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Direct to Garment => DTG - General => Topic started by: Dottonedan on August 24, 2012, 04:03:23 PM
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How many have or will have a DTG press this year?
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I voted no (the second option, not the last)
But want to point out that I use the process through someone else whenever a job's demands and time frame allow me to.
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im likin the brother graffiti a lot... ;D
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I do some work in Daytona and occasionally (like this morning) part of it is on the Brother 541. They have one of the earliest models. It does good work, especially gradients and very light tints, but I don't think DTG compares with screen printing in terms of brightness or richness of color, including CMYK screen printing, and certainly not spot color work. Really short run quick turnaround stuff if you've got the customers. JMHO
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If someone can make one that is as solid as the 541 that prints on darks, then we might consider it, but as of right now, no way in hell.
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We have a neoflex.
We bagged white life got good.
We pretreat white and get killer prints.
Downside slow.
Their rip rocks. Just did head and dampers after one year.
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If someone can make one that is as solid as the 541 that prints on darks, then we might consider it, but as of right now, no way in hell.
This is what the Brother GT782 was made for. It has been replaced by the graffitte line. The 782 is 2 541 put together and will print white ink.
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I worked at a shop with a GT541 and a GT782, they definitely have their place in a busy shop. Up here (BC Canada) Kornit has quite a few machines, and they have some good advantages too, the built in pre-treat is a huge asset, but the brothers also do some things very well. I'll add one to my shop at some point.
Colour density is still not what screen printing can do, but for small-med run multi colour they are a great tool. We've seen people doing huge runs where screenprinting would make more sense. I've seen jobs horribly under-dense for colors when it was just run at a faster setting to save time, We've seen jobs wash out from being under cured, we've seen some shirt colours show staining from pre-treatment.
Right now I find it tough to compete with subbing out the digital printing, I haven't found an inexpensive sub contractor that I have confidence in their product being opaque and not washing out. I have one shop that does good work, but their prices don't leave room for me to mark it up to my customers and still get the jobs if they shop prices around.
Right now the Graffiti is close to being a game changer, but it still means pretreating by hand or buying a pretreatment machine.
I'd waiting a few more years for the technology to improve and costs to come down, but then I think shops that don't embrace the technology will get left behind those that do.
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Yeah I think if you didn't have to pre treat it would be great. I think the best bang for the buck is a used 541. Can be had for under 8k. I entertain getting one but just don't have the space to run
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We have had a brother gt541 since 2005 and it has it's place in a screenprinting & embroidery business. It shines on quick turn small runs,
and when customers need to have 1 or 2 more shirts after the screen have been reclaimed.
I have been waiting for a printer that prints white and is as beefy and as low maintenance as the gt 541, and in my opinion they are not there yet.
We went to the Orlando ISS this spring with full intention on pulling the triger on the new brother, but came away less than impressed with the cost of and time needed to maintain.
I agree the best bang for the buck is a used gt541
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Not for us. I see their value but all a dtg would do is increase the type of work we aren't looking for.
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Not for us. I see their value but all a dtg would do is increase the type of work we aren't looking for.
this X2. . in a mall @ Christmas time - I'd bet you could do ok..But the prints just look so damn lame, like an iron on transfer. Another 10 years, I will review it again I'm sure.
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Not for us. I see their value but all a dtg would do is increase the type of work we aren't looking for.
this X2. . in a mall @ Christmas time - I'd bet you could do ok..But the prints just look so damn lame, like an iron on transfer. Another 10 years, I will review it again I'm sure.
I just can't wrap my head around the front end work for someone's single T shirt being worth it. Sure, you could crunch and punch their crappy jpeg through the DTG rip and just bang it out but then your shop has a rep for this kind of crap work. To keep things solid, you're looking at X amount of time in image clean up and prep on every one of these orders, not to mention the labor time mentioned above just to print 'em.
Yes, the place in the mall with the hand stretched wood screens and metric crap piles of heat transfers should be using one of these machines, it would be a perfect fit for an operation like that and I would send them tons of work I'm sure (actually I wouldn't b/c the mall store has blatantly infringed on my trademarks so their on my sh!t list) but you get the idea.
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You guys are ignoring the forest in favour of a tree or two. It's only about 1-offs if that's what you make it. There are multiple shops in my area that have gotten rid of screenprinting all together and are producing small to medium runs on Brothers and Kornits all day every day, most don't touch 1-10pcs. unless they charge enough to make it make sense, just like screenprinting. I have yet to see a print that looks or feels like a transfer, in fact most seem to have a softer hand than many plastisol prints.
- Do they have some drawbacks? Yes
- Can the average Joe get much better resolution/detail for multi colour on a DTG over screening? absolutely
- Does the average print take longer than screenprinting? Yes
- Are the prints durable? Absolutely, if properly cured.
- Are the colours on darks as vibrant as screening? Not quite, but close enough if done right to not be a deal breaker for many jobs.
Do you want to crank out 5000pcs on a single head? probably not.
Do you want to do 30-100 (200, 300...?) pc. multi colour on them rather than sepping art, printing film (or DTS) drying, blocking out, setting up, mixing inks, printing tearing down and reclaiming? Probably worth a look if you do enough of it. there is a very real crossover point where DTG makes more sense profit and production wise than screenprinting.
Are there production jobs where the artwork and quantities make DTG the right choice? 100% in my mind, I don't have one, plan to one day, and have zero desire to deal with 1-20pcs any more than I do with screenprinting.
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Copy that inkworks. I could see a solid, robust DTG like the Kornits and Brothers being the absolute jam for medium size "full color" runs especially. Let's face it, even us screen printers on our high horses can't always kick out ultra-vibrant 'full color' prints and, more commonly, the clients budget often doesn't allow for everything to get done perfectly- bump colors, high-end seps, extra press time for these jobs, etc. I bet inkjet heads would excel in these situations.
A little birdy told me about a press out there that is aiming to incorporate robust, high-speed DTG inline with traditional screen printing and I think that's really what will make this viable tech for our lines of work. Big cost for this I'm sure but it's the best use of this tech I've caught wind of.
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You guys are ignoring the forest in favour of a tree or two. It's only about 1-offs if that's what you make it. There are multiple shops in my area that have gotten rid of screenprinting all together and are producing on Brothers and Kornits all day every day, most don't touch 1-10pcs. unless they charge enough to make it make sense, just like screenprinting. I have yet to see a print that looks or feels like a transfer, in fact most seem to have a softer hand than many plastisol prints.
- Do they have some drawbacks? Yes
- Can the average Joe get much better resolution/detail on a DTG over screening? absolutely
- Does the average print take longer than screenprinting? Yes
- Are the prints durable? Absolutely, if properly cured.
- Are the colours on darks as vibrant as screening? Not quite, but close enough if done right to not be a deal breaker for many jobs.
Do you want to crank out 5000pcs on a single head? probably not.
Do you want to do 30-100 (200, 300...?) pc. multi colour on them rather than sepping art, printing film (or DTS) drying, blocking out, setting up, mixing inks, printing tearing down and reclaiming? Probably worth a look if you do enough of it. there is a very real crossover point where DTG makes more sense profit and production wise than screenprinting.
Are there production jobs where the artwork and quantities make DTG the right choice? 100% in my mind, I don't have one, plan to one day, and have zero desire to deal with 1-20pcs any more than I do with screenprinting.
Now this is someone who understands DTG and screenprinting.
We have a auto and a brother. We do not do one offs. We do minimums. Our auto runs all day long and I have a worker running the Brother all day long.I cant tell you how many times over the brother has paid for itself.
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I've entertained the idea of going DTG for a while now. I'm a small operation and I see a high demand for low quantity orders with tons of colors in the design, in my area. I think I would be able to market it more successfully than screen printing because I don't see anyone around here doing DTG. There is a good amount of print shops around here and all of them are probably cheaper than me. If I do get into it, I feel like I would have to dedicate all my time and effort towards it. I wouldn't want to put out a crap product. I'm looking hard at the new Brother, but the ink costs seem ridiculous. I heard it spits out like $6 of ink every time you turn it on or something. It comes down to capital for me also. Do I spend $35k on a DTG printer or keep saving and go auto in a few years. I still have a good deal of planning, so I guess time will tell.
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Went down the DTG path a couple of years ago with an early eclipse but I could never get it to work consistantly and it was the greatest time waster and eater of test shirts I have ever had the misfortune to own. Having said that I do like the idea of it and am currently looking at a U-Print http://www.avianix.com/u-print-trans-slam-tst3/ (http://www.avianix.com/u-print-trans-slam-tst3/) I did not like the first samples I saw but have since experimented a bit using card paper to get rid of the plastic shine and I am close to buying one. This does away with the need to pretreat, works on all fabrics and you can do cups, plates, drink bottles and pens etc.
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you can do cups, plates, drink bottles and pens etc.
Now yer talkin'. I could see a machine capable of all of that + Ts being a real multi-tool in the right business, like the one that provides, biz cards, flatstock, promo items, Ts, etc., etc. and needs super quick turn.
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Technology is less of a problem than getting enough revenue to make it worthwhile......I know of at least 2 DTG machines locally that are not being used because they could not drive enough business to make it worthwhile.....
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I tried to talk a local guy out of dropping 20k on his machine. I just didn't see the ROI.
He did it anyway, fought and fought with it. Kind of got it working, then one day I walked in and white ink was everywhere. The hose came loose and it was all over the floor. He never fixed it... just not worth the time for him. He was in a downtown area with a decent walk in that could have benefited from a DTG (this is why he convinced himself to buy it). Now he is in a new location that is even MORE retail and I don't even know what he did with the DTG, I don't see it in his new place and his new place is probably 3x as big.
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Two important points come to light in the above 2 posts.
1 - Market and marketing, you better understand both before jumping into an equipment purchase. Anybody who spends 10-30k and then has the machine sitting idle failed in at least one, if not both. Sometimes building a market takes 4-5 years or more. Do you have the money, time or other revenue streams to wait it out? Do you have the know-how to build or grow the market and your share of it? have you started building the market and grabbing your share of it before even buying the equipment? My shop is full of equipment bought dirt cheap from people who failed at one or the other, when the time comes I expect to pick up a DTG unit under similar circumstances. Buying cheap, used but not abused equipment means it hurts much less while I build market and market share. Being that we already do screenprinting and embroidery in-house, and occasionally sub out DTG I know we can keep one busy enough to pay for it (a used one) and keep the heads from clogging up from not being used.
2 - DTG technology is still on the steep part of the bell curve for both improving the technology and price coming down. The Brother Graffitee made a huge step forward this year in price, and I already know the companies reliability and quality. If thy could incorporate pre-treatment like the Kornit and maybe drop the price another 15 - 25% then I'd probably have a tough time not pulling the trigger. Until then I'll just keep my eye open for someone who blew it on point #1 and is desperate to sell a good machine that never really got used, and pounce when it comes around.
Years ago I wondered about a machine with a detachable pallet that could have the white base screened & flashed, then have the colours printed DTG over top. I suspect we'll see it soon.
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Years ago I wondered about a machine with a detachable pallet that could have the white base screened & flashed, then have the colours printed DTG over top. I suspect we'll see it soon.
Or taking the other direction, and having a DTG "head" as a station on your press. The printer would move on tracks over the shirt rather than the shirt moving through the printer.
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Now you're talking! I wonder if I could fit a used GT541 on station #4 of the auto! ;D
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Or a DTG that picks up some sort of registration marks like a vinyl cutter.....
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Two important points come to light in the above 2 posts.
1 - Market and marketing, you better understand both before jumping into an equipment purchase. Anybody who spends 10-30k and then has the machine sitting idle failed in at least one, if not both. Sometimes building a market takes 4-5 years or more. Do you have the money, time or other revenue streams to wait it out? Do you have the know-how to build or grow the market and your share of it? have you started building the market and grabbing your share of it before even buying the equipment? My shop is full of equipment bought dirt cheap from people who failed at one or the other, when the time comes I expect to pick up a DTG unit under similar circumstances. Buying cheap, used but not abused equipment means it hurts much less while I build market and market share. Being that we already do screenprinting and embroidery in-house, and occasionally sub out DTG I know we can keep one busy enough to pay for it (a used one) and keep the heads from clogging up from not being used.
2 - DTG technology is still on the steep part of the bell curve for both improving the technology and price coming down. The Brother Graffitee made a huge step forward this year in price, and I already know the companies reliability and quality. If thy could incorporate pre-treatment like the Kornit and maybe drop the price another 15 - 25% then I'd probably have a tough time not pulling the trigger. Until then I'll just keep my eye open for someone who blew it on point #1 and is desperate to sell a good machine that never really got used, and pounce when it comes around.
Years ago I wondered about a machine with a detachable pallet that could have the white base screened & flashed, then have the colours printed DTG over top. I suspect we'll see it soon.
That last part is actually a reality. It was on YouTube at a trade show somewhere but was exactly as you described.
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Funny thing is when we finally purchased our brother years ago it turned out to have a different purpose for us than intended. Originally we thought it could be a great revenue generator like most people believe. But in our case it evolved to being a great process for very small runs, small reorders and printing infant onesies size products. We also use it for green flag printing. But my point is we are not marketing it at all, we use it as a process to relieve the issues printing traditionally, like reorders or tiny garments. So we really haven't made any great money off of it directly but it does pay for itself easily including consumables and most importantly it is a huge benefit to relieving Past PITA work.
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How about DTG with a discharge base for darks..... 8)
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How about DTG with a discharge base for darks..... 8)
Mimaki had that in DTG infancy, remember checking it out in AC and had to walk away because of the stink.
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I could put up with the stink... well actually I'd just ventilate it, If it worked as reliably as a Brother and did away with pre-treat problems, and yes I know "white" wouldn't be super white on many shirt colours.
I've heard some DTG companies may be revisiting a discharge white.
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Years ago I wondered about a machine with a detachable pallet that could have the white base screened & flashed, then have the colours printed DTG over top. I suspect we'll see it soon.
Or taking the other direction, and having a DTG "head" as a station on your press. The printer would move on tracks over the shirt rather than the shirt moving through the printer.
isn't that what the Kornit 933 is? I have it in an old impressions mag. It looks like a giant flash unit. yeah, here it is,
(http://img.alibaba.com/photo/101473724/Kornit_Paradigm_933_Digital_Station_For_Carousel_Screen_Printing_Machines.jpg)
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Boy, I could talk DTG for days.
A quick background, we best tested a GT-541 before it was a 541. We were the first in GA and one of the first in the US to be running a DTG machine for production. We had to log the dollar amount of sales and they would come in periodically and pull production numbers from the machine. It was hella-cool. I've attached a pic of the first machine, it was pretty dated, even then. The cartridges were cardboard with a bladder on the inside.
We ran this from apr of 2002-jan of 2004. We have since been running a 541 and to be honest, it just prints money.
It's a great machine. We run a lot of family reunion stuff and a lot of baby stuff on it. We'll do 50 shirts with a photo on them for a dead person no problem. I can run about a shirt a minute, so a run like that would take about an hour. No seps, no screens, no real training. It's a great way to have an employee fill in when they aren't busy.
For the nay-sayers, I would really sit down and run the numbers. You can get a good used 541 and try it out, sell it for what you paid for it and move on if you don't like it. I would avoid Epson based printers. They just aren't as good.
The Brother pays for itself about every 6 months. The new pretreat for poly has been a godsend, now I can print wicking shirts and have them hold up really well to washings.
We will be adding a new Graffitee printer. I don't know when, but it's coming.
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I think the 541 is a blessing for sure, but we couldn't really benefit all that much from a printer that only prints on lights. We are at about 80% dark garments, 20% light as far as customer demand goes and screen printing on light garments is so easy and fast that doing small quantities isn't really a deal breaker.
For example, not counting art or design prep (which is pretty quick with our artist), a 4 color job on light colored garments would take us 30-40 minutes from FPU to final test print. The DTG shines in a few circumstances and no doubt some shops can make a lot of money with them, but we would not.
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Boy, I could talk DTG for days.
A quick background, we best tested a GT-541 before it was a 541. We were the first in GA and one of the first in the US to be running a DTG machine for production. We had to log the dollar amount of sales and they would come in periodically and pull production numbers from the machine. It was hella-cool. I've attached a pic of the first machine, it was pretty dated, even then. The cartridges were cardboard with a bladder on the inside.
We ran this from apr of 2002-jan of 2004. We have since been running a 541 and to be honest, it just prints money.
It's a great machine. We run a lot of family reunion stuff and a lot of baby stuff on it. We'll do 50 shirts with a photo on them for a dead person no problem. I can run about a shirt a minute, so a run like that would take about an hour. No seps, no screens, no real training. It's a great way to have an employee fill in when they aren't busy.
For the nay-sayers, I would really sit down and run the numbers. You can get a good used 541 and try it out, sell it for what you paid for it and move on if you don't like it. I would avoid Epson based printers. They just aren't as good.
The Brother pays for itself about every 6 months. The new pretreat for poly has been a godsend, now I can print wicking shirts and have them hold up really well to washings.
We will be adding a new Graffitee printer. I don't know when, but it's coming.
Definitely give us a review of the Graffitee when you get it.