eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)

[Screened Gear]

" for that kind of money we can get another auto"

I have to agree on this.

[screenprintguy]

" for that kind of money we can get another auto"

I have to agree on this.

I thought that way too, another auto, more staff to run it, but your still in the same boat with imaging and alignment, set up, ect. I'll know more after we have it for a month but anyone I have talked to that has any brand of CTS says the same thing. Dude you are going to wish you did it sooner. Probably why we rarley see them on the used market unlike everything else. Plus, you can't buy an auto for the deal we got on this unit, you could but it would be small, air driven or very old. This, for us, makes sense, and with a money back guarantee, I can't see why not trying it out for myself.

[Screened Gear]

I thought they were like 50,000 dollars.

[screenprintguy]

So did I 

[BorisB]

How many DTS units are out there? 

Kiwo I-jet II, wax-based ink

M&R I-image & I-screen, waterbased ink

Lawson Express Jet, waterbased ink?

Douthitt CTS Digital Screen Imager (great product name), fantastic website as well...insert fart noise here, wax based ink



Exile Technologies (formerly OYO Instruments) Spyder, wax based ink, Diablo & Goblin, both thermal ribbon

Acti Camera Legend 2800, Screenjet 3100, Legend 6460, waterbased ink

Richmond Direct Jet Pro and Direct Jet Max, waterbased ink

Jackhammer Tech, CTS Jackhawk 9000

Did I miss any?  Got to be one or two more out there.

Are all these actual producers? Didn't know there were so many. Alan you excluded all DLE producers due to price? I know some US transfer printers use Signtronic units which are over $ 200.000. The new eco DLE from Cst is around 120.000€. I haven't seen it working but I know a guy having it in his shop, and he loves it.

My opinion on speed: Our DTS is very slow, from what you all wrote. But it's speed is not important. I look at our whole process in a way taught by Goldratt's theory of Constraints. In the end it's always presses that are bottleneck for bigger throughtput, never screens. We wouldn't produce more shirts with fastest DTS in the world. But even our slow DTS makes our setups shorter and we print more shirts.

Those are just the ones I know about.  Except for one.  Sucks when you lob a joke out there and nobody picks up on it...crickets...

Alan, I bought Jackhammer joke, trying to Google it... :-D
But I don't know what Jackhammer is.

The unit by Lawson, is it OEM? Or they make it?
Is it only non Epson Inkjet based? How much is it? I guess I'm off thread with this questions.

[inkman996]

I think someone here that knows the MSRP of all the relevant machines should let us in on the mystery pricing. Its another thing I hate in this industry is all the hush hush about pricing etc. Its like we are all beholden to our manufacturer reps to keep their pricing quiet, if the pricing is standard then let the world know. I refuse to contact sellers to get a price on these machines knowing I will be bombarded with sales speech and useless info like "you will regret not doing is sooner" The beginning point is knowing the cost first, then after that I would get serious info but I prefer to know the general price of equipment with out the hassle.

[Socalfmf]

Mike...to sound like a totally assh*le...someone could say the same about you and Logo it up....you only have pricing for dtg...so why should someone have to call to get pricing? 

just sayin...

[ScreenFoo]

Hmmm...  how many millions of permutations of these systems are there?  I must be missing something on that analogy.

[inkman996]

Mike...to sound like a totally assh*le...someone could say the same about you and Logo it up....you only have pricing for dtg...so why should someone have to call to get pricing? 

just sayin...

Sam we sell to the end user and for your information we have published pricing.

I am speaking about our screen printing community and buying equipment, there is a world of difference between equipment pricing and end user pricing for t-shirts.

I can open up vendor catalogues and see MSRP for press's exposure units, frames, stretchers on and on yet CTS (DTS) seems to be cloaked in some mystery which I don't quite get. Is it because the seller wants a chance to convince someone first before they suffer sticker shock? Wouldn't doubt it.

[alan802]

I got a rough idea of pricing by talking to manufacturers and you can get a cheaper unit, the one's that may or may not actually work for 22-25K, the mid-sized units that use the Epson piezo printheads with waterbased ink are typically in the mid 30's and up.  The original Kiwo I-jet made now by Douthitt and Exile are around 55K and the Kiwo I-jet II is at least 60K and probably closer to 65K.

A shop here in town bought an OYO Goblin or Diablo, can't remember and it never worked so they pulled it from the shop.  My pet peeve in this industry goes back to the old T-jet DTG's and I cannot stand the fact that some of the DTS machines don't actually work right when set up and then there are lot's of bugs in them.  I would be absolutely livid if we bought a DTS and it took a week or even longer to get it running properly.  I just know that there will likely be issues with it down the road as well if it doesn't work out of the crate.

Sam, in your argument, you are right with new jobs but there is no way you could print a screen in the time that I can pull the film and get a screen on the exposure unit.  Only if you can print 2 images per screen in about 90 seconds and have it on the exposure unit could you be faster than already printed film.  I think it would be a close call in who would develop the entire stencil first since you would be gaining time in quicker exposure times but even if was a wash, we're talking about press setup as the only area that DTS would benefit us.  We have modified our Triloc to work without carrier sheets and can gang images on every screen, burn two screens at a time so we are fairly quick in developing the stencil.

This is a great discussion.  I truly understand the technology, I really do.  I just don't think all shops operate the same and we are just lucky that we do what we do as fast as we do it.  One of my screen techs came from a 3 auto shop and she's always talking about how much we get done with just one auto.  She thought she was going to be working in a slower shop and it would be easier for her, but she said we do the same amount of work as her old employers shop did when they had 2 autos.  She was there for 4 years so I believe her.  When I first started running the shop we struggled with the workload and spent many long hours up here working overtime.  Now we do double the amount of setups and teardowns with no additional payroll.  We were setup just like other shops originally.  The people that helped set it up were industry veterans and modeled it after other similar shops, but we do very little the same as we did back then.  I think DTS is the next best thing that's already here.  This discussion has not deterred me from getting one at all.  I just know that we won't get the ROI I want yet while other shops will.  Like Mike said, it's not as easy a decision as I thought this time a year ago.  A shop's ability to develop a stencil and their press setup times vary greatly, and those two factors play a huge role in whether or not DTS will make you money.  The money spent on film and ink for the inkjet is small compared to labor time.  I wonder how much a one auto shop that does 20 screens per day, ganged images on screens, would spend on ink for the DTS and upkeep per year?  It won't be what we spend on film, folders and ink but that DTS ink and maintenance isn't exactly free either. 

Funny you mention the x-ray tech thing Sam, I grew up in an x-ray department as my mom was one for 35 years and she was on-call for the first 10 years of my life and my father worked out of town.  I've spent many nights watching my mom take x-rays and develop film when she was called in and I had to go to the hospital with her. 

And Bauman, the jackhawk 9000 reference was to Talladega Nights.  I thought it would get more than crickets but sometimes you hit a homerun and sometimes you strike out.

[Inkworks]

We're talking about press setup as the only area that DTS would benefit us.  We have modified our Triloc to work without carrier sheets and can gang images on every screen, burn two screens at a time so we are fairly quick in developing the stencil.

That's about where I'm at too. We'll be building our Film Positioning Unit this winter along with a Triloc style jig to fit on a platen. There is no reason why we can't get within .005 - .010" with that.

[screenprintguy]

I tell you what, I've been sitting here doing seps and printing films all day, now, I'll still have to go back and line all these up on the carrier sheets before I have the first one to a screen. Wish my I-Image was already here, this pile of film would be a pile of imaged screens awaiting the 20 second bumps of exposure, if not already exposed. I see it a smart move for us, but that's for us, might not be for someone else. 

[RICK STEFANICK]

I think someone here that knows the MSRP of all the relevant machines should let us in on the mystery pricing. Its another thing I hate in this industry is all the hush hush about pricing etc. Its like we are all beholden to our manufacturer reps to keep their pricing quiet, if the pricing is standard then let the world know. I refuse to contact sellers to get a price on these machines knowing I will be bombarded with sales speech and useless info like "you will regret not doing is sooner" The beginning point is knowing the cost first, then after that I would get serious info but I prefer to know the general price of equipment with out the hassle.

mike, I think pricing is so hush hush is because different companys work different deals.. i know there is situations with people trading in other equipment etc. so they probably dont even know the actual price of the unit and may be using reduced numbers based on that. with leasing and the cost of money i believe the ROI is longer than some admit.. but hey, its just my opinion with nothing but a business background. I dont have a dts but have ran numbers based on the 40 screens a day we average and i just dont see the payback worth the investment with a shop my size..

[alan802]

I think someone here that knows the MSRP of all the relevant machines should let us in on the mystery pricing. Its another thing I hate in this industry is all the hush hush about pricing etc. Its like we are all beholden to our manufacturer reps to keep their pricing quiet, if the pricing is standard then let the world know. I refuse to contact sellers to get a price on these machines knowing I will be bombarded with sales speech and useless info like "you will regret not doing is sooner" The beginning point is knowing the cost first, then after that I would get serious info but I prefer to know the general price of equipment with out the hassle.

mike, I think pricing is so hush hush is because different companys work different deals.. i know there is situations with people trading in other equipment etc. so they probably dont even know the actual price of the unit and may be using reduced numbers based on that. with leasing and the cost of money i believe the ROI is longer than some admit.. but hey, its just my opinion with nothing but a business background. I dont have a dts but have ran numbers based on the 40 screens a day we average and i just dont see the payback worth the investment with a shop my size..

Sounds like our numbers are very similar.  At 40 it makes more sense for us but it's still nowhere near a year ROI.

[Inkworks]

We're talking about press setup as the only area that DTS would benefit us.  We have modified our Triloc to work without carrier sheets and can gang images on every screen, burn two screens at a time so we are fairly quick in developing the stencil.

That's about where I'm at too. We'll be building our Film Positioning Unit this winter along with a Triloc style jig to fit on a platen. There is no reason why we can't get within .005 - .010" with that.

Forgot to mention, there will be no carrier sheets with my FPU. As easy as taping film on a screen.

* Idea shamelessly stolen from pictures posted by some clever individuals on another site....