Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work. - Thomas Edison
Real question, how come almost nobody is talking about the Maverick?I assume most people doing DTG are on the basic hobbist stuff like the basic epson/brother stuff. But next tier, I dont see any one talking about it.
Real question, how come almost nobody is talking about the Maverick?
Because everyone into this is talking about the new commercial grade Epson.
Given the state of the world right now our on demand business has been growing substantially, and I think as the world returns to normal that need for on demand printing is going to stay. That's why we are looking at options to get our price per piece down and trying to find the most efficient machine.
Quote from: GraphicDisorder on October 30, 2020, 04:47:23 PMReal question, how come almost nobody is talking about the Maverick?Because it costs more than a couple of your sports cars combined! There is a place in Bellingham that got a Maverick that I've sent a few orders to, the first production order is actually in the works right now. Imprintmaker.com, the samples I got (I did 12 images and two of each so I could do wash tests), generally looked pretty nice, and feel good for DTG. However, the prints on fleece looked terrible, there was some issues with under bases poking out, and there is a known issue with spotting of the white on large areas that for the price I think is unacceptable being sold before that is addressed. And, you still have to pretreat separate which is nice with the Kornits that pre-treat is one step (are they still doing that?) but may also be why their prints aren't as crisp.
Yikes my Ferrari was 344k, so its over 700k for one of those? I wouldn't even look its direction for that.
Quote from: GraphicDisorder on October 30, 2020, 04:47:23 PMReal question, how come almost nobody is talking about the Maverick?Because it costs more than a couple of your sports cars combined! There is a place in Bellingham that got a Maverick that I've sent a few orders to, the first production order is actually in the works right now. Imprintmaker.com, the samples I got (I did 12 images and two of each so I could do wash tests), generally looked pretty nice, and feel good for DTG. However, the prints on fleece looked terrible, there was some issues with under bases poking out, and there is a known issue with spotting of the white on large areas that for the price I think is unacceptable being sold before that is addressed. And, you still have to pretreat separate which is nice with the Kornits that pre-treat is one step (are they still doing that?) but may also be why their prints aren't as crisp.Quote from: brandon on October 30, 2020, 06:26:58 PMBecause everyone into this is talking about the new commercial grade Epson.Do you know anyone that has one of these that does contract printing? I'd be interested to send some work to an Epson printer to see the quality. I really want DTG to be viable, but right now I'd rather find a network to outsource to so they can deal with the headaches, a $50 new setup for DTG orders which includes a pre-sample I think is fine for my customer, and that could cover shipping both from the vendor and drop shipped to the customer, and then a 24 piece minimum, as I don't want to deal with low quantities.Quote from: tbarnes on November 05, 2020, 01:01:27 PMGiven the state of the world right now our on demand business has been growing substantially, and I think as the world returns to normal that need for on demand printing is going to stay. That's why we are looking at options to get our price per piece down and trying to find the most efficient machine.If you look at all the larger on demand printers, they have more of the lesser cost printers, since redundancy is important. I think if the new Epson printers are like 40K, you could get 6 for the price of the Maverick, or 12 for the cost of a higher end Kornit, then you have a single operator running 3 machines, you'll have more throughput, lesser cost of entry and you can scale up as necessary, and when one goes down, the others stay running.I think that DTG is best suited for on demand printing and split shipping, because even if the prints aren't great, they are generally split shipping to multiple people, so rather than one unhappy customer with 48 shirts, you have 48 people with 2 unhappy customers you can just refund and have them keep their shirt and you are still making a product.The issue with outsourcing is finding reliable places that know quality.
Quote from: GraphicDisorder on October 30, 2020, 04:47:23 PMReal question, how come almost nobody is talking about the Maverick?I assume most people doing DTG are on the basic hobbist stuff like the basic epson/brother stuff. But next tier, I dont see any one talking about it.Bumping this one last time before I give up and let the thread die.Brandt, to weigh in on your point, I think that most people are starting off with the entry level machines like Brother and Epson because the $300k price tag (don't quote me on that, not sure what the exact cost they're selling it is) on the Maverick and the even higher price tag on Kornit scare people away. Also, the technology has been evolving a lot in the last few years and the market will need some time to catch up. We stayed away from digital for the longest because the print felt like crap, smelt like crap, sometimes looked like crap, etc. and then seeing the improvements in the last couple of years we decided to get a Brother last November. Not because we are a small shop (have 15 auto machines, 3 taggers, full service with fulfillment, embroidery, sewing, the whole shabang) but because the 25k for a brand new brother machine seemed more feasible to get our feet wet on the digital side of the industry.The Brother machine has worked well for us, we dialed in printing on a lot of substrates and have images looking crisp. The problem is the cost of the ink just isn't efficient for the long term ROI and the speed of the printer is another issue. Given the state of the world right now our on demand business has been growing substantially, and I think as the world returns to normal that need for on demand printing is going to stay. That's why we are looking at options to get our price per piece down and trying to find the most efficient machine.
3070 can print a full front at really good quality in about 40-45 seconds. That's 80+ full fronts per hour if you don't count loading times. In our initial testing we are seeing/expecting about 50-55 full fronts per hour. If you add in some left chests it will go up. Cost of ink is looking to be right under $1.List price is $50k, but by the time you are set up you are over $60k. With additional inks and maintenance consumables you are probably looking at $65k. I have a friend who had a factory with many, many Kornits and he says there is no comparison. It is not even close!