DTG- what`s hot what`s not?

[Rockers]

We might buy a DTG soon and I was wondering what`s good? I had a look at the Brother machines which look solid and don`t cost a fortune and I can buy them here directly of Brother Japan, which is good in terms of service etc. What else is out there that is good apart maybe from Kornit. And how about pre treatment stations, how much do they cost?

[Admiral]

Viper XPT is good, $5-6k for that pretreatment machine.  Since you are just starting the Viper one might be your choice which I believe is 3k but I can't say about performance of it...not as fast and adjustable as our XPT but it's good I'm sure.

Epson might be worth looking into but if I was you I would go with Brother or Epson.  I just don't know the price of the Epson, ink costs, work flow, etc.

[Rockers]

We just had an Epson sales rep in here and what they have showed us was not very good to be honest. They are not having many sales don`t offer a pre treatment station etc. So Epson is not for us. We lean towards Brother. Kornit is far too expansive over here.
might get a Brother rep in here or go to their sales office and get a demonstration of the machines they offer.

[abchung]

May be you can take a look at these guys, they are from Sydney Australia.
http://www.dtgdigital.com/

[Rockers]

Just found out we can lease the Brother GT-381 for $300/month incl service and repairs if needed , that`s over  a 5 year period.

[ZooCity]

I never really thought about a lease option for DTG, like having one of those big color office copiers where they come and take care of all the problems.  Sounds very doable and, if the terms are flexible, low risk.  Anyone who would lease a DTG w. service like that must be building a good machine too. 

Thanks for posting that.  I don't want a DTG, I just don't want to deal with, and commit staff hours and capital to, that client base but I do often feel bad when we can't help them out.  And, as a business owner, I feel kind of dumb sending them to a competing shop with a new brother. This gives me some food for thought.  I imagine it would not be difficult to get a brother on a $300/mo lease turning enough of a profit to keep it around and supplement screen printing.

[TCT]

Brother has the best  DTG machine aside from the Kornit out there I think. I don't know much about the new EPSON ones. The Brother ones don't need to be babied as much as the EPSON based DTG machines. You will be good with the Brother.

Pre treatment is a beeeotch! DO NOT buy a Viper One, they suck and are crap. Actually I have one if you want to buy a used one   Out of all the "entry level" pre treatment machines out there I think this one has the most going for it-
http://www.equipmentzone.com/speedtreater-tx

Now I have not used it, but it seems like it would handle the downfalls and poor concepts of the Viper One fell short on.

[Rockers]

How about the Anajet printers? Any good?

[TCT]

How about the Anajet printers? Any good?

I have heard both good and bad, the bad was from their first series though. I don't know one way or another what kind of print heads they use or the specs on them.

We have a NeoFlex, it is nice and from a "production" stand point I like/liked it. The biggest thing with these things while they are in their infancy is clogged heads. I don't care what type of fancy "recirculation system" you have, the original EPSON print heads were not designed for the type of ink you need for white. Our machine ran well, now it took a minimum of 10min of cleaning and maintenance every morning, but if that doesn't bother you then you should be fine. We haven't used ours in close to a year. It just took the right person to run it the way I wanted it ran. Had to know Photoshop, be VERY good at multi tasking, handle stress well, and be able to react quickly. A lot of that was because I wanted that thing printing non stop. The NeoFlex had 3 platens, so you load 3 prints into the RIP and print. When that first one was done it needed to come off, go to the proper heat press to cure, and another shirt loaded back in it's place. Now repeat that for the other two, and be reddy to hit print on the next 3 when the 3rd print is done.

I now people that have the Brother units, some won't run them for 4 days and they are still good to go. I know another guy that runs about $1mil. worth of Kornits, he likes them because they are workhorses and can actually handle LARGE "production" that I was demanding out of my little one.

Sorry for rattling on, but I guess you can probably make any of them work just how much time do you have to put into making them work?

And unless you have the coin for a Kornit, you will enjoy the wonderful past time of pre treating, which SUCKS!!!

[mk162]

How did I miss this topic?  Here is my take...

Brother...hands down the best.  The machines are simple, designed to be garment printers and don't cost a fortune.  They are also insanely reliable.

Kornit printers are great as well, they are just too much money.

I would like to see what heads Epson is using, because I would NEVER buy a printer with Epson heads out of a 4800 or a standard series inkjet.  They aren't meant to print such heavily pigmented inks and you will have problems...especially with white.

That being said, with dark garments, most of your troubles come from pretreating.  this is the reason we got the Viper XPT, it's easy to control and has settings out the wazoo.

The Viper One is a good option as well...i thought about going this route and later adding the XPT for dark garments and using the One for lights/polyester.  Instead I will add the One later.

All of my new DTG goodies should be here in about a week...I am STOKED!!!!!

I am working on a new pricelist for contract DTG that includes dark garments, let me know and I will get one out to you.  I might wait to send it until I can do a little bit of testing on the numbers once we run it a little bit.

[noortrd]

If everybody buy dtg than who buy  m&r challenger like machine?

[mk162]

easy...people that like to make money fast.

they are 2 totally separate markets.  I don't want to print 500 shirts with a 12 color print on black on my DTG machine.

on the flip side, people with a huge press don't want to setup a 12 color print for 12 shirts.

each has their place, and they work wonderfully together in my opinion.

[TCT]

The Viper One is a good option as well...i thought about going this route and later adding the XPT for dark garments and using the One for lights/polyester.  Instead I will add the One later.

Dude, the ViperOne is junk. Not thought out well. If you don't religiously clean EVERY PART and soak it in hot water EVERY night it gets clogs like a mother! I had one employee that left the pre treatment in the canisters it uses for a 4 day weekend, that stuff ate holes through the canister!!!!! The "all air, no electricity" was just a selling gimmick. There are much better pre treatment systems out there!

[mk162]

what pretreat are you using?

[TCT]

We have used like 4 different ones, I can go and look in the boxes and let you know the exact ones. I know one was the one from All American a while ago.