not. The brother actually retrieves the white ink from the lines now before doing the weekly flush which saves ALOT of ink.
The white is not as vibrant as I would like it to be, even on the ring spun shirts. Solid blocks of white seem to be only for screen printing and a hell of a lot cheaper. The installer told me a rule of thumb "on the high side" would be to figure $1.00 a CC for prints that are white "only" once you figure in the flushes and cleaning solution. CMYK costs pennies. a typical white only logo 8 x 8 inches was about $4.00 / 4.18 cc
I cant wait to see what I can do with this thing.
Since day one, the word on DTG that I got was it is not ideally suited for large single color areas of any color. I am sure though that in time, you'll learn some tweaks amd tricks and improve your product.
I have seen for a long time that not only are all machines not created equal, but neither are the operators!
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Each?
Shane
Yes, if you want a custom made t-shirt you are going to pay $25-$30 for that shirt.
Honestly, that's pretty reasonable. No one else in town is even doing them.
If that fits your business model then it makes sense. I do not want to answer the phone or talk to a customer for $100.00 order. I really would be hard pressed to deal with someone for $30.00.
It's typically not a SINGLE shirt... Usually a coupe or a few. Lots of times it's just some basic text or a 3g photo on it. They also typically want them yesterday and we have charged up to $80 for a shirt, same day turn around.
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Well I just got looking at the Epson F2000, I'm seeing there is a lot more work than just tossing it on the platen and off you go, but the Epson price don't seem that bad 15K for a new out the box machine. Only thing that worry me about the Epson is the ink cost and the I thing someone mention wasting 150 bucks a month on an ink dump/clean hard to toss away 150 like that, I do thing this could help us during the slow months and keep those 2 to 6 pc jobs we turn down or just to costly to screenprint. Any one running an epson DTG?
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Since day one, the word on DTG that I got was it is not ideally suited for large single color areas of any color. I am sure though that in time, you'll learn some tweaks amd tricks and improve your product.
I have seen for a long time that not only are all machines not created equal, but neither are the operators!
Our experience is that quite good solid whites are not impossible (on a Kornit, can't speak for any others), but it does take some experimenting with pre-treatment and ink settings, and is very dependant on the suitability of the shirt for DTG. We tried every shirt we could get our hands on (most got the thumbs down) before deciding on a range that we would be happy to print and sell.
We also got test prints from several manufacturers including Epson, Brother, Mimaki, and DTG before deciding that the Kornit was the only one that produced outupt that meant we could sleep at night without worrying about customers complaining about "issues" with the print.
The photos are of a recent job on tees and hoodies. It was our first job on the Kornit, and took hours of testing before we were happy to run the job. Not unlike screen printing really - it looks easier than it is, and the learning curve is like the north face of the Eiger.
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Pulled the trigger. Installed Tuesday and Wednesday. I got the viper one pretreat too. Neat set up. They only recommend shaking the white cartridges and white agitation daily. The machine wants you to do a flush every day on the menu read out though so not sure if I should do it or not. The brother actually retrieves the white ink from the lines now before doing the weekly flush which saves ALOT of ink.
The white is not as vibrant as I would like it to be, even on the ring spun shirts. Solid blocks of white seem to be only for screen printing and a hell of a lot cheaper. The installer told me a rule of thumb "on the high side" would be to figure $1.00 a CC for prints that are white "only" once you figure in the flushes and cleaning solution. CMYK costs pennies. a typical white only logo 8 x 8 inches was about $4.00 / 4.18 cc
I cant wait to see what I can do with this thing.
I'm very new to the DTG game but I wonder if you are not putting down enough pre-treat? Maybe something to experiment with.
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Well I just got looking at the Epson F2000, I'm seeing there is a lot more work than just tossing it on the platen and off you go, but the Epson price don't seem that bad 15K for a new out the box machine. Only thing that worry me about the Epson is the ink cost and the I thing someone mention wasting 150 bucks a month on an ink dump/clean hard to toss away 150 like that, I do thing this could help us during the slow months and keep those 2 to 6 pc jobs we turn down or just to costly to screenprint. Any one running an epson DTG?
I just got an epson modified printer which isn't the same as the F2000. I've heard bad things about that printer. I'm still in the process of setting mine up. I imagine it will take me a couple weeks to really learn it after I get it all set up.
The MOD1 doesn't use the epson ink, I think it is a dupont ink that is relabeled. 12x12 white image (mostly solid) was $1.38 according to the RIP. Could have used a little bit more white but it was about 99% coverage and still had a nice hand. A "regular" customer would never even notice, IMO.