Mlink in the building.

[GraphicDisorder]

Correct, but keep in mind its not just the ink costs, speed too. The M&R is faster, so time is a factor on that ROI.

What is the heat press time?  That is the true time.  If DTG 1 can do 2 shirts a minute and DTG 2 can do 1 shirt a minute and you have to Heat press the shirt for let's say 90 seconds than you would have two shirts on DTG 1 waiting to cure and 1.5 shirts on DTG 2.  The point is print speed is a factor if cure speed is as fast or faster.  You can only do as many shirts in a given time as you can press.  What are the press times?

Of course the heat press could be or may be the bottle neck with the wrong heat press, that's obvious I would assume for most. if a person is reading these threads and cares about speed they will get a mack daddy heat press and get the fastest machine to go with it. I have paid nearly no attention to heat press time so far as they played with them a lot between the two machines and I have been in and out of the area as we are swamped busy as well right now. Not sure where they landed. If our heat press isn't fast enough we will by a new one, no big deal.

Once I know what our print times are for large/small/average prints and what our heat press times are ill post them. We are essentially 3 days in to 1 machine and 2 days into the other and zero use in a production style environment yet, training/testing only still. So all very new still.

[Gilligan]

How can the heat press be faster?  It needs X time at Y temp.

Googling I came across this info:

Alex M: recommending a hover heat press These numbers are NOT correct, they were for an older machine with different as noted below... my bad.

With the heat press we recommend 1 minute of hover and 2 consecutive 1 minute pressure presses (with 5-10 seconds in between to let the vapor escape).

Brother PDF:

. Use a regular heat-press* set at 356°F and press for approximately 35 seconds† with light pressure to
cure both a light garment and dark garment prints.

So we are at 3 mins and 10 seconds for M&R and 35 seconds for Brother.

[GraphicDisorder]

How can the heat press be faster?  It needs X time at Y temp.

Googling I came across this info:

Alex M: recommending a hover heat press

With the heat press we recommend 1 minute of hover and 2 consecutive 1 minute pressure presses (with 5-10 seconds in between to let the vapor escape).

Brother PDF:

. Use a regular heat-press* set at 356°F and press for approximately 35 seconds† with light pressure to
cure both a light garment and dark garment prints.

So we are at 3 mins and 10 seconds for M&R and 35 seconds for Brother.

Some heat presses have trouble holding heat/recovering heat. So that would/could affect speed of heat press.

I don't believe Marco has us spending 3 min's heat pressing the shirts. Ill report when I spend some time with it.  I've been watching printing first and foremost, that is after all the important part. Heat pressing doesn't worry me, ill buy as many as I have to if I have the demand for more speed.

[Gilligan]

I'm only going off Alex M's postings, I assume them to be accurate.

We are seeing a diminishing return on this faster speed once you start having to buy 5 or 6 heat presses to keep up.  Not to mention floor space and electrical running them.

I only want to make sure all of this is transparent for people checking this out.  I honestly forgot about the heat press times till Sonny brought it up so it's warranted to take a look at the details and numbers.   

No sense kicking out 2 shirts a min if you need to heat press those shirts for (a combined) 6.5 mins.  You are bottle necking quick.

VS

If you can only print 1 shirt a min but can heat press it in 35 seconds then you are able to produce 1 shirt a min with a single brother + heat press combination.  This also gives you time for your heat press to recover as you mentioned.

[Alex M]

How can the heat press be faster?  It needs X time at Y temp.

Googling I came across this info:

Alex M: recommending a hover heat press

With the heat press we recommend 1 minute of hover and 2 consecutive 1 minute pressure presses (with 5-10 seconds in between to let the vapor escape).

Brother PDF:

. Use a regular heat-press* set at 356°F and press for approximately 35 seconds† with light pressure to
cure both a light garment and dark garment prints.

So we are at 3 mins and 10 seconds for M&R and 35 seconds for Brother.

This was for the idot. Different machine and ink.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[IntegrityShirts]

Ideally these printers would be out on the floor near the dryer in my opinion as well as near the heat press station. I could totally see myself being lazy if I had one and DTG my 12 piece orders lol or better yet pay a newb to run it so they don't mess up the big press/ink/screens. If those heat press times are right or close, I'd say you shouldn't be curing shirts on a heat press that were printed by the Mlink, just run them through your big ass dryer and save the space/money/electric.

[Gilligan]

How can the heat press be faster?  It needs X time at Y temp.

Googling I came across this info:

Alex M: recommending a hover heat press

With the heat press we recommend 1 minute of hover and 2 consecutive 1 minute pressure presses (with 5-10 seconds in between to let the vapor escape).

Brother PDF:

. Use a regular heat-press* set at 356°F and press for approximately 35 seconds† with light pressure to
cure both a light garment and dark garment prints.

So we are at 3 mins and 10 seconds for M&R and 35 seconds for Brother.

This was for the idot. Different machine and ink.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Whew!  My bad.

So what are the current recommended heat press times/procedures?

[Alex M]

How can the heat press be faster?  It needs X time at Y temp.

Googling I came across this info:

Alex M: recommending a hover heat press

With the heat press we recommend 1 minute of hover and 2 consecutive 1 minute pressure presses (with 5-10 seconds in between to let the vapor escape).

Brother PDF:

. Use a regular heat-press* set at 356°F and press for approximately 35 seconds† with light pressure to
cure both a light garment and dark garment prints.

So we are at 3 mins and 10 seconds for M&R and 35 seconds for Brother.

This was for the idot. Different machine and ink.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Whew!  My bad.

So what are the current recommended heat press times/procedures?

45 sec cmyk
60 sec with white ink


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[GraphicDisorder]

I'm only going off Alex M's postings, I assume them to be accurate.

We are seeing a diminishing return on this faster speed once you start having to buy 5 or 6 heat presses to keep up.  Not to mention floor space and electrical running them.

I only want to make sure all of this is transparent for people checking this out.  I honestly forgot about the heat press times till Sonny brought it up so it's warranted to take a look at the details and numbers.   

No sense kicking out 2 shirts a min if you need to heat press those shirts for (a combined) 6.5 mins.  You are bottle necking quick.

VS

If you can only print 1 shirt a min but can heat press it in 35 seconds then you are able to produce 1 shirt a min with a single brother + heat press combination.  This also gives you time for your heat press to recover as you mentioned.

Forgive me for late chiming in here, we sponsor Shop with Cop each year and that event was last night.

I have been nothing but transparent, you are asking me about heat pressing and I am still talking about printer differences still. I haven't yet paid much attention to the heat pressing time (maybe because it hasn't been an issue?).  I will report fully when we are actually running production and I see what heat pressing times are and I will discuss both machines times and if I see either machines required time as an issue. I was having conversations with Marco or others when almost all of the heat pressing was going on.  I have been concerned first and foremost in this order:

1. Quality of Print
2. Cost of Print
3. Speed of Print

Heat press time isn't even on my radar yet but it will be shortly.

[GraphicDisorder]

Ideally these printers would be out on the floor near the dryer in my opinion as well as near the heat press station. I could totally see myself being lazy if I had one and DTG my 12 piece orders lol or better yet pay a newb to run it so they don't mess up the big press/ink/screens. If those heat press times are right or close, I'd say you shouldn't be curing shirts on a heat press that were printed by the Mlink, just run them through your big ass dryer and save the space/money/electric.

It's something we will be looking at for sure, but the distance from the printer to our dryer is an issue for us. I am thinking yes 12pcs orders would run on a DTG here in the future.  Orders we turn away currently. 

[jvanick]

Looking forward to hearing the pricing discussion for 12pc orders on DTG...  (VERY)  -- as this is our bread and butter work here.... we do a lot of screen print 10 shirts 1 or 2 color work (at a HIGH premium), but it might be a LOT more profitable to DTG where we can...

To say nothing about fulfilment jobs that we currently turn away.

[GraphicDisorder]

We have a fulfillment style account that was looking at 300-400k first year sales (invoices from prior year to back it up), that we turned away because they had some designs that they only did 4-5-10 shirts a year.  Others they runs are in the 100's and 1000's of pcs.  Over 200 designs. So we let them walk in fear of those smaller deals bogging us down as it was a good of small runs. I could go get that account tomorrow they are "waiting on me" they said. Never mind my own retail line of 500+ designs made to order. Then we could open up 12pcs or less jobs to DTG or even contract DTG, I bet I have no less than 10 companies asking me for that pricing right now and we are a week in....

I have a good feeling about DTG for us.

[Printficient]

Couple of Questions.  Can you cure prints from either printer in your dryer?  Are you keeping both machines or are they there on trial and you choose one?
Either way congrats and Merry Christmas

[GraphicDisorder]

Couple of Questions.  Can you cure prints from either printer in your dryer?  Are you keeping both machines or are they there on trial and you choose one?
Either way congrats and Merry Christmas

Both could be cured in dryer I am told, but I didn't get into specifics on time needed as its not logical for our shop since our dryer is many many steps from where our printers are. Some printers may want to consider it though if the proximity is more logical for them and check with each manufacture on that.

We own the Brother/Pretreat machine/etc (Purchased from Nazdar, paid in cash). The M&R was not on our radar when I first heard cost (someone said it was 75k). I did not at that time realize that was for the Mlink X...the Mlink is much less so I would have considered it harder at the time. DTG is new for us and I was most satisfied with the Brother test prints I had seen and had shops do me over last few months. Rich heard I bought a Brother and wanted some real world feedback compared to the Brother and we have space so I was game. Soon you guys can send me shirts to print, your art, your shirt, no bs I will just print and ship back. We need to recover from a week of training / installs and the coming holiday but shortly ill put up some info and you can see for yourself real world results from someone just learning it.

If I find the M&R to be all around better its likely id buy it from M&R. If not it goes back. It's here for at least 90 days. We may or may not keep the Brother in that scenario. Again we are basically a week in on DTG and lots to learn.

[3Deep]

Brandt I think what your doing is good for us that are looking hard at DTG and will be newbie's at it real world testing, right now I still on the fence of which machine we want to buy plus we are looking at coast and what machine id best for the money we have to spend.  I know the Mlink is out of our range but does sound like a nice machine, but does not sound like the push and play as Rich said it was or I must have missed something, because I believe somewhere here you said the brother was a little easier to operate.  I'll be sending you a shirt soon with a design just to see if can do what we might expect to print in our shop once we get off the fence and make our purchase.