My press is down....

[T Shirt Farmer]

With all the post regarding which press to buy or what press should I buy it is clear there is recurring theme in all of them... the availability of tech support should a catastrophic incident occur. It appears many have based there purchase mainly on the fact that company A has a fleet service guys available 24/7 circling your neighborhood at any given time and company B only has one or two fix it guys that can come to the rescue.

My question is the following.... How many here have had a press failure in the last 10 years that really put an order in jeopardy to the extent of missing a event or losing a customer? How many have not had there press back up in over 24 hours? I use 10 years as I believe the equipment is so much better designed than prior, most us have presses at least that new and the diagnostic components of most press's as fairly sophisticated.

Not looking for brand names coupled with the incident but just wanting to know the frequency of this actually happening and what components have failed to make lengthily down times.

Thanks,
Robert 

[blue moon]

main computer stopped working on Friday afternoon. Had the replacement parts in on Sat morning and finished printing few hours later. One incident in 6 years. Turned out to be defective LCD so we could not see what was on screen.

pierre

[TCT]

Guess my answer would be "kind of". We are fortunate to have a back up for damn near everything. Our auto has been down and we had to burn more screens and throw the jobs on the manuals. Our dryer has also been out for a bit and we had to reschedule and use our baby electric one. Epson printer went to crap a few times(no never, not a epson! ) but we have a small old laser printer for emergencies, and now a back up 4880.  Without the backups for some things we would of missed some deadlines without question.

[ebscreen]

7 years, 2 presses, never more than 30 minutes down time. And usually the defect is operator error!

A multitude of available techs is great, but so is reliable equipment that doesn't need them.

[T Shirt Farmer]

Pierre

Could you have hooked up a lab top via a USB port and still control the press?

[GraphicDisorder]

Let's remember company A has a lot of techs because they have a lot of installs going on.  People seems to forget that....

We've never been down on either of our presses so far. But we don't push volume some of you do.

[T Shirt Farmer]

Let's remember company A has a lot of techs because they have a lot of installs going on. 

I must be missing the point of your statement, what does that have do with the need to fix a broken press or the reliability of any given manufacturers product ??

[blue moon]

Pierre

Could you have hooked up a lab top via a USB port and still control the press?

I hooked up a monitor to the press and used it that way until we got the replacement.

pierre

[T Shirt Farmer]

Guess my answer would be "kind of". We are fortunate to have a back up for damn near everything. Our auto has been down and we had to burn more screens and throw the jobs on the manuals. Our dryer has also been out for a bit and we had to reschedule and use our baby electric one. Epson printer went to crap a few times(no never, not a epson! ) but we have a small old laser printer for emergencies, and now a back up 4880.  Without the backups for some things we would of missed some deadlines without question.

Alex,

Can you expand on what failed on the auto, did it completely render the machine in operable?

[T Shirt Farmer]

Pierre

Could you have hooked up a lab top via a USB port and still control the press?

I hooked up a monitor to the press and used it that way until we got the replacement.

pierre

So in that instance you were not at standstill for more than a few hours ? I am sure it was stressful but there was a work around... correct

[TCT]

Alex,

Can you expand on what failed on the auto, did it completely render the machine in operable?

Hahahahahahaha, which time
No it couldn't be used, but the press in question is a all air press, so if you break that seal the whole system is kind of inoperable. Ya, we could of ran to the store and tried to get a fitting to cap the hose a few times, but usually when that suker goes down, it is down.

[Binkspot]

For us personally 24 hrs waiting for new pallets, ones that came with press fell apart within the first 30k prints and once two hours for me to trouble shoot and hijack my kids video game charger to power our flash. All the other issues we were able to work around and keep running, thank god I know what I do to keep things running other wise we would be screwed. We are one of the fortunate ones, my press actually runs nice and in the grand scheme of things most likely the best of them.

I will leave it at this there are several brand X owners who have been down for a week or more. 

With todays manufacturing quality, reliable parts and quality control I truly believe any machine from a reputable MFG should run trouble free for the first few years at the very least. With that being said there is only so much control a MFG has over its suppliers who may have a bad run of a part. If a MFG chooses to use inferior parts then it will bit them. I would say most MFG do there best to supply a reliable product. Also consider once the machine leaves the factory the MFG only has little or no control of how the machine is treated. If a owner chooses not to properly train users, maintain the machine or simply operates a crap hole with ink and lint everywhere premature failure is a sure bet. So when that owner complains the machine is a POS is it the machine or lack of proper operation and care.

[GraphicDisorder]

Let's remember company A has a lot of techs because they have a lot of installs going on. 

I must be missing the point of your statement, what does that have do with the need to fix a broken press or the reliability of any given manufacturers product ??

Someone else made the point techs were great but so is equipment that doesn't need fixed.   It came off like the reason they had techs was for fixing equipment only...  Which is false. 

[dirkdiggler]

Been using company A for 17 years, probably 10 different autos and I can't think of a single time that we were not running at latest, the following day.  Just my experience.

[Screened Gear]

Can we add the total cost to get the press back up and running. Cost for parts and another total for tech costs.

My press just went down because a my error. Took a call to Pierre to get it back up and running. 30 mins to get it back up. Cost $5.