# Are big orders really THAT bad for DTG machines?



## oroboy

Hello everyone, I'm considering getting into the printing business, and have been lurking on this as well as other forums for the past few weeks soaking up the wealth of knowledge concerning DTG printing. I've noticed that alot of posts make mention of the fact that doing bulk orders with a DTG machine is not cost effective.

I'm in a market where there are a lot of people who are starting their own t-shirt line/brand/label, and are silk screening their shirts. Average orders range from 100 - 200 shirts for these people (partly because they need at least that much to put in a silk screen order) to about 500. ALOT of these shirts that are coming out are at max maybe 4 colors, and have simple graphics (or none at all), and a lot of text. I think that because of the amount of screens and cost involved to make colorful shirts is what keeps these people from making more elaborate designs for their t shirts.

That's where I want to come in. To be able to offer full/multi color prints to clients without a minimum amount they have to order, but also not a maximum amount either. I have taken an interest in SWF East/Mesa's line of DTG machines, particularly the Bullet. I'm looking at the Bullet because of the amount of shirts that it can print in an hour (I've read that the manufactures give faster than average print times), and that it can print on darks... which most people tend to buy. Another great feature of the Bullet that I like is the ability to print larger oversize images on a shirt. There are a lot of big boys here in Hawaii, and finding t shirts for people who wear 4-6X is rather difficult; not mention the print is usually small because of the shirt size. I wanna be able to cover up the back (at least proportion wise) of these large-size shirts. I know these big boys would be willing to pay between $20 -$25 bucks for a t shirt, because that's how much they are paying now for shirts here in Hawaii... and for designs they probably might not even care for.

At about $40,000 dollars, the Bullet ain't by no means cheap... I was planning on leasing the machine, as well as leasing a HM-1 for smaller jobs. Do you folks think this is a feasible plan as far as which type/size of machine to get? Will the cost of printing on big-boy shirts, and bulk orders on dark shirts not be worth it even if I get a high-capacity machine like the Bullet? Any thoughts/comments?


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## martinwoods

I cannot comment on any other machine but we have a brother and have done that many shirts with no problems and the people were willing to pay for it. If they are paying that much already I would say go for it.

Good luck


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## joeshaul

The main issue is the cost of ink. I have a Brother 541, I'd say costwise a full color design on the front OR the back is on average is $1.25-$1.50. When you get into screenprinting by the hundreds, the printer is earning a profit at that price, and is able to do it quicker. Now, if you are selling directly to your end customer at $20 a shirt, you will be making your money no problem. Retailer's generally have at least 100% markup, although for Hawaii, it wouldn't surprise me if they wanted more along the lines of 200%. So keep that in mind if you are going to be selling to a retailer. My company does both, we have a gift store and we also deal with companies and events, and we have separate pricing schemes for both.


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## Printzilla

White T's = No problem, do it all th time

Any T requiring white ink = Problems. We can see inconsistencies over large runs of shirts, that is why we do not do them anymore. We still do alot of 1-3 runs, but no more than that. We have also "spied" on the competition that says they can do it, buy buying 12-24 runs from three of the more vocal proponents, and not one order passed our QC. Shirt 1 would be different than 6, 6 would be different than 14, etc.....

We invested less than $500.00 bucks to determine that so far nobody (that we can find) has been able to do large runs on Epson based machines using white ink.


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## joeshaul

Oh yeah, the Brother doesn't do darks, so I can't comment from experience on that. Everything I've heard though has been, "requires a learning curve" "costs three times as much for the underbasing", and "needs to constantly be ran or you'll have lots of issues". Unsure if that's still all true for all makes and models, as I've made my purchase and now don't keep up as much


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## 4thNGoal

I price every job to see if it would be more profitable to print on my DTG, order plastisol transfers, or have a contract printer print them. I learned the number one answer is "it depends."


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## oroboy

Thanks for the quick reply guys, I appreciate it. Joe, I understand what you are saying, and it's _kinda_ what I didn't want to hear.

Like I said, a lot of individuals want to start up their own label of t shirts, and usually put in orders of 1-200+ pieces for a specific design, but in various sizes (ex. 10M, 30L, 50XL, etc.). I know they want to make a profit, but also make the price appealing so that people will buy their label. This means that they will sell the shirt for an average of $12-$15 dollars a shirt (up to 3X), and more for larger sizes. 

Let's say for example: If I'm doing contract printing on a dark shirt, full-color, design on the center back & left front breast, and the order is for about 200 shirts that vary in size; do you think I would loose out in terms of time and money if I print with a machine like the Bullet (which looks like it could handle about 8-10 shirts at a time)? 

If the client wants to sell their shirt for about $12-$15 dollars to the end user, that means I would have to offer the shirt at about $6-$7 a piece with an order of about 1-200 shirts. Would the profit from an order like this really be worth it considering the time and ink/materials it would take to complete the order; even if I use a high-capacity machine like the Bullet?


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## oroboy

Wow, I got replies faster than I could reply to the first 2 posts... thanks guys.

Marc, great comment on the consistancy issue with white ink (even though that bumbed my trip). That truly sucks... here in Hawaii dark color shirts are more popular than white or light colors for some reason... maybe it makes people look slimmer, Idk.

Just a quick question to Marc: how _much_ of a difference was there in the shirts you ordered? I mean, you folks have all of the shirts in front of you to compare. The client on the other hand, will end up selling the shirts to individual consumers that may or may not see another person with the same shirt (you see what I'm trying to get at), so they won't know the difference. Even I as a client who contracted the job wouldn't mind if 3 or 4 shirts out of a batch of 24 or so were a little off (not a lot, but a little). Were the inconsistancies in your order very noticable Marc?

I wish the industry would hurry up and find a stable/dependable way to print on darks! Argh!


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## joeshaul

If you're footing the bill of the shirt, I do not think it would be profitable. Justin Walker is a forum member and in charge of Contract DTG's westcoast operations. He primarily uses a Kornit, which was a high cost machine, but I believe he pays less for his ink (he uses less on his shirts, and I believe it costs less as well). 

If you search by his name on the forums here, you may learn some good insight into contract DTG for darks. I'd also suggest checking their website, they have a pricing list which may be vital for you to study before you decide to make the leap.


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## oroboy

Thanks for the info Joe. I have been reading a whole bunch of Justin's posts, but can't really recall him writing much about printing on darks with his Kornit. I have been to his site already, and took a look at his price list.

I am planning on stocking high-quality blanks at my business, but I guess I'll lose out if I accept bulk orders involving dark shirts. From the replies I've been reading, I'll do okay with whites and light-colored shirts for bulk orders.


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## zoom_monster

Oro,
Don't get us wrong, For the type of client your talking about..DTG can be a great tool for testing designs on short runs, but when you look at the economics of large runs and what the retail price points are... you start to hit a wall real fast. A 4CP print with a white underbase will take a screenprinter 15-20 min. to set up and if they're set up right, another 40 min to an hour to print 500 pc. The set-up and the screens are expensive for that 15 minute set up but the ink,labor and machine costs over rest of the time till completion is cheap compaired with what it would cost on DTG. You'd be lucky to get those 500 shirts in 2 days(on one machine). I love my machine.... it's just not as cost effective on larger runs. If I know it's going to go to that level, I educate my client and let them choose how much to spend.


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## Uncle John

Joe, here's my take on this. When silk screening on dark's add one color for the underlay be it white or clear, so if you look at a dark shirt and only see 4 colors add one.
The reason its not a good idea to do high volume on a DTG is ink cost and time. 500 shirts can be silk screened in one hour at a cost of about .75 to 1.50 per shirt not including shirt. The ink cost for DTG is at least double that.
As far as choice of machine for DTG, I have read a lot of the posts complaining about white ink and the problems it causes on just about all the brands. People complain more than they complement and I looked at this. There have been very few complaints about the Anajet or Malcojet as they use a closed loop ink system. Yes the ink is more but in my mind its worth it. We just bought one and will print on it for the first time this Monday, It can be moved without Tech support and from the posts here maintanice is a breze and you don't have to print on it everday to keep it going.
We are also a silk screener so we will be able to pick which process to use. I hope this help you decide how best to proceed. 
Good Luck, John


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## Gunslinger

I've done 200 and 280 runs, both required an underbase. It isn't always easy, but it can be done ... just take the time to know the process, and your machine.


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## sunnydayz

I would say the main reason I would not do orders of 200 dark shirts is simply the cost of the ink  If you look at it from a business standpoint, you give prices breaks per certain amount of pieces. With printing white ink and pretreating it comes to a point where the profit is too low with the price breaks. Light shirts I will print all day long  Dark shirts I will only do so many before it is not good enough profit for me. On darks I quit giving price breaks at 50 pieces, over 50 no matter how many its the same price.

John, the anajet uses the same exact ink and takes the same maintenance to keep the machine running well. Please do not believe that there is any less involved just because it has cartridges, it simply isn't true and you may be disappointed if you start with your machine believing that. I too don't need to print with my machine every day, but it helps to keep your system flowing well as far as the print head and dampers are concerned. Also with having the cartridge system you will need to shake your white ink daily to keep it from settling. That was one of the pluses of my hm1 is that it had the agitator for the white ink that does that for me.

Hope this helps in explaining one of the main reasons doing big orders on darks is not a good thing. If your customer is willing to pay a high price, you may be able to do it.


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## treadhead

Printzilla said:


> White T's = No problem, do it all th time
> 
> Any T requiring white ink = Problems. We can see inconsistencies over large runs of shirts, that is why we do not do them anymore. We still do alot of 1-3 runs, but no more than that. We have also "spied" on the competition that says they can do it, buy buying 12-24 runs from three of the more vocal proponents, and not one order passed our QC. Shirt 1 would be different than 6, 6 would be different than 14, etc.....
> 
> We invested less than $500.00 bucks to determine that so far nobody (that we can find) has been able to do large runs on Epson based machines using white ink.


This is one of the two biggest obstacles to larger orders (especially on darks) that I have encountered. You are always up against the time element (lucky to get 20 shirts per hour on darks) but the inconsistancy is what really frustrates me. I run a T Jet 2 and there are faster and better machines out there now....but I believe these are still the two biggest issues with larger runs. I would guess the third would be ink cost.


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## nhigh9

i have dtg hm1 and print up to 150 shirts in a day i did have some problem in the begining with white but with the help of mesa i have dealt with those problems


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## Naga

Printzilla said:


> White T's = No problem, do it all th time
> 
> Any T requiring white ink = Problems. We can see inconsistencies over large runs of shirts, that is why we do not do them anymore. We still do alot of 1-3 runs, but no more than that. We have also "spied" on the competition that says they can do it, buy buying 12-24 runs from three of the more vocal proponents, and not one order passed our QC. Shirt 1 would be different than 6, 6 would be different than 14, etc.....
> 
> We invested less than $500.00 bucks to determine that so far nobody (that we can find) has been able to do large runs on Epson based machines using white ink.


Is it possible for you to be more specific about what kind of errors, that was found?

Like:
Fibers sticking through.
White ink not adhering sufficiently.
Banding.
Color gamut problems caused by wet color on wet white printing.


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## equipmentzone

As the industry matures you are starting to see some shops with multiple printers. One person can load and print on three to four printers at the same time which brings the labor cost down and raises the production rate. Screen printing, using automatic printers, will for the foreseeable future be the fastest way to print large volumes of dark garments. But the inherent advantages of digital garment printing, especially for multicolor printing (no color separations, no film positives, no screens, no screen setup and registration), will increase the trend of many shops to invest in multiple digital printers and steer more dark shirt printing in that direction. 

Harry


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## fdsales

equipmentzone said:


> But the inherent advantages of digital garment printing, especially for multicolor printing (no color separations, no film positives, no screens, no screen setup and registration), will increase the trend of many shops to invest in multiple digital printers and steer more dark shirt printing in that direction.


Have to disagree, somewhat. We have been in the embroidery biz for 23 years, and for the past several years, the distributors selling single head embroidery machines would try to sell the concept that multiple single head machines were more efficent than single multi head machines. They used the theory that if the thread broke on one machine, the other machines kept running. In theory, that was accurate, but the COST of multiple single head machines was much higher than single multiple head machines. Let's face it, if this was the way to go, then all contract embroidery houses would be running multiple single head machines, and they don't
The best option here for a DTG owner is to have one or 2 good contract screen printers w/ auto presses as part of your business model. Print the small runs on the DTG, send the larger orders off to your contract printer. Yes, there's film, screen, setup charges, but when you add all that together on a large order, you'll find it only add cents to each shirt. Also, a customer simply is not going to pay the same amount for small runs, as they would on larger orders. They expect a discount for larger quantities. That's why even if you had several DTG printers, you could never get the cost down to what you would pay using a contract printer. Bottom line w/ DTG printers is that it takes the same amount of ink & time=cost to print 1 shirt as it does to print 500 shirts. The only advantage w/ multiple DTG printers is that you get increased production, but not much less COST.


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## Printzilla

Naga said:


> Is it possible for you to be more specific about what kind of errors, that was found?
> 
> Like:
> Fibers sticking through.
> White ink not adhering sufficiently.
> Banding.
> Color gamut problems caused by wet color on wet white printing.



Mostly just an overall difference in appearance over the course of the run. You could lay the shirts out and tell some slight dfferences that we were not willing to let pass our QC.

The items you mentioned were not so much the issue, except the final point.


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## printchic

Printzilla said:


> White T's = No problem, do it all th time
> 
> Any T requiring white ink = Problems. We can see inconsistencies over large runs of shirts, that is why we do not do them anymore. We still do alot of 1-3 runs, but no more than that. We have also "spied" on the competition that says they can do it, buy buying 12-24 runs from three of the more vocal proponents, and not one order passed our QC. Shirt 1 would be different than 6, 6 would be different than 14, etc.....
> 
> We invested less than $500.00 bucks to determine that so far nobody (that we can find) has been able to do large runs on Epson based machines using white ink.


Thanks for your honestly on the white ink for DTG. I know you've been working in the DTG industry for several years and know the process well.


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## oroboy

Thank you everyone for your replies; I'm starting to get a better idea of the reasons why it's not economical to do long runs on darks. From what I've been reading in the previous threads, the general idea is that time, cost of ink, and consistancy of print is what makes this not worth while.

Putting aside the consistancy issue for now, what if a customer wanted a large colorful picture printed on the back of 1-200 dark shirts. Say for example, the image was like this:

[MEDIA]http://img297.imageshack.us/img297/6829/battlestargalacticafullto5.jpg[/MEDIA]

*My question is: In a scenario like this envolving the amount of dark shirts mentioned above, with the above image; would it still be more benefital in terms of time, cost, quality, etc. to print with silkscreen rather than DTG?*

It seems to me like it would be pretty much even...


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## out da box

What you dont understand is the speed and cost of printing AFTER you have burned screens and set-up your design. True, with a design as detailed and colorful as this one, the set-up would be difficult, but once it's set-up- it's basically done if printing on an auto. I could print those 200 pcs in less than an hour, also they would all look the same and the ink and materials would cost less than 50.00 total. Now if it were 50 or maybe even 75 or less, then the set-up would not be worth the trouble. I dont have a DTG, but I can bet you that the headaches and the cost of the ink used would make this job a nightmare for you. I doubt you could do 200 saleable pcs in an entire workday- especially if your're just beginning to use the equipment. Just my .0225 cents.


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## fdsales

Based on the image you submitted, you would have to sit down & figure what your art, screen, setup charges, and print cost would be to determine where your "break off" point from DTG to auto press would be. Figure about $300 in art & sep charges, $15 per screen for probably 8 screens, and about $2.00 per print for 100 shirts, and then figuring that DTG cost would be about $5 per shirt, it appears your "break off" cost would be at about 100 shirts. Then there's print appearance. A good printer that uses discharge ink would be able to make this print much "softer" than a DTG print, plus all the shirts would appear pretty much exactly the same in appearance. The more shirts printed, the lower the costs, as the total amount of all your setup gets spread across the total quantity of shirts, so at 200 shirts your print costs may drop to below $4 per shirt.


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## out da box

Brian, you're right on it. It would take a big 10-12 color press though.


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## fdsales

Yes, you're probably right on that. Very interesting design; would really like to see it printed on a DTG printer on a dark shirt. Would be a great "test" print to bring to a tradeshow and have printed on different models of DTG printers.


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## Uncle John

This deign could be done with 4 color process, but I think it lends itself to DTG.
John


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## out da box

Just for kicks, I would like to see somebody print this 4 color process with an underbase on black. Heck I'd be willing to pony up 100.00 to whomever's screen printed design comes out the best.


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## oroboy

The reason I found and posted this design was of course because of the complexity of the image, but more so because I remember as a kid seeing Battlestar Galactica or Buck Roger shirts being worn by other kids, and thought to myself that it was so cool.

You'll notice (or at least I've noticed it) that shirts with these types of images are rare nowadays, probably because of the cost of producing such art on a shirt.


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## oroboy

fdsales said:


> A good printer that uses discharge ink would be able to make this print much "softer" than a DTG print, plus all the shirts would appear pretty much exactly the same in appearance.


Brian, please forgive my newbie ignorance, but what do you mean by "softer."


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## rndubow

One of the most important items to keep in mind when trying to figure out if designs can be printed economically using DTG technology compared to screen print is what machine is doing the printing. There are different cost factors involved with all brands of equipment ranging from cost of ink to cost of machine. 

After reading a lot of the comments on this topic it needs to be made clear that even though digital print is not a perfect medium for any machine, the Kornit printer does have the capability of consistency in design because of the automation of the fixation process as well as lower ink costs and quicker print times. The down fall of the Kornit that a lot of forum members will point out is the very high cost of purchase, but in a volume shop that cost is much negligeable compared to the higher ink costs of other brands of printers. 

Our average order size on our Kornit 931 printers is about 48 pieces. we have succesfully run orders as large as 2500 pieces as well as producing many orders that are 1 piece. I suggest you do your homework and check out all options for print methods before determing whcih one fits your business model.


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## zoom_monster

oroboy said:


> ..........but what do you mean by "softer."


 Oro, The "softer" refers to the feel of the ink. If plastisol is used (screenprinting) you get high opacity, but you also get a vinyl feel to the ink. Discharge ink basically bleaches the garment and then a waterbase ink is applied. This will give a softer feel such as you get with DTG. You could do this design in just 4CP with underbase, but to really do it right, a printer will use spot plates of out of gamut colors as well as highlight white. The main advantages of the screening process is the saturation of the colors and the fact that you can use exact colors rather that rely on what CMYK will give you. A dis-advantage with screening is the lower resolution of halftones and dot technology and the cost of creating "separations" and the set up time and cost before even printing one shirt.


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## Belquette

Oroboy,

Here is your image that I copied
and pasted into PS. 
Hit print and here is your image printed live. [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swENQx0wBAI[/media]

It's just that easy, hey also take note of the time this took. 

Mark
Belquette Inc


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## sunnydayz

Thanks Mark, Its nice to see how they are printed for people who havent seen the dtg's print.


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## oroboy

Dang! That was awesome Mark! Thanks bro. I kinda feel bad that you went through all that trouble just toshow how it could be done though... I really do appreciate it!

What machine do you own by the way?


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## Belquette

oroboy said:


> Dang! That was awesome Mark! Thanks bro. I kinda feel bad that you went through all that trouble just toshow how it could be done though... I really do appreciate it!
> 
> What machine do you own by the way?


Your welcome but it was no big deal and I liked the image and wanted to see how it would turn out.

Actually we manufacture the Flexi-jet and mod1 printer line so we have them on line ready to print all the time.

In time I will show some production runs that hit some real Olympic world records.......that even Phelps may take notice of.

PS: To answer your initial question: 
Big orders should not be a problem.

Mark


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## out da box

Impressive. I wonder what would be the total production time for 200pcs including pretreatment and curing. And the total ink cost for the job. Now for anything less than 75 pcs, I'd find that 2:17 print time from DTG to be hard to beat.


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## Rodney

Belquette said:


> Oroboy,
> 
> Here is your image that I copied
> and pasted into PS.
> Hit print and here is your image printed live. [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swENQx0wBAI[/media]
> 
> It's just that easy, hey also take note of the time this took.
> 
> Mark
> Belquette Inc


That was neat to see  Thanks for taking the time to post that, Mark.

What was that white "film" that seemed to happen on the first pass? I don't think I've seen that before. It was interesting watching it disappear and see the image come to life on the second pass.

I think it would also be helpful to show the loading of the t-shirt on the DTG machine and how it's lined up before the "print" button is pressed, as well as the curing time afterwards with the heat press. That would give a better idea of how long it takes to print one and then folks could extrapolate that into printing "big orders".

It would be interesting to calculate the total costs and time for that type order with DTG and screen printing for 200 pieces (or whatever would be considered a "big order" to the original poster)


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## Uncle John

The white on the first pass is ink, its the underlay.


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## Belquette

out da box said:


> Impressive. I wonder what would be the total production time for 200pcs including pretreatment and curing. And the total ink cost for the job. Now for anything less than 75 pcs, I'd find that 2:17 print time from DTG to be hard to beat.


Printing and curing are done simultaneously.
This image was 11 x 6.5 and took just over 2 minutes and used $1.40 in total ink, the white being about $1.15 of that. This based on a cost of $280.00 per liter.

It would be very feasible to average 2.3 minutes per print (cured) considering the shirts are pre-pretreated.

So it would take about 8 hours to print 200 black shirts this size on a single machine, now if you add another you can effectively double your capacity with redundancy.



> I'd find that 2:17 print time from DTG to be hard to beat


Thank you, the "mod1" this was printed on was built for speed while retaining detail.

Mark
Belquette Inc

[media]http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s192/marquettestuff/star1.jpg[/media]
Printed on Belquette's mod1.


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## zoom_monster

Belquette said:


> Printing and curing are done simultaneously.


So does this mean UV, air dry or what?


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## Belquette

> _Printing and curing are done simultaneously._





> So does this mean UV, air dry or what?



No,when I said curing "simultaneously" I meant that as one shirt is printing you are curing another since the cycle times are generally about 2+ minutes with load/unload times which is what time you need to cure the 2 ink layers.

Mark
Belquette Inc


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## Rodney

Uncle John said:


> The white on the first pass is ink, its the underlay.


That's what I was thinking, but it looked like it put down an underlay that was like a rectangle. Does that mean it went back over the underlay with black (and other color) inks?


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## Uncle John

It's my understanding the rip program knows where to put the white underlay, then it prints the other colors with the exception of the white which is already there. These machines and software are taking over the world...lol.
John


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## sunnydayz

It looks like Rodney that the design is a rectangle so it layed a white layer first that looks like a rectangle and then the color layer, which is also a rectangle but with alot of black so, alot of it blended.


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## Belquette

Right, right and right, this particular image was created using a feature called (under base entire image) in the RIP.
I know it's hard to tell in the video but the white layer does reflect the color outlines and gradients, if you look closer you can see a inverse ghost like effect in the darker area's.
It's not an just a white uniform rectangle, that's just tooo easy!

Mark
Belquette Inc


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## Uncle John

First off I would like to personally thank Mark for the awesome post. Its people like him that make this a special place!! Educating the masses is not easy...lol. If you payed attention he downloaded a jpg and made a Tee-shirt, plus filmed it for us. What a great guy.
I know this is a competitor, but I think it will give a different view of the underlay.Thanks again, Mark

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eyhany9Zkc[/media]
I have no clue who weststar is...lol just a utube vid.


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## Belquette

Thank you Uncle John.

Some times I just need to get away from the design aspects and play.

Mark


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## kevrokr

Very impressive, Mark.


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## Uncle John

Keven, Its been my experience when one door closes a new one opens, Good Luck, John


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## sunnydayz

Belquette said:


> Right, right and right, this particular image was created using a feature called (under base entire image) in the RIP.
> I know it's hard to tell in the video but the white layer does reflect the color outlines and gradients, if you look closer you can see a inverse ghost like effect in the darker area's.
> It's not an just a white uniform rectangle, that's just tooo easy!
> 
> Mark
> Belquette Inc


 
Your right Mark  I was just expaining it in a more simple way, but yes my rip is the same, if you see the white layer print you can definately see the difference across the image having different amounts of white ink depending on what color and detail is where.


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## GPI

Hey Mark I got a question. How come with so much black you choose to create a solid box. I would assume you would eliminate the unneccesary ink use.


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## Naga

Belquette said:


> Printing and curing are done simultaneously.


I think this point is crucial to get good, consistent quality. Printing wet in wet can be as unpredictable as the weather (literally). As I see it, printing on a cured (or semi cured) white should be more like printing on a coated paper. But maybe I am just guessing.

When curing in the machine, what about heat pressing? Wouldn't a second curing in heat press improve washability?


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## oroboy

Uncle John said:


> First off I would like to personally thank Mark for the awesome post. Its people like him that make this a special place!! Educating the masses is not easy...lol.


That's an understatement John, lol. It truly is amazing that this forum has individuals such as Mark willing to go "up and above the call of duty" to make/prove a point... which was well taken BTW (at least by me). I can't thank you enough Mark...

I've never seen or heard of the mod-1 printer line before; is that a custom machine that you folks make? I've never seen (at least not on youtube/video) a DTG machine print a full color image on a dark shirt within 2 minutes... usually it's like 6 minutes or more. 

-Joe


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## Naga

GPI said:


> Hey Mark I got a question. How come with so much black you choose to create a solid box. I would assume you would eliminate the unneccesary ink use.


Marks "white box" is not completely white. There is a ghost image. 

The white base is typically made so dense, that it is not required to modify the color image. As the white layer is very opaque, it may be difficult to hit exacly the gray tone wanted with the white alone if you try to make a more graded base.

The approach used by Mark will give smaller errors, than the more economical one you suggests. Just my 0.02.

These files are made theoretically as you suggests, maybe somebody wants to try.


----------



## Belquette

Naga said:


> Marks "white box" is not completely white. There is a ghost image.
> 
> The white base is typically made so dense, that it is not required to modify the color image. As the white layer is very opaque, it may be difficult to hit exactly the gray tone wanted with the white alone if you try to make a more graded base.
> 
> The approach used by Mark will give smaller errors, than the more economical one you suggests. Just my 0.02.
> 
> These files are made theoretically as you suggests, maybe somebody wants to try.


Nice separation, for this particular image (photo like) I decided the easiest method was.... well...just easy.
There are so many subtle gradations fading to black that it would look odd having the black cotton show. 
Generally the technique of using a complete mask works better with vector art that has sharp lines. 

The white layer you created may not actually cover enough of the black fibers in the dark area's that could allow those nasty little fibers to poke their head out.


----------------------------------------------------


> I've never seen (at least not on youtube/video) a DTG machine print a full color image on a dark shirt within 2 minutes... usually it's like 6 minutes or more.


Thank you Joe,

Extensive work when into this platform. 
Your right there are no machines that I know of that have the throughput of the mod1.

The mod1 is a stand alone unit that can be expanded to multiple units for real production speeds that will allow for under 1 minute dark's.



> I've never seen or heard of the mod-1 printer line before


The mod1 is Belquette's latest platform built to accommodate many substrates. 
This machine just want's to run....,
but when its' not running the mod1 go into "night mode' 
at that point and actually during operation some very advanced robotic mechanisms preform routines that keep your systems ink as fresh as the day is was made. 

Mark
Belquette Inc


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## Rodney

Naga said:


> Marks "white box" is not completely white. There is a ghost image.


Thanks for that image to go with the "ghost image" term. I read it, but didn't understand what was meant. 

That makes more sense now. I thought it was as solid white opaque rectangle.

So bringing this back on the topic of "big orders on a DTG machine", would you say it's possible to compete with screen printing on price and costs for a 200 piece order like that image. It could definitely be screen printed.

Any screen printers have a breakdown of costs they could share for that type image?


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## GPI

Mark, please excuse me I do not mena to discredit the video but at 11x6.5 I feel the image is to small to boast on speed. Saying that if the print was at what most people consider average like a 10x12 that wouldput at about 4min and some change putting up there with DTG any other printers.


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## TahoeTomahawk

GPI said:


> Mark, please excuse me I do not mena to discredit the video but at 11x6.5 I feel the image is to small to boast on speed. Saying that if the print was at what most people consider average like a 10x12 that wouldput at about 4min and some change putting up there with DTG any other printers.


I disagree, we just ran a little over 200 dark / black shirts with a very similar image size and each print took a little over 7 min on our Kiosk. This is a significant speed increase.

Matched with a conveyor dryer and an auto pretreat center, I could see some serious volume being put through.


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## Belquette

> Mark, please excuse me I do not mena to discredit the video but at 11x6.5 I feel the image is to small to boast on speed. Saying that if the print was at what most people consider average like a 10x12 that wouldput at about 4min and some change putting up there with DTG any other printers.


That just happened to be the size of the file that someone posted earlier in this thread.
So I printed a 12 x 10 for fun, _it is fun_!

Here is the live video of a 12 x 10 on a black T printing in real time.
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnslzzy-HxQ[/media]
We also need to evaluate printing on white or light product production times.

Since the *mod1 *is designed for rapid 2nd pass we showed it in that mode. Even though it could complete this 12 x 10 image in 45 seconds that look great the 2nd pass (in my opinion) looks extraordinary.
The decision to 2nd pass is entirely up to what you feel is good, but since the *mod1* was specifically designed for rapid 2nd pass modes i think you may start considering to use it as we feel it stands alone in a crowd.

Here is the live video of a 12 x 10 printing 2 passes on white.
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnGNuuqb5cE[/media]


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## Belquette

But I digress,


> Are big orders really THAT bad for DTG machines?


I would have to say...no, they should be easy, at least that's how we feel.


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## odgraphics

Hey Mark, impressive. i definitely like.
1. How much wa$ the Dark $hirt print?
2. And why isn't it released?
3. Also are you going to release thru Flexi dealers or direct?


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## Belquette

Thank you,


1: $2.05 for the white @color /$.23 on the white T
2: The *mod1* is in beta testing while assembly lines are being setup
3: Initially direct sale and supported by Belquette


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## Rodney

odgraphics said:


> Hey Mark, impressive. i definitely like.
> 1. How much wa$ the Dark $hirt print?
> 2. And why isn't it released?
> 3. Also are you going to release thru Flexi dealers or direct?


I don't know why, but watching a video of the DTG machine printing an image from start to finish is fun 

There's info about the MOD 1 printer on the belquette website: Specialty Purpose Printers Looks like it will be available in the Fall.

Feel free to click on Mark's username to send him a Private Message for more detailed sales info about the machine.


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## odgraphics

$2.28 is not bad. 

Do you have a price yet and what is the max print size HxW?


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## Belquette

odgraphics said:


> $2.28 is not bad.
> 
> Do you have a price yet and what is the max print size HxW?


Actually it was $2.05 total on the black T and $0.23 on the white T, sorry if that was confusing.



> Do you have a price yet and what is the max print size HxW?


The max print area is 13 inches W x 18 inches L. The standard platen size is 12.6 x 18"
The final price has not been nailed down yet, ..but I can say that if one compares price vs performance it becomes quite clear. 
Hope I do not overstep my boundaries here...
--------


PS: Thank you Rodney, I agree showing the entire process takes all the speculations regarding print times and puts them into the real world. 
Sometimes the specs manufacturers give can be a bit inflated, so I hope this type of live data can be helpful for those weighing cost figures between different technologies.


----------



## out da box

2.03 * 200= 406.00 ink cost. 1 job- 1 day. Still kinda looks scary cost-wise unless you can charge a premium. Technology looks impressive and the print speed is killer.


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## Belquette

out da box said:


> 2.03 * 200= 406.00 ink cost. 1 job- 1 day. Still kinda looks scary cost-wise unless you can charge a premium. Technology looks impressive and the print speed is killer.


ODB,

Since I'm not a screen printer or never have what would be the cost to set up a full color process screen job? 
If you subtract the time and cost of setup from this amount is it still scary? I'm not being sarcastic, I really do not know!

I know you focused on the black print cost but in using the same math $0.23 x 200 = $46.00 in ink printing on a white product does sound better 

Curious thanks ?
_
I can also safely say that the more white ink an entity would use should reduce the cost per liter, at least that how it works when buying in quantity for most products._


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## out da box

Honestly that job I see as 7-8 colors simulated process. $250.00 set-up and ink. Total time=4 hours.
Somebody can chime in if these numbers are way off.


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## Belquette

> Honestly that job I see as 7-8 colors simulated process. $250.00 set-up and ink. Total time=4 hours.
> Somebody can chime in if these numbers are way off.


Thank you, so really the difference may be about $150 - 200 so as you said one would need to charge a bit of a premium say $1-2 more per item. I think that most dtg print shops charge a PREMUIM well above (some many more x) this especially for lower runs that should cover the additional costs.

Is the setup cost ($250.00 set-up and ink) the same for printing on the black as well as the white?


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## odgraphics

How much will the MOD1 be?


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## out da box

Waaay less work on white- probably do it 4 color process. Set-up and ink 150.00- ......

all of my set-up numbers are worst case scenarios taking every single thing I can thnik of into effect- I don't think I spend that much money on setups....

But the job time would be 2-3 hours.


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## Belquette

odgraphics said:


> How much will the MOD1 be?



You are a direct shooter!
I do not mean to side step this question but we will have a better idea after the production models roll off our line as to the exact figure.
What I can tell you that it will be priced comparably to other printers of the same format (size), but that's where the comparisons end.


Is that good enough for now, be kind


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## out da box

The costs are commenserate- if that's a word- but the labor hours are less also. I think it's safe to say that it all depends on your average volume and average screen count. 

Small volume- high customization- bunch of colors=DTG
Large volume- midrange customization- few to many colors= auto screen press.
Lot of money to spend- get both and lock it down!


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## Belquette

> Lot of money to spend- get both and lock it down!


_*Well said!*_


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## T printz

I think you want to make sure that the dtg machine you pick is one that was built for textile printing and not just a modified Epson paper printer (ex. basically an Epson printer with the only real modification being the tray accomodates t-shirts).

I know there are differences between machines that are purposely built for textile printing vs. those other types. Check for that when considering which machine to get. We run an anajet and haven't had any problems with larger dark orders. however, we run the machine almost daily (except Sundays) and are very picky to do the required maintenance - so our dtg works great. Had one issue, but that with our settings...that caused the dark shirts to not hold color well after being washed a few times. Changed the amount of ink we put into the garment, and now the wash fastness is fine (never had problems with the consistency either...we saved the settings and they print the same). 

DTg is good for up to 250 and maybe even 400-500, but for more than than, we use screen printing and hopefully get orders that don't require much color or detail for graphics


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## sunnydayz

You might want to check because last I heard, and know is that the anajet is an epson based printer  The only printers that are not epson based are the brother and the kornit.


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## Belquette

> I think you want to make sure that the dtg machine you pick is one that was built for textile printing and not just a modified Epson paper printer (ex. basically an Epson printer with the only real modification being the tray accomodates t-shirts).


T-

With all due respect, the machine you own is based off an Epson 1800, if you where told different then....
As far as "the real only modification statement", if I showed you the amount of engineering and modifications that went into making a robust and industrialized flat bed printer using _any _print engine you may have a different view. 
It's how you approach the design and account for wear factors among many others aspects too great to get into that make the difference between a machine using similar engines, _and there are great differences between models_.

I agree that with your single head Anajet you may want consider screening it in the 400-500 range.


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## bob emb

I have read all the posts on the big orders for DTG. Everyone both silkscreeners and dtg'er have their points. But I would have a hard time bvelieving that an ANAJET or and HM1 or a T_JET single pallete should even tackle 100 plus dark shirt orders. None of those machines on their best day are capable of 10 dark prints at 10x12 inches.

Point made I have a KORNIT 932NDS. I can print 25 1 offs in an hour and 35 darks 10x12" of the same image in 1 hour. Not nearly as fast as a silkscreen, but if the order is100 shirts I can compete and my ink costs are not even close to the other printers 150-200% less.

Yes on occassion the dtg's and even my KORNIT get tempermental nd cause you to want to be bald --then you cannot pull your hair out. As Dubrow in MN. so artfully said the KORNIT can compete, I have done runs up to 600 shirts.

Never having silkscreened i cannot image doing a 4 color process with 8 screens for 500 pieces being done in 1 hour , can someone explain that to me.

Bob


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## out da box

An auto can print 6,7,8, or more colors simultaneously and produce a finished shirt every 6 seconds. Point being, what is your target niche. On large volume- you just cant match the speed once the screens are set-up. On the other hand it takes a LOT of skill and A LOT of materials, chemicals, equipment, and space. I can still just imagine the nightmare pretreating, printing, heat pressing 100 or 200 dark tees on a DTG machine would be. I used to do a lot of heat transfers, so believe me I know the routine. 
That being said, 1-50 or even 100 pcs is definitely a niche market out there. I turn folks away every day because I dont want to customize 1-6 shirts for a customer.


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## tshirtsep

out da box said:


> I can still just imagine the nightmare pretreating, printing, heat pressing 100 or 200 dark tees on a DTG machine would be. I used to do a lot of* heat transfers*, so believe me I know the routine.
> That being said, 1-50 or even 100 pcs is definitely a niche market out there. I turn folks away every day because I dont want to customize 1-6 shirts for a customer.


Are "heat transfers" the same type of process we are talking about with these digital garment printers?

Is there personal hand required heat pressing involved?

Aren't Heat transfers basically "paper stickers" whereas digital garment printers print ink/paint directly onto the shirt like silkscreening?


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## sunnydayz

No I think hes just referring to when he did transfers. Dtg is printing directly on the shirt but you have to press to cure the ink.


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## tshirtsep

sunnydayz said:


> No I think hes just referring to when he did transfers. Dtg is printing directly on the shirt but you have to press to cure the ink.



Ahh, so no running bulk quantities thru a conveyor dryer like silkscreening? 
... so Dtg's have to be pressed individually AFTER "each" one is printed?

That sux.


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## Belquette

tshirtsep said:


> Ahh, so no running bulk quantities thru a conveyor dryer like silkscreening and Dtg's have to be pressed individually AFTER "each" one is printed?


Yes you can use a dryer to cure DTG printed shirts, many do, however pressing is usually the preferred method.


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## Rodney

Belquette said:


> Yes you can use a dryer to cure DTG printed shirts, many do, however pressing is usually the preferred method.


That's very interesting. Makes it even more viable for a screen printer who has a conveyor dryer already running for the other jobs.

They can print the short run, onsie/twosie jobs, put them on the conveyor with the other jobs going through, and still stay productive.

Very interesting stuff. I definitely think the heat pressing each one to cure really does slow down the overall process, but this thread is starting to convince me of the viability of DTG  Lots of possibilities.


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## treadhead

Rodney said:


> I definitely think the heat pressing each one to cure really does slow down the overall process,


With a smaller DTG (T Jet 2), it acutally takes longer to print the shirt than it does to press the shirt in most cases so it really doesn't slow things down much. Now, for the faster machines, yes...it would become the bottle-neck and a converyor would be better if not another press.


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## sunnydayz

yes I know the kornit owners use the conveyer for drying, but I have heard that the inks do not cure well in the conveyer with the dupont white. I know that I have heard others say printing color ink it works fine, but the white does not cure well in the conveyer. 

Is anyone here curing the dupont white in a conveyor? This would be interesting if that could work. but I also agree with treadhead that it usually takes longer for printing with the white ink and color then it does curing. For me I am still using the R and H inks along with the dupont white and my cure time is only 2 1/2 minutes so and my print time is around 3 minutes so I keep a pretty steady line moving


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## TahoeTomahawk

sunnydayz said:


> yes I know the kornit owners use the conveyer for drying, but I have heard that the inks do not cure well in the conveyer with the dupont white. I know that I have heard others say printing color ink it works fine, but the white does not cure well in the conveyer.
> 
> Is anyone here curing the dupont white in a conveyor? This would be interesting if that could work. but I also agree with treadhead that it usually takes longer for printing with the white ink and color then it does curing. For me I am still using the R and H inks along with the dupont white and my cure time is only 2 1/2 minutes so and my print time is around 3 minutes so I keep a pretty steady line moving


I am. Washability is great. I like the way it retains color over the heat press. The only problem is that the texture is crispy compared to the heat press. So we usually do a 30 second press on darks after running it through the conveyor to get it nice and smooth again.


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## sunnydayz

I was hoping you would answer Adam as I remember you getting ready to start curing this way. does the crispy feeling go away after the short press? I'm glad its working well with the white ink.


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## sharktees

Very interesting thread so far.The one thing is that no one has talked about the price of a 8,10,12 color auto plus the cost of a dryer and the space you need to own or rent in order to run these presses.Also what about the time and cost of clean up and reclaiming of the screens and disposal of the waste.Not to mention the manpower you must pay to run an auto.I think you have to take each job and carefully look at which way to print it.We use both methods and have been surprised when we really break down the costs.its never really black and white.


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## TahoeTomahawk

sunnydayz said:


> I was hoping you would answer Adam as I remember you getting ready to start curing this way. does the crispy feeling go away after the short press? I'm glad its working well with the white ink.


Hi Bobbie, yes the crispy feeling goes away after the short press and it becomes nice and smooth again.
The biggest benifit IMO is on white / light shirts. We could never get the perfect balance of heat / time / pressure without either leaving a yellowish box or having fading issues on white. The dryer eliminates those problems. In Fact, I am amazed at the washability on whites. If you read some of my older posts, I wrote that I prefere DTG on darks rather than whites because of the fading on white shirts. With the dryer, I cannot see any initial color loss that we were used to with the heat press. I have a shirt that we've washed about 8 times now. I like to put it next to another shirt that was dryed the same way but not washed. People have a very hard time picking out the one that was washed, and if they do it's because they can see other parts of the shirt towards the bottom that looks like it came from the dryer. The print itself is very hard to tell that it's been washed 8 times.

For our shop,the dryer was one of our best investments, followed by our Vinyl Plotter.


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## the funk

sharktees said:


> Very interesting thread so far.The one thing is that no one has talked about the price of a 8,10,12 color auto plus the cost of a dryer and the space you need to own or rent in order to run these presses.Also what about the time and cost of clean up and reclaiming of the screens and disposal of the waste.Not to mention the manpower you must pay to run an auto.I think you have to take each job and carefully look at which way to print it.We use both methods and have been surprised when we really break down the costs.its never really black and white.


Im also curious to know how much screen print shops pay the employee who can successfully setup an 8+ color simulated or a 4 color process job as compared to what a dtg print shop pays their employees. It would seem that setup like that would demand a much higher hourly rate.


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## out da box

10.00/HR - Wages are cheap in the sticks.


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## bob emb

r set-up is very different than your conventioanl DTG. I talked to a friend today and he gave me the same explanation that you did. Now I know how you can dow 500 per hour.

You are also correct our market is up to 200 pieces. Thanks for the info.

Bob


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## gburgbeemer

here is a case study of DTG vs Screen printing and why i choose DTG:

The order is for approx 500 dark colored to black 100% cotton shirts for a little league baseball organization. There are approximately 40 teams with 12-15 kids per team. Each shirt has the sponsor name and either a one or two digit number and a small logo on the left shoulder. The sponsor names and numbers were all in white. I use a contract screen printer that has some of the best pricing i have found anywhere. When I used their contract pricing the screen priting itself was realtively inexpensive but then I started adding in the screen and film charges for 40 sponsors, the digits, the shoulder logo and all the flash charges and the set up fees alone made my cost per shirt over $3.00. I also priced heat press names and numbers and they would have been over $3.00 per shirt. I printed some samples with my DTG and the ink costs were under $2.00 even with pretreatment added in and two digits in white ink only. I went with the DTG.


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## DAGuide

Just one question. Is the $2.00 amount you mentioned above the cost of just the pretreatment and white ink or does it also include the labor and any potential mistakes? 

Let's assume that number does not count labor. Considering most of the dtg printers will average 6 to 10 dark shirts an hour, you would have to pay yourself less than $10.00 an hour and you have the opportunity cost of using yourr time on this job instead of working on another job. Based on those numbers, I might strongly consider contracting the job out to a screen printer and use that 50 hours (assuming 10 shirts an hour for the 500 shirts) doing other things. The $1.00 difference in pricing (total of $500) does not seem that much when you look at the total hours you would spend on the job.

Just an alternative way to think about it. Great discussion.

Mark


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## Naga

If you have employees, and the order book is not full, it's nice to have some big low profit jobs to fill up the production capacity.


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## rndubow

That is the problem with this industry, having big LOW PROFIT jobs to fill production. Based on the conversation and the analysis not only is this a low profit job, it is a non-profit job. There is no way you can come close to covering costs when your ink cost is $2.00 per shirt and you are only going to charge $3.00. Not only will your labor costs eat that up how about direct overhead? Unless your utility company doesn't charge anything, your landlord doesn't want rent, or your banker doesn't want interest etc. you don't have a chance of coming out ahead on this project. Don't forget to add back the non-monetary costs as well like depreciation into the formula.

Maybe things are different in Bangkok, but in the United Sates this is definitely not a good business decision.


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## Naga

In the post from gburgbeemer I referred to, the profit level was not mentioned. But the costs making 500 pcs. was found comparable. It was nowhere mentioned, that it was made with zero profit.

If the order book is full, let the job go to a subcontractor, and make the product where it is cheapest.
If there are holes in your order book, fill them - provided you don't have direct cost per shirt, that's exceeding the subcontractor's price.


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## DAGuide

Naga,

I agree with most of what you are saying. However, the concept of dtg printing is to be able to do short run jobs on a short notice. So, although the books might be open for a job to be done... this does not mean that other jobs might not come up. This is what I was referring to as the opportunity cost (i.e. if you take a job, you are not going to be able to do another job in the same timeframe or that you could be spending your time doing other marketing to get new jobs). Based on the numbers mentioned above, if this poster did this job... it would basically take a week only to make $500.00 in additional profits. Thus, I think it might be better to outsource the job and spend that week of time getting more jobs that you could make more than $500.00 off of. That is what I was trying to say above.

Mark


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## out da box

I cannot see the wisdom of doing that particular 500pc job on one med speed DTG machine at wholesale prices. Premium pricing-maybe- 2.00-3.00/pc- sounds like a loss especially considering the labor/hours.


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## abmcdan

I say run the numbers and do what you think is right for YOUR business. Everyone else has different overhead costs and situations, so a job that is profitable and worth it to you might be a money loser for someone else.


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## Naga

Mark,

I can only agree with what you say here. There must be enough slack in the planning, so other orders can be made in between. If the order is urgent, it should also be reflected in the price.


----------



## danlund

oroboy said:


> Hello everyone, I'm considering getting into the printing business, and have been lurking on this as well as other forums for the past few weeks soaking up the wealth of knowledge concerning DTG printing. I've noticed that alot of posts make mention of the fact that doing bulk orders with a DTG machine is not cost effective.
> 
> I'm in a market where there are a lot of people who are starting their own t-shirt line/brand/label, and are silk screening their shirts. Average orders range from 100 - 200 shirts for these people (partly because they need at least that much to put in a silk screen order) to about 500. ALOT of these shirts that are coming out are at max maybe 4 colors, and have simple graphics (or none at all), and a lot of text. I think that because of the amount of screens and cost involved to make colorful shirts is what keeps these people from making more elaborate designs for their t shirts.
> 
> That's where I want to come in. To be able to offer full/multi color prints to clients without a minimum amount they have to order, but also not a maximum amount either. I have taken an interest in SWF East/Mesa's line of DTG machines, particularly the Bullet. I'm looking at the Bullet because of the amount of shirts that it can print in an hour (I've read that the manufactures give faster than average print times), and that it can print on darks... which most people tend to buy. Another great feature of the Bullet that I like is the ability to print larger oversize images on a shirt. There are a lot of big boys here in Hawaii, and finding t shirts for people who wear 4-6X is rather difficult; not mention the print is usually small because of the shirt size. I wanna be able to cover up the back (at least proportion wise) of these large-size shirts. I know these big boys would be willing to pay between $20 -$25 bucks for a t shirt, because that's how much they are paying now for shirts here in Hawaii... and for designs they probably might not even care for.
> 
> At about $40,000 dollars, the Bullet ain't by no means cheap... I was planning on leasing the machine, as well as leasing a HM-1 for smaller jobs. Do you folks think this is a feasible plan as far as which type/size of machine to get? Will the cost of printing on big-boy shirts, and bulk orders on dark shirts not be worth it even if I get a high-capacity machine like the Bullet? Any thoughts/comments?


I wouldnt do it. If you want to find out how good the market is buy a used dtg. I own a tjet 2 they are all the same pretty much. people like screen printing better its just a fact. Its also cheaper to do 6-7 color jobs of a hundred screening them vs dtg. It takes forever to print on darks also. Not to mention the misprints.


----------



## gburgbeemer

You are speaking of two different business accounting things here. Cost of goods sold vs expenses. Cost of goods sold is used to determine gross profit (revenue - cogs = gross profit) Net profit is figured after gross profit and includes all the other expenses including my salary or hourly wage if you will. Since Cost of goods sold is one of the basic factors i need in order to determine what my profit margins are (the others are all my fixed costs, variable costs and wages) going to be i was limiting my comments to just that. My salary or hourly wage is figured as an expense and is built into my profit margin and is only one factor in determing what my profit margin per job is going to be (and that should be variable depending on the markets i am operating in).


----------



## Parkwood

This is a great thread, with many excellent responses.

I subscribe to this message board and another which covers DTG printing. I would say there are two very clear messages that get delivered, again and again:

1) The Brother is widely praised as an excellent machine with almost no problems whatsoever.
2) At best, printing on darks with a white under base, *AT BEST*, is always a little bit of a hassle.

I believe for some time it was widely accepted in the DTG community that Kornit was the solution to hassle-free white, under-base, dark printing. But if you have read the saga of Justin Walker's apparent customer abuse by Kornit, you might be doubting whether Kornit, at any price, is a wise DTG choice.

What I find refreshing about Brother is that they have 1 machine, one model. So many of the other manufacturers are constantly coming out with the latest and greatest, newest model. Sort of a Holy Grail search...and we know where those journeys usually end. Brother stays with it's one model---because it works and has an excellent reputation.

Oroboy. Are you simply seeking a way to start a profitable t-shirt printing business in Hawaii? Is it important to you which niche you fill?

If you do not want to run a screen printing shop, but would rather operate a DTG business, I would suggest that you find a customer niche that you can serve who will use small runs of beautiful designs on light colored garments. Forget darks. 

I would think that custom designs for all those gift shops on the main and other Islands would be the perfect product for the Brother.

Perhaps your service will not only be production driven but design driven. Seems like there is incredible opportunity for great design and photo realistic prints on whites and lights. Think about it. Most screen printers have a hassle with 4C printing and many don't want to deal with it. For DTG, it's a breeze. If you go with DTG, seek out its strengths, not its weakness (white, underbase printing).

Most businesses come down to marketing and their success or failure depends upon the ability to get business. With DTG, you can run off a sample shirt and present it to gift shops, with their name or some salable copy that resonates with tourists. Screen printers can't do this. Do enough samples and eventually you will find some monster items, that just keep retailing and retailing.

In any case, I suspect you will find your direction and be successful. You composed a good opening message and that led to great participation by some very smart people in this community. I think you got the attention of many folks, because your messages are well composed and your responses show that you are listening.

Good luck.


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## Belquette

> What I find refreshing about Brother is that they have 1 machine, one model. So many of the other manufacturers are constantly coming out with the latest and greatest, newest model. Sort of a Holy Grail search...and we know where those journeys usually end. Brother stays with it's one model---because it works and has an excellent reputation.


May I point out ( as a manufacturer) that the Brother machine is a simple CMYK machine, so there really should be no issues, _no more so then any other simple CMYK printer. (depending who make's it)
_ 
If you take note some other newer printers that run color inks (with the option to run white) can produce better results and in some cases faster, and definitively less expensive.

The strive to forge beyond this simple CMYK configuration is where the fun starts, and the challenges begin with the addition of more channels and white pigments along with all the over head needed to correctly control it.
Done correctly, it becomes transparent to the end user and can be as easy as running a CMYK print.

Innovations in new technologies will allow users more flexibility with greater speeds that will give them the edge over their competition running yesterdays machines.

Mark
Belquette Inc


PS:


> Most businesses come down to marketing and their success or failure depends upon the ability to get business. With DTG, you can run off a sample shirt and present it to gift shops, with their name or some salable copy that resonates with tourists. Screen printers can't do this. Do enough samples and eventually you will find some monster items, that just keep retailing and retailing


.

 agree


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## Parkwood

Belquette said:


> May I point out ( as a manufacturer) that the Brother machine is a simple CMYK machine, so there really should be no issues, _no more so then any other simple CMYK printer. (depending who make's it)
> _
> If you take note some other newer printers that run color inks (with the option to run white) can produce better results and in some cases faster, and definitively less expensive.
> 
> The strive to forge beyond this simple CMYK configuration is where the fun starts, and the challenges begin with the addition of more channels and white pigments along with all the over head needed to correctly control it.
> Done correctly, it becomes transparent to the end user and can be as easy as running a CMYK print.
> 
> Innovations in new technologies will allow users more flexibility with greater speeds that will give them the edge over their competition running yesterdays machines.
> 
> Mark
> Belquette Inc


And therein is the brilliance of Brother's marketing. Brother released a machine that works and keeps on working. BUT, by not trying to develop and sell a white ink machine (possibly before its time) it did not dilute the Brother DTG brand. Brother gets a premium for its machine and its ink because of its solid reputation. And its competitors are left having to point out that in CMYK mode it's just another printer that performs well on whites and brights.

I am surprised that another manufacturer does not compete with Brother by manufacturing *ONLY* a CMYK machine that performs great and completely ignore the white ink temptation as the common hassles and headaches of white ink printing have potential to bring down the brand. The goal would be to build the brand based upon reliability and to compete with Brother by offering a sharply priced machine and much lower ink cost. I am talking about a brand, not just another model number under an already tarnished brand name.


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## Belquette

> I am surprised that another manufacturer does not compete with Brother by manufacturing *ONLY* a CMYK machine that performs great and completely ignore the white ink temptation


That's easy, just do not put white ink in (if your your not ready) or better yet run dual CMYK and you will exceed your expectations.

Mark


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## Parkwood

Belquette said:


> That's easy, just do not put white ink in (if your your not ready) or better yet run dual CMYK and you will exceed your expectations.
> 
> Mark


Well, that was the point. But Brother appears to be the only one doing it. Others dilute their brand's reputation by offering white ink machines.


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## Belquette

Parkwood said:


> Well, that was the point. But Brother appears to be the only one doing it. Others dilute their brand's reputation by offering white ink machines.



For some time now many other manufactures have offered both flavors, via RIP selections.
So Brother is not the only on one doing it.

Sorry but I have difficulty inside a box.

If you are ever the Tampa area and want to test drive a "newer car" your always welcome to enable the CMYK *ONLY* feature.

Mark

PS:



> Others dilute their brand's reputation by offering white ink machines.


It's ok, I do not consider ourselves as "Others" sounds like a Lost episode...


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## Mistewoods

Parkwood said:


> Well, that was the point. But Brother appears to be the only one doing it. Others dilute their brand's reputation by offering white ink machines.


In terms of big orders- we print about 45 light colored garments per hour (usually 2 per pass)- and up to 90 small prints on things like canvas totes per hour ( 4 per pass) so to us it works to do fairly large orders. Since we work out of our home dtgp is ideal for our setting and space available.

It is true that any manufacturer who provides no testing, weak tech support, weak documentation, lacks appropriate warranty support, or cannot prvide promised necessary upgrades in a timely and functional manner should not have entered the market- as this is truly cheating the customer regardless of the flimsy explanations. I believe it is this and _not the white ink option_ that has tarnished several names in this industry- some never to be trusted again.

However offering well supported _options is the icing on the cake. _We bought the specific printer we chose because white ink is an option- used it for a while- then discontinued using it as we had not gotten near enough demand to justify it. However we looked at the Brother and rejected it based on the CMYK only format. Today we print dual CMYK with virtually no problem. Tomorrow we could load up white ink and go for it if our business plan was to change to require it.

Our bulk system allows us to choose any ink which will work with an Epson print head- another feature we particularly like. Good options are benefits.


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## Parkwood

Belquette said:


> For some time now many other manufactures have offered both flavors, via RIP selections.
> So Brother is not the only on one doing it.


My point is that the other flavors cause the brand problems. So, Brother is the only one doing what I outlined, as far as I know.


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## fdsales

Parkwood said:


> My point is that the other flavors cause the brand problems. So, Brother is the only one doing what I outlined, as far as I know.


I see your point, but understand that Brother has had this CMYK ONLY market cornered for a few years....but they, as well as their competitors, knew this market would be short lived. Consumers want dark shirts, and DTG owners want the OPTION of being able to print white ink, something the CURRENT Brother model does not offer....the OPTION.
Why spend 20K on a system that will NEVER print white ink, rather than spend about the same on a system that has the OPTION to print white ink. This option always leaves the door open to print or not print white ink. 
There's only so much of the CMYK ONLY market to split, so why would another competitor come in & try to compete in a very small DTG market that has already been saturated by a name brand printer. Does not make sense; you need to get ahead of the crowd, not behind it.
That why, even though Brother will not publicly admit it, they are in fact working on a white ink printer.(that has already been confirmed by someone high up in their sales staff personally to me). So even Brother knows that they must get on board with white ink if they're going to stay competitive in this market.


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## sharktees

The ability to print white ink would be great if it didn't so readily cripple those machines that offer that option.I started printing with that option and after a year of headaches and much expense I abandoned it for cmyk only then finally went to the Brother and its been great does the ink cost more you bet,can it print white noway,do I have headaches over DTG printing anymore not at all.All my Ink goes on the garment now not in the waste tank.Its general knowledge that Brother has been working on a machine to print white.Just remember the old story of the turtle and the hare.It will get here only when its right.


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## rndubow

I am a little mystified why a manufacturer doesn't come out with a straight CMYK machine and sell it for practically nothing with the requirement of all ink supplies be purchased through them. This would essentially be the exact same model as the cell phone companies and the wireless dish companies. The money is in the re-occurring revenue of ink, not necessarily the hardware that puts the ink down andwith this model everyone who is asking for cheaper woudl get their wish. In fact with this business model the ones that are asking for cheaper could lower their price to match their neighbor who can now afford to compete against them.


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## Theedge

I’m sure Brother is working on a machine for darks, and if they are, I’m glad they’re keeping it hush hush. I’d rather they do that then to promise continual “upgrades” that only make your machine worse and never satisfactorily print on a dark garment. I’ll easily get my monies worth out of my Brother machine printing on lights only. When a company comes along with a hassle free machine that prints on darks, I’ll take a look at that too.


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## sunnydayz

Ok I have to say that I myself print with white ink and do not have any of the problems that are so often mentioned and that is because I knew what I wanted to do, and I knew the responsibility to the machine to do it. People should not buy white ink printing machines if they do not understand how they work, they then would not have a problem  Any of the dtg machines can do just as good of a job as a brother, with the same amount of care, running only cmyk. The epson based machines have much higher dpi for greater detail, they are thousands cheaper then the brother, and can run just the same if they dont have white ink in them, not only that but the ink is about half the price, as well as the printheads being less then half the price. The nice thing with the epson based machines is that the option is there to run white ink.

I would imagine that if a poll were done for people that have the epson based machines, and if they only run cmyk, you would see very good results as far as ease of use. It would eliminate the so called problems (which are not a problem for me at all  ) that you see people speak of, of white ink machines. I may have to do this to see what the results are 

Its also interesting that people refer to them as white ink machines, they are essentially both white machines and cmyk machines, and can be either. I will work on a poll to see how people with epson based machines feel that only run cmyk. 

As far as doing large runs on my HM1, doing only lights, I can do them for around 30 to 50 cents per print in less than 2 minutes per shirt, with no limit to how many I can do. I only limit the numbers on darks because of the work and ink price that is involved. Doing long runs with with lights is very realistic and not a problem.


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## oroboy

Parkwood said:


> This is a great thread, with many excellent responses.
> 
> Oroboy. Are you simply seeking a way to start a profitable t-shirt printing business in Hawaii? Is it important to you which niche you fill?
> 
> If you do not want to run a screen printing shop, but would rather operate a DTG business, I would suggest that you find a customer niche that you can serve who will use small runs of beautiful designs on light colored garments. Forget darks.
> 
> I would think that custom designs for all those gift shops on the main and other Islands would be the perfect product for the Brother.
> 
> Perhaps your service will not only be production driven but design driven. Seems like there is incredible opportunity for great design and photo realistic prints on whites and lights. Think about it. Most screen printers have a hassle with 4C printing and many don't want to deal with it. For DTG, it's a breeze. If you go with DTG, seek out its strengths, not its weakness (white, underbase printing).
> 
> Most businesses come down to marketing and their success or failure depends upon the ability to get business. With DTG, you can run off a sample shirt and present it to gift shops, with their name or some salable copy that resonates with tourists. Screen printers can't do this. Do enough samples and eventually you will find some monster items, that just keep retailing and retailing.
> 
> In any case, I suspect you will find your direction and be successful. You composed a good opening message and that led to great participation by some very smart people in this community. I think you got the attention of many folks, because your messages are well composed and your responses show that you are listening.
> 
> Good luck.


Thank you for a great reply Parkwood, I do appreciate the kind words and encouragement. I would also like to thank everyone else in this community for adding their valuable insights on the subject. I never thought that this thread would really be as involved as it has become.

I forgot to add to the title the part about big orders of dark shirts, which was my actual question; which everyone picked up on anyway.

In reply to your questions Parkwood, here in Hawaii, the dtg printing method is not really known yet; or if it is, not by the general public in the sense that everbody who wants to get shirts printed here in Hawaii seem to think that screen printing is the only option they have. For the past 5 years or so, it has been a real popular "fad" to start your own t-shirt line or brand. *A LOT* of people want to start their t-shirt business, but don't want to put in large orders (at least in the beginning) that are required by silkscreen shops. If they do make large orders, it's usually with a simple 3-4 color image and/or text, and the images/logos come nowhere close to the images produced by any dtg machine. *Yet*, they sell like hotcakes because everyone wants to get t-shirts from the newest company to enter the local t-shirt market.

Now here's the catch... dark colored shirts are preferred by everyone here in Hawaii. Given an option between a white or black shirt with the same design, the black will always get taken 3 out of 4 times. I *need* the capability to print on dark shirts. I've already been made fully aware of the trouble with white ink, *but* like BobbieLee said, if constant preventive maintainence is done on the machine on a daily basis, the amount of problems should be minimized. Now, I currently work in the transportation industry where the daily ritual is to pre-check the equipment before the work day starts, and to post-check the eqipment after work is done. Following the same philosophy, if I do nozzle cleanings, flushing the lines, etc. both before *and* after the workday, everyday; I think I could potentially avoid a lot of problems.

Now I know this method of preventive maintainence can be costly, but I believe the headaches avoided would be well worth it (now if I'm wasting something like $1000 bucks a month doing this,that's another story).


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## oroboy

Another few points I want to add in...

When people want to make shirts, they usually have to search in the yellow pages and what not. The general public doesn't know who/where/what to do if they want to print their own stuff. Only people who are in the apparel industry know. One thing that apparel printing companies (of which there are only a handful) don't do is advertise. That's what I'm going to do (Sunday sport section full-page ad). I'm going to appeal to the people who want to do small orders and one-off custom shirts, but also emphasize that I can do larger orders as well.

Advertise the fact that I can also print on golfballs, hats, bags, etc.; and I *know* I can (and will) capture a sizeable piece of the printing market.

I have already contacted DTG Digital, and am researching the Eclipse D1 model; I'm also considering driving 2 machines from 1 computer. 

I will be leasing the machines.


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## gburgbeemer

Who said i was making zero profit? I am making a very decent profit (net not gross) on this job. Another point i would like to make is that everyone (who is not a retailer) bids on jobs that have varying amounts of profit margins. Sometimes I wonder if folks in this forum relaize that not everyone is a retail establishment. Some of us are value added distributors and the profit points are going to be substantially different that a retailer. One of my biggest customers resells my decorated wearables to their customers. i would not have any of that business if I tried to sell to them at retail prices. AND I make a good profit from my sales to them. My profit margins vary depending on the market I am selling into and the customer.


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## odgraphics

> May I point out ( as a manufacturer) that the Brother machine is a simple CMYK machine, so there really should be no issues, _no more so then any other simple CMYK printer._


Um sorry Mark but I ran A T-jet CMYK ONLY for a while and still had more problems then our Brother.
So I can't agree with this. I believe whats acceptable as reliable differs between people.


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## Parkwood

I think this question is still on topic since the OP may not have considered rip time. 

Brother prints directly fronm an application. If I design in Photoshop I can just press the PRINT button and there it is. Same for Corel, Illustrator, etc. The time it takes for the Brother to receive the image is measured in a few seconds, depending upon file size.

Now I believe most non Brother machines require a RIP as an interface between the application and the printer. Is there a significantly longer delay using the RIP than not using one?

This difference, if significant, could have an impact if the OP decides to do very short runs, in addition to the long runs he initially inquired about.


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## sharktees

When I ran my T-Jet2 on CMYK I also still had issues with pumps wipers and caps even without white ink not the case with my Brother.As far as the rip if I remember correctly It went to fastrip then to the printer but you had to tell it how many prints etc. and if some mishap happened during printing then everything would go haywire because you might have only gone through say 8 out of 10 pieces and made for a real mess,with the brother you press print it goes to the printer and stays there untill you send another file,very simple.So I too agree that just because you have CMYK doesn't mean you'll be problem free.


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## JJfromJersey

I had great success running a 700 piece production run with a cmopany using a flexi-jet L model.

I feel pricing was reasonable and I was very satisfied with the results. regardles of how LONg actual production takes, I got back the no-white ink, water based ink prints I desired from the DTG prducion company before the traitional screen prining company even started printing.

In my experience thus far, if you want to get water based ink printing done fast and effective use a DTG machine, other print shops just aren't worth the hassle.

I am ALWAYS looking to new DTG productio agents, especially with large format print bases


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## vlcnmstr

Belquette said:


> Printing and curing are done simultaneously.
> This image was 11 x 6.5 and took just over 2 minutes and used $1.40 in total ink, the white being about $1.15 of that. This based on a cost of $280.00 per liter.
> 
> It would be very feasible to average 2.3 minutes per print (cured) considering the shirts are pre-pretreated.
> 
> So it would take about 8 hours to print 200 black shirts this size on a single machine, now if you add another you can effectively double your capacity with redundancy.
> 
> Thank you, the "mod1" this was printed on was built for speed while retaining detail.
> 
> Mark
> Belquette Inc
> 
> [media]http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s192/marquettestuff/star1.jpg[/media]
> Printed on Belquette's mod1.



just wondering how it cures at the same time it prints?? I went to the website for the mod 1 but it's very sparse on specs and pricing. even simple things like machine size (I would have to use a spare bedroom as my printing room and interior doors are only 29 wide)


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## JeridHill

vlcnmstr said:


> just wondering how it cures at the same time it prints?? I went to the website for the mod 1 but it's very sparse on specs and pricing. even simple things like machine size (I would have to use a spare bedroom as my printing room and interior doors are only 29 wide)


What was meant by this statement is, you are printing the design and another printed shirt is being cured on a heat press. The printer doesn't have the capability to cure the ink, that would be too problematic for the printhead.

If you want more information on the Mod1, just PM me or email me at jerid @ screenerschoice.com


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## nakirfa

hey guys,i am new to this forum but as i was reading this post i didnt understand what u ment by short runs could one pliz elaborate in term of numbers i.e what is the advisable no. of dark multicolored or otherwise a dtg can print that will makeit a profitable investment beyond which we need screenprinting & also is it true that the dtg viper can also print on mugs,towels etc from ur experience?


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