Buying Equipment Experience/Expectations

[alan802]

Was our dryer and auto buying experience a normal one or out of the ordinary?  Our auto was delivered in the time frame it was promised, we installed and calibrated it in one working day, it had no issues and ran perfectly and now has over one million impressions and 4.5 years old with 10 minutes of downtime total.  Our dryer was delivered in under 4 weeks from signing the papers which was faster than promised.  It was installed, it has zero issues with the software and mechanical stuff and has not had any issues 22 months later, ZERO downtime. 

All of the shops here that have bought new equipment have you had a similar experience or were there minor issues?  Major issues?  Issues resolved in a timely manner?  Not resolved in a timely manner?  You don't have to name names or manufacturers if you don't want to if it's something negative, I'm just trying to see if our two purchases were anomolies or quite common in our industry.  It seems like there have been quite a few new equipment purchases that were nightmares compared to what we went through and I may be out of line expecting all of our equipment buys to go as smoothly as the past two.  Just wondering what others expect.  Is a software bug that is fixed within a day or two ok?  Is a mechanical failure ok if it's worked out within a certain period of time?  Or should it be 100% in perfect working condition like we expect a brand new car or truck to be when we drive off the lot?

What do you guys expect when you pay $30K or $130K for a new auto?  For those who have done this recently, did you get EVERYTHING you expected?  What should our expectations be?

Lot's of questions and I don't expect everyone to answer them all but you can get what I'm going for and respond in general or in detail to every question.

[GraphicDisorder]

All of our equipment has came in earlier than promised in both screen printing and embroidery.  Our screen printing equipment all perfectly working, install as planned, no drama, everything as good or better than expected even with our manual stuff.  Embroidery we had a hiccup with our newest machine, but they corrected it quickly and I can't say that tarnished anything for me.  Would buy again.

We have had no down time on screen printing equipment, not even 1 minute.  Couple small warranty items, nothing major and service was amazing. 

When buying equipment this type of money, I expect everyone to have their ducks in a row, and so far everyone has. 

[alan802]

I didn't even think about embroidery equipment, but that's good to mention as well.  I wasn't here the last time we bought a Tajima, it's been a long time.

[Admiral]

We buy a lot of equipment new and have had issues with a lot of it:

M&R
Diamondback - within 1-2months print head 6 became 'stuck' in the back of the print stroke.  It was due to a deflected plate which I believe always existed there, we just didn't notice it for what we were printing early on with our first automatic.  It's basically fixed, just the last 1" of print stroke can't happen properly on that print head.

A sensor shorted out on us but that was about 6 months ago and the press is 3 years old now.  We bought an extra just in case now.

Sprint 2000 - 2 or 3 times we had startup issues with the dryer not kicking on due to the exhaust motor not working right.  This probably caused 8-10 hours of down time total.  The first time it was fixed by changing an amperage selection slightly but the next time it happened I traced it to a wire that was installed incorrectly and I rewired it to have a better connection, no issues there since.


Stahls
20x22" heat press didn't hold heat well enough.  After a long battle of dealing with their support they sent us a new slightly larger heat element which works now.  First we upgraded it to 230V which did nothing beneficial...  A button on the side has broken, the power switch has broken, the numpad has broken, the LCD screen has broken, a wire block inside has broken...all of this was replaced under warranty but the press was a mess to deal with.

Tajima
1501C with Laser
The issue with this unit has been 1 very minor that the laser is about .5 mm off which can be fixed by moving the hoop after the tack down is done.  Painful on designs with many applique colors though.

The other main issue is that the laser doesn't work properly with the current level of software.  It has been like this for 6 months.  I have to use the new version to digitize then open and save in the old version and transfer via usb not LAN so that the design works properly.  Otherwise the laser stays on for about 1/4 of a second after following a path to laser.  Some designs wouldn't be an issue with this but most are.

Most issues have been somewhat minor with new equipment but most of our equipment has had issues.

[alan802]

Admiral, how old is the Sprint?  And the sensor on the DB was a proximity I presume?  Those proxy sensors are on all of our equipment and for as much work as they do, they are very simple yet they do go bad more often it seems.  They went bad on our old centurian regularly and that's the only thing we've had go out on the RPM.

We just bought that heat press a few weeks back, nothing has been wrong yet but I'll keep my fingers crossed.

So you've had a few more issues than us but still nothing that I would be upset about really besides the heat press.  I'm on the fence about the Tajima and laser system though, it seems like it would be an easy fix for them.

Do you deal with Hirsch on that Tajima Admiral?

Sorry for all the questions, I do think this exercise will be good for all of us that haven't been doing this 30 years and bought tons of new equipment.  It's hard to know what to expect when you've had a few major purchases and they all went great. 

I forgot to mention another major piece of equipment we bought new, the Epilog Laser.  It's 6 years old and hasn't gone down but one time.  It's been bullet proof really.  A workhorse of a machine that probably hasn't been taken care of properly the last few years so this has me thinking I need to go check it out.

[dirkdiggler]

I have purchased 5 automatics and 5 dryers and 1 heat press, 2 exposure units from M&R, nothing but top notch everything, every time.

[Persnicketees]

I have only had experience buying a new auto press once for custom screen printing.  Used presses other times which are always a gamble.  The new press is now 5 years old and has only been down once, which is all I could ask for being a t shirt printer.  The press operator came from a working with a different company and a different brand press and we have had limited experience of other brands as well just from relationships with other printers.  I would suspect that since the auto press market isn't very big (meaning the number of manufacturers), they most likely try very hard to keep the "i's" dotted and the "t's" crossed.  ............DTG on the other hand, well that's a whole different story...a nightmare of a story. 

[Admiral]

Admiral, how old is the Sprint?  And the sensor on the DB was a proximity I presume?  Those proxy sensors are on all of our equipment and for as much work as they do, they are very simple yet they do go bad more often it seems.  They went bad on our old centurian regularly and that's the only thing we've had go out on the RPM.

We just bought that heat press a few weeks back, nothing has been wrong yet but I'll keep my fingers crossed.

So you've had a few more issues than us but still nothing that I would be upset about really besides the heat press.  I'm on the fence about the Tajima and laser system though, it seems like it would be an easy fix for them.

Do you deal with Hirsch on that Tajima Admiral?

Sorry for all the questions, I do think this exercise will be good for all of us that haven't been doing this 30 years and bought tons of new equipment.  It's hard to know what to expect when you've had a few major purchases and they all went great. 

I forgot to mention another major piece of equipment we bought new, the Epilog Laser.  It's 6 years old and hasn't gone down but one time.  It's been bullet proof really.  A workhorse of a machine that probably hasn't been taken care of properly the last few years so this has me thinking I need to go check it out.

Hirsch yes...the last couple software updates haven't fixed it so I do my workaround.  It's quick but shouldn't be needed.  Actually bought it at ISS Long Beach last year.

This year I'll be checking out Trotec / Epilog for a laser...that's another topic though.

The Sprint 2000 is just over 2 years old. 

Most of those are minor problems.  One of the reasons that heat press has had those issues for us is because we use it for pretreating shirts non stop - that's why the element was a no go, it wouldn't retain heat when dealing with evaporation.  We have almost all Stahls Hotronix heat presses and most work fine, but other heat presses are built tougher.

[tancehughes]

No issues with our diamondback or msp 3140 whatsoever. One small issue with our BBC dryer that was a little tricky but we got it fixed quickly.

As far as this hotronix heat press, the magnets suck. They never hold like they should. I bought it brand new and it just doesn't work very well.

We can't afford much downtime at all around here and this is one of the main reasons why I feel comfortable buying from m&r again because I know that downtime will
Be minimal with their equipment.

[alan802]

Tance brought up something that is now a concern of ours where 4 years ago it wasn't, downtime.  When we had the centurian and texair dryer, there were several times a year where we were down for a day, sometimes two due to equipment failure and we were able to bounce back from that quickly and still get jobs done without too much at stake.  Now, we do twice as many jobs per day as we used to, and there are new jobs coming in daily so if we were down a day right now, it would be really bad.  That concern and my production model of using and having only one auto insists that we have a reliable press, but also have the ability to have that press up and running as quickly as possible should something go down.  I haven't had to deal with a down machine in a few years now and it's been nice, but I understand that as machines get older, the probability of part failure increases a lot.  I think our next press will not only have to be very capable, reliable and have bells and whistles, but it will need to have someone behind it that will be there immediately if something goes down.  The only time I needed a part for the RPM I got it the next day.  But, I understand that no matter how good the one man band is, the orchestra will always be better.  Peace of mind goes a long way when you have a thin margin for error. 

[jvanick]

Also, having some of the common things to go out as 'spares' isn't a bad plan either.

I have in my 'spares' box:

- flip cylinders
- stroke cylinders
- frame lock cylinders (although I could get away without them)
- mac valves
- air lines in all the sizes for my press
- switches
- prox sensors

probably a grand total of $250-$300 worth of parts, but worth every penny if something fails and I need to get a 'rush job' out the door... heck most of the time the rush fee alone is more than that.

I'm actually thinking of picking up a 2nd air compressor too...

I feel that when you have nearly all (older) used gear, you gotta be able to service most of it yourself, and be ready when something breaks.

[3Deep]

My experience when I bought my press and embroidery machine all new was great, I think me being the new user was more of an issue than equipment, know how to use it correct.  When I bought our Anatol the shipping did take a little longer than I would have liked, but they did call and let me know so I didn't have to steady call and ask, the tech (Thomas) did a great job on the press.  Sometimes I think we as equipment buyers can be like some of our customers the ones you wish had never stepped in your shop, and yes I know I'm comparing apples to oranges here but you get the jest of what I mean.  I have an older M&R dryer that breaks down every 8 months seem like very minor though, a burn wire or fuse and the blower fan only last about 4 to 6 months and goes out which I know was a design error (Rich offered to redo the dryer for a few hundred bucks or so) and bring it back like new.  I have been pretty happy so far with all my equipment new and used and I still have service for even the oldest.

Darryl

[Socalfmf]

my buying experience is awesome.  as you all know we have all M&R and I went to Chicago and did training before I received machine.  Our first job on the Diamondback was 850 sweatshirts and we did them pretty quickly and I made about 7 months payments just off that job!  we have had one hose go bad but was easily replaced in about 5 min.  besides that  we are running strong and will hit 1 million on that this month or next.  but I think it will be this month!

we buy quality products and use the best materials that make us move faster and have a great product.

that is my take.

sam

[TCT]

I will go into more detail on my experience with the red guys latter possibly, right now I want to give them a last chance to remedy things with my other post.

Our embroidery machine we bought new was right on time, a week early if memory serves me correctly.

Our DTG machine was delayed at least a month I think maybe longer, that sucked. We had a power board or something flake out on it but that was replaced ASAP. The DTG machine is good but you have to baby the hell out of it!

anatol press we got on time, but that is because I picked it up directly off the floor at ISS Schaumburg back in the day! The rest of my experience with them to date has not been too peachy.

S.Roque went well for the most part, what happened with mine is probably is irrelevant to any new customers. I had purchased mine before the Ryonet deal was signed, and I didn't know of TechSupport. I bought mine directly from the North American contact. Being one of the first ones here, there were hiccups. It got held in customs for a while, which was my fault because I took responsibility and ownership of it once it hit the dock. My custom papers should of been filed differently. There was a issue with the UL certification here once it was installed, but that is bureaucratic organized crime as far as I'm concerned. Like I said no one buying a press now would even come in contact with these issues.  The whole S.Roque factory is UL certified now, and TechSupport and Ryonet handle the imports!
Total down time in 10 months on my press was 12min. 2 or 3 of those minutes were spent with me trying to figure out how the heck to download and use Skype! And it wasn't really down, it was a "warning" sensor that I just needed to learn how to re set.

The minimal equipment we have from workhorse(exposure unit, manual) have lived up to their names and were in stock when we ordered them back in the day.