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screen printing => Equipment => Topic started by: jvanick on August 26, 2014, 08:17:39 AM
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We're getting closer and closer to ordering a new press...
we've already decided a few of the major parts:
AC heads
Servo Index
the hard part we're having is how many heads.
80-90% of our prints are 1-2 color jobs.
the rest are a mix between 4 to 5 colors with an occasional 6 color thrown in (maybe once a week or so).
an 8 color would be plenty for our current needs... no problem to run our 6 color jobs with a cool-down station, or 7 color jobs a bit more carefully... or heck even an 8 color job if we were to move the flash to the unload station.
a 10 color would technically be overkill, but might open us up to more new jobs in the future...
Of course, with our current growth curve, we most likely will be able to add another press in 18 months or so anyways.
+ of a larger machine:
more heads, could potentially leave a front and back setup, especially for these large runs.
more cool down stations/options for flashing if need be.
- of a larger machine:
more investment in platens (12 vs 10 needed per size)
more space needed, although not sure if the extra 1ft around would really matter that much.
extra 10k?-ish in cost... which could help fund a DTS quicker.
Any and all opinions are appreciated.
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As long as you can fit it, the 10 would obviously be the better option. The question is can you afford the difference in price. I think it's a good bump.
Your shop sounds very similar to mine. Mostly 1-2 color jobs, occasional 3-4 color jobs.
I should have my new to me press up and running next month. It's an 8/10. I'm sure I will be fine for many years to come with it. I have 2 flashes and plan on getting Action's roller/smoothing screen.
I really don't think I'm going to have to turn much, if anything, away.
Would I trade it for a 10/12? In a second. Anything to guarantee that I won't have to press shop again and put that money towards other things (cts/dryer/embroidery/etc)
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I remain a firm believer in buying the largest press possible if its your only press. There is no real negative to having more print stations other than size of the machine and cost. But larger machine leaves doors open for more ink colors on a job you may have had to turn down, more jobs on the press at once, and so on. IMO if 2 more heads are in your reach buy them!
Of course if you dont want to do larger color print jobs then this doesn't apply to you.
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Jason,
I know of a 10 color MHM E-Type for sale in Atlanta. An '07 or '08 model. New computer. 2 flashes. mid $30's
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I would strongly encourage you to get as many heads as you can fit into your footprint!
One option you have is to get a 12 color press but to put on 10 color sized heads. The length of the Head/Arms are smaller on a 10 color so your footprint is smaller. We have one and we love it. It was installed at our old location as out footprint/allowed space was to small for the number of heads we wanted.
More heads = more options to flash and cooldown. You can have 3 flashes on a press if needed and still run a larger multicolor job. We have pushed our 14 color really hard this way. Drawback: No oversized screens as the back clamps are to close together.
TL;DR - More heads are better.
Best of Luck!
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Larger press? Set up multiple jobs at one time.
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Also for your consideration the MHM IQ Oval is modular. Simply add heads and stations at your leisure. No belt or chain to drive the platens. Cool machine!!!!!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyt8Sg4JV2c (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyt8Sg4JV2c)
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Hirsch turns me off about MHM... and what about the platen deflection I'm reading about in the other thread...
CFO here is telling me to go new, or as close to new as possible...
Maybe we can convince Rich into letting us buy the press from the showroom after we get done running 50k impressions on it?? LOL.
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If space isn't a issue(it WAS for us) the biggest negative of a larger press as stupid as it sounds, is actually walking around it. I know it sounds pathetic and rather trivial, but there are really no negatives.
Our bread and butter jobs are 2-4 color jobs and we use the hell out of our 10 color. You have the right idea with setting up a front and back and leaving them up. I am a superstitious person so I always leave both sides up till the job is all done! It is also very nice to set up multiple jobs in the am so as the day progresses you just turn one set if heads off and another set on and you are off and printing right away!
It has also been discussed the thoughts or advantages of a 8 color 12 station press, and leaving head 3 and 7 open...
Also depending in ink changes coming Print, Flash, Cool, Print, Flash, Cool, Print, Flash, Cool, ect. Will probably become more of a reality...
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Also depending in ink changes coming Print, Flash, Cool, Print, Flash, Cool, Print, Flash, Cool, ect. Will probably become more of a reality...
Of course, hopefully we'll figure some way to back that back into the cost model... can't even imagine how much heat and electricity that would throw off.
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We have some 14s and a ten but my favorite press is the 6/8 GT. And have fun changing pallet tape on 18 platens!
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More heads, you will never kick yourself I the ass because you have too many heads. Especially if it's your only press.
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How does a larger machine and more space affect your overhead?.......Sure more heads is nice if you need them, however, the overhead you pay must be paid on every job you do even if part of your space and machine is not needed.....
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Definitely won't be our only auto...
we'll be keeping the beater Javelin around just for kicks, at least until we are running both presses flat out and need to upgrade that one as well...
remember tho, that with our growth curve, I hope to be adding another new auto 12-18 months down the line... so I could always do a 10 color later...
how about if I ask it this way:
would I be better with a 8 color press AND a DTS
or a 10 color press and no DTS.
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Depending on the press go DTS. If you want to use the DTS for the javelin then you need to find you a Tri Lock or pin system if you use Newmans
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Definitely won't be our only auto...
we'll be keeping the beater Javelin around just for kicks, at least until we are running both presses flat out and need to upgrade that one as well...
remember tho, that with our growth curve, I hope to be adding another new auto 12-18 months down the line... so I could always do a 10 color later...
how about if I ask it this way:
would I be better with a 8 color press AND a DTS
or a 10 color press and no DTS.
You'd be better off with a 12 color and a DTS 6 months later ;)
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Absolutely, if you can swing it, go with the 10/12. We were a very similar shop when we bought our first 8/10 as far as types of jobs we printed.
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10/12 if you are doing 6 color plastisol every week.
I don't think I'd make any choice without having a real close look at the new M&R GIII, of course a CIII would be ideal, but I think the GIII is going to be quite a press to beat.
other than that, the Sroque, Workhorse Falcon or Sabre and MHM would be in consideration for me.
I love a bargain, so I'd be all over a used press, but then we're handy enough to do 95% of all our maintenance and trouble shooting if there is any trouble.
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so the next question comes down to:
max print size.. today, 99.9% of our prints are 13w-x-16h... due to most jobs going from small to XL sometimes with youth or women's sizes thrown in.
is it worth getting a 20x20 or larger max print area?
the G3 sounds like it might be out of our price range, and not exactly sure what it would buy us over a Sportsman or Sabre.
we do 100% of our own maintenance and troubleshooting right now, but I don't want to be quite as tied to the shop, or refurbishing a new press while we're getting some of these larger orders in. It's one thing to tear a press down or deal with issues when you're printing a few hundred shirts, but a few thousand shirts, and it's just not fun.
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For us, 16 x 20 is plenty big enough for print size
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is it worth getting a 20x20 or larger max print area?
The way I see it, if it was, you'd know it. When I was looking at a press, it was one of the main things I was looking for as we do a lot of fashion printing and are currently running oversized prints manually, but I've seen shops do 5x the amount of work we do on a standard print stroke. It's all about your market.
On the other hand, you never know when you'll be asked to run an oversized print or something like a large towel print, so it never hurts to have the extra print size as a backup. But if the extra cost doesn't add up for the amount of times that can happen, I wouldn't spend the extra money just to have it.
Edit: Another thing to keep in mind is that big prints = big pallets = big investment
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Also...
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is it worth getting a 20x20 or larger max print area?
The way I see it, if it was, you'd know it. When I was looking at a press, it was one of the main things I was looking for as we do a lot of fashion printing and are currently running oversized prints manually, but I've seen shops do 5x the amount of work we do on a standard print stroke. It's all about your market.
On the other hand, you never know when you'll be asked to run an oversized print or something like a large towel print, so it never hurts to have the extra print size as a backup. But if the extra cost doesn't add up for the amount of times that can happen, I wouldn't spend the extra money just to have it.
Edit: Another thing to keep in mind is that big prints = big pallets = big investment
Don't you know it! Plus scoop coaters squeegees and sinks and exposure units and film output...........I've seen some fairly large and successful companies fall into this money pit. (BTW I saw the movie last weekend on TBS or whatever. Great Tom Hanks pic)
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is it worth getting a 20x20 or larger max print area?
Don't you know it! Plus scoop coaters squeegees and sinks and exposure units and film output...........I've seen some fairly large and successful companies fall into this money pit. (BTW I saw the movie last weekend on TBS or whatever. Great Tom Hanks pic)
One of the best laughing scenes ever (when the tub goes through the floor/ceiling)
Steve
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A little birdie told me the Sabre has maintenance prompts based on impression count that will pop up on screen, and then WALK YOU THROUGH how to perform the maintenance yourself!
(it wasn't a birdie it was a texsource rep)
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A little birdie told me the Sabre has maintenance prompts based on impression count that will pop up on screen, and then WALK YOU THROUGH how to perform the maintenance yourself!
(it wasn't a birdie it was a texsource rep)
That's a relief, I was going to say you might need to get back on your meds if birds were starting to talk to you.
I can't wait to start the whole process on buying our next auto. I don't know when that will be though. I thought that 5 years ago when we reached the point we are at now in sales and volume that we'd definitely need 2 autos but now I think we could be at double that till we need the 2nd one.
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I can't wait to start the whole process on buying our next auto. I don't know when that will be though. I thought that 5 years ago when we reached the point we are at now in sales and volume that we'd definitely need 2 autos but now I think we could be at double that till we need the 2nd one.
You're the 2nd person that has told me that...
sounds like as you get more and more run time, you make things more efficient, so that pushes the new purchases out further.
our 'gift' of a problem is that we're now printing for a marathon organizer, and it looks like 4 or 5 times a year, we'll be getting an order for 25k-30k shirts. Which isn't bad, but definitely gums up the works if it comes in on a busy cycle. 3 of the 5 are on our current 'off' time, so that works out nicely.
Next up is going to be gas dryers... but I'll make a new thread on that.
Actually maybe I'll make 2 new threads for our current top choices: one on our auto choices, one on the dryer choices.
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10 , I have a 6 and 8 would only help a bit but 10 would be great, and yes 12,14,16 would be awesome but you will need a lot of space for them
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The auto buying process for me was so fun the first time. My shop phone was ringing for weeks with industry vets and manufactures trying to send me one way or another or just giving me pointers what to look for. Enjoyed the process and as a tiny 2 person shop at the time I didn't deserve the attention or respect some of them gave me. Second time we bought one was super fast and easy. I woke up one day and said that's enough fighting 7 color jobs on a 8 color press. I made 2 phone calls and it was done. I thought about it for probably 5 minutes or less.
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so we're 99% certain going with a 10 color... something I didn't think of, but would be huge for us with the fact that we print on crappy shirts...
..almost always having a lint screen in head 1..
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you'll be suprised how quickly you'll fill up 10 heads, especially when adding in rollers and flashes!
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We used only a 7 color up until 4 months ago. We made everything work...printed right after the flash when we had to but we were clearly limited to 6 screens tops.
Immediately after installing our 12 color we started using a couple flashes and printing 7-8 colors (with 2 flashes that requires 12 stations essentially). Not only that but if that press wasn't installed then I don't know how we would have scheduled all the production we have been doing the past few months. We had to reduce a couple jobs color counts to fit it on our new press...
Definitely go with more than you need if you can afford it, you will be able to use it / need it in the future most likely. If it's your biggest press I wouldn't consider less than 10 colors...
sidenote:
It seems like we need a 3rd auto within a year but there's no space for it!...
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Our first press was a 12, second press an 8. If we had to do all over again we would do the exact same thing. We have never NOT been able to run a job. So many times I have seen guys love their new press only to wish they had a little more a few months down the road. Oh, and when we started with only a manual our first drier was a mini sprint with 12 ft of heat. You should of seen the looks we would get with that setup. But we had a vision and never wanted to buy twice. Third press was another 12 and looks like a 10 will be a good fit in the near future.