# DTG Westcoast



## Ujudgnme2 (Mar 28, 2006)

I like to know how many businesses "dtg printers" are located on the Westcoast and in particular california. 

Westcoast?
California?
Female?


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## T-BOT (Jul 24, 2006)

Ujudgnme2 said:


> I like to know how many businesses "dtg printers" are located on the Westcoast and in particular california.
> 
> Westcoast?
> California?
> Female?


may be there is someone here on the board that might have those statistics for you, but the sales reps for those companies may be the best place to look into for such stats.

are planning on getting one ?

....im still waiting for my free test model.


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## Ujudgnme2 (Mar 28, 2006)

T-BOT said:


> may be there is someone here on the board that might have those statistics for you, but the sales reps for those companies may be the best place to look into for such stats.
> 
> are planning on getting one ?
> 
> ....im still waiting for my free test model.


 

I received a test sample from SWF. Its a nice sample, but I like to go see a live presentation altho I saw dtg over a year ago at a show, but I was not interested at that time. I am a cautious buyer. I like to go ahead and get my heatpress first...still considering a silkscreen press. I like the idea of no messy ink. I am leaning towards the dtg.


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## JeridHill (Feb 8, 2006)

Contact SWF (if you are thinking of purchasing the DTG Kiosk etc) and see if they have someone close to you willing to let you do a sample print on their machine. You'd be surprised at how many people are willing to let you come in to their shop in order to help you.


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## binki (Jul 16, 2006)

Where are you at in CA? I know of several out here.


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## Ujudgnme2 (Mar 28, 2006)

binki said:


> Where are you at in CA? I know of several out here.


 
I am in the L.A. area.

I received a sample tshirt and I see there is a location in Anaheim.

My original question, are there women using the dtg on the West Coast????

Thank ya!


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

> My original question, are there women using the dtg on the West Coast????


Yes, I'm sure there are


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## taylormade (Sep 27, 2006)

are there places in the bay area just to get the printing done?


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

> are there places in the bay area just to get the printing done?


There probably are, but you might have to contact one of the distributors of the machine to see if they have any customers in the area that they've sold a DTG printer to.


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## wearitout (Dec 8, 2006)

Ujudgnme2 said:


> I am in the L.A. area.
> 
> I received a sample tshirt and I see there is a location in Anaheim.
> 
> ...




Yes, we outsource our work to Lisa Gallegos at Logo2go in Asuza, CA. She has the Brother DTG Printer and does great work!
1-626-969-9730


-- 
Sherri D. Paxton
Graphic Designer


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## shirtnyc (Jan 20, 2007)

hey i new guy from newyork....city...land of the land ..i want to know if dtg is just as beautiful as heatpress ...it may be limited but it creativity a beautiful thing..i just want to upgrade the aresnal and i was leaning toward screen printing but i stumble on dtg which is sorta a combo of both..my question are how many shirts lets say four color can i get out a dtg in a year ...and in general use how many shirts can it do before ink refill i ve read alot but can seem to get a grasp on if im gonna make this 20 grand back in 2k shirts or 4 thousand shirts plus the consumables .. i love creativity but the lights need to stay on lol..help me out... 
my first post how did i do...

nyc


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## JPD (Nov 8, 2006)

My wife, who is half-partner in our business, uses our Flexi-Jet about 90% of the time she does anything on shirts. We are in Los Angeles!

Eric


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## TahoeTomahawk (Apr 12, 2006)

When I purchased the DTG Kiosk here in Sacramento, the sales rep mentioned a few other buyers were in the Sacramento and surrounding areas such as Davis. I don't know how many exactly.


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## shirtnyc (Jan 20, 2007)

how many shirts would you say you printed with the kiosk... i trying to get some math on general numbers of ink and how many shirt the machine will may produce before it break ..if anyone had to have a repair how much was it..its like a toyota or a hyundia .. i look out for the lemon i need the most miles for the buck just know that at 10 a shirt i would have to do a least 2 thousand shirt of whatever to break even ...what s good number if you guys are in the 4 thousand shirts and five thousand then i comfortable with parting with 20 k


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## Ujudgnme2 (Mar 28, 2006)

This is good info. I like to know if it's worth purchasing the equipment.

I visited the ISS show in Long Beach this past weekend. I thought throughout my walking around someone would have prices that would have just stood out. There were a few things but nothing to seriously impress me. I figure at a show, the prices are better and this was the day I waited for to make my purchase. I saw lots of vendors with the Geo Knight and the Brother 541. Although not many people speak for the Brother, I was impressed that so many vendors were selling or using this particular dtg. I had my heart set on the DTG Kiosk. Most of the dtg manufacturers have my price range $15K, so its just a matter of deciding which one will best suit my needs.

As for the heat transfer, I re-thinking on the Geo. I was looking at the DK Knight, but the Geo's quality looks like something for a business not home. I am not looking for anything that is not durable but at the same time I cant use anything that is too much for my hands/wrist.


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## TahoeTomahawk (Apr 12, 2006)

shirtnyc said:


> how many shirts would you say you printed with the kiosk... i trying to get some math on general numbers of ink and how many shirt the machine will may produce before it break ..if anyone had to have a repair how much was it..its like a toyota or a hyundia .. i look out for the lemon i need the most miles for the buck just know that at 10 a shirt i would have to do a least 2 thousand shirt of whatever to break even ...what s good number if you guys are in the 4 thousand shirts and five thousand then i comfortable with parting with 20 k


We've printed around 1800 since Mid October 2006. About 98% of our business was black / colored shirts that required white ink.

The machine hasn't broken or had the tech come out for repairs, but since it's a machine with moving parts it requires alot of daily, weekly, monthly maintenance. 

The biggest problem we had was getting the colors right, since we moved from the original software 'Print Pro' to using 'Rip Pro' we are able to get more accurate colors out of the machine.

Next, the ink is not too expensive however we spent about $150 on overnight charges because it's hard to guage when you'll need replacements. Earlier you had to by the ink by the 125ml bottle for about $60, now you can buy it by the 500ml bottle for $165. That gives you instant savings, plus saving the costs on overnighting the inks.
It's hard to say how many shirts you can do per bottle of ink because every image is different.

With SWF Mesa, there is a lifetime warranty on the machine, so the only thing I'm worried about is how long my business will be down while getting my machine fixed / replaced.


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## tim3560 (Jan 7, 2007)

Tahoe, just curious but where do most of your orders come from? Small businesses outfitting personnel or buying for giveaways? Church groups? Schools? Internet? I'd love to have orders for 360 t's a month right now.
Thanks, Tim


TahoeTomahawk said:


> We've printed around 1800 since Mid October 2006. About 98% of our business was black / colored shirts that required white ink.
> 
> The machine hasn't broken or had the tech come out for repairs, but since it's a machine with moving parts it requires alot of daily, weekly, monthly maintenance.
> 
> ...


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## TahoeTomahawk (Apr 12, 2006)

tim3560 said:


> Tahoe, just curious but where do most of your orders come from? Small businesses outfitting personnel or buying for giveaways? Church groups? Schools? Internet? I'd love to have orders for 360 t's a month right now.
> Thanks, Tim


We've had a bit of everything.
We've done Soccer Sweatshirts for a school, Martial Arts centers, General Contractors but the bulk of the orders are one time orders for 20-30 T's (usually using us as a fulfillment service) or our print on demand service from websites selling T's who route their order through us. We then print it and drop ship it to their customers.


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## AncoreClothing (Aug 14, 2006)

can anyone get me or tell me a list of dtg printing service places in the orange county, ca area? and if there even is any in the area?

Thanks,
Warren from AncoreClothing.com


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## scpromos (May 27, 2006)

I've been looking for a DTG contract printer in the Orange County area also, but no luck as of yet.


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## taylormade (Sep 27, 2006)

I can highly recommend the services from Thread Safe Inc. which is located in CA. I am not local to them and put in an order and couldn't be more happy with the service and quality product that I received from them.


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## tomtv (Feb 6, 2007)

Just to address some of your questions about the kiosk, I would refer you to Don as SWF East. He is on this board often or you can contact him at [email protected] - Don is a great guy and a real straight shooter. I am new here so I have not cruised the forum too much but I can tell you from experience that on an average size shirt print of about 12 x 12 using the white ink layer properly with the pretreatment that you are looking at somewhere between 4.50 and 5.50 just in ink using any of the 15K - 20K printers. This is just a fact as the new rip that the dtg brand uses has the same ink cost calculator as the flexi built in to the software. In most people's opinion the white ink printing is not ready for prime time as of yet and the cost is somewhat prohibitive when you add the failure rate, artwork time required for most art your customers will provide and just the plain print time. It really is an art and it takes practice, practice, practice to get it right and even then you still have a decent fail rate. The pretreatment process is such a key but it is the area that breaks down alot too even if the same person is doing the application all the time. Every person I have worked with or talked to using any of the white ink capable printers in this range find there is a large amount of routine and auto cleanings required to keep the heads clean and clear. When you have a clog it usually means a wasted shirt or shirts. That is just the nature of the game at this point. The only real solution out there in my opinion is the kornit, and that is a whole different ballgame or should I say stadium. BTW, you can contact SWF Mesa and I am sure they would put you in contact with an owner in your immediate area if there is one that close.

I am not an authority, just a guy who is really into this technology. Hope it helps in some little way.

Tom


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## TahoeTomahawk (Apr 12, 2006)

taylormade said:


> I can highly recommend the services from Thread Safe Inc. which is located in CA. I am not local to them and put in an order and couldn't be more happy with the service and quality product that I received from them.


Thank you for the kind words!


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## gmax21 (Jan 18, 2007)

Hi Adam, 

I just wanted to ask you mention you have a life time warranty, is this with the Kiosk?

If so then I feel guttered that the European Distributor here in England doesn't also offer this life time warranty.

Hi mayhew,

I had to have something repaired, after two months or so from purchase aswell, I kept having bad to decent prints, they just changed the head and charged me for it, normal cost they say in the UK is £325 + VAT @ 17.5%

I'm now getting sharper, crisper prints and very high quality.


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## TahoeTomahawk (Apr 12, 2006)

gmax21 said:


> Hi Adam,
> 
> I just wanted to ask you mention you have a life time warranty, is this with the Kiosk?
> 
> If so then I feel guttered that the European Distributor here in England doesn't also offer this life time warranty.


Good question. I know it must vary from area to area.
Maybe Don from SWF East might know more?

Also print heads are not covered under the warranty I believe.


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