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screen printing => Equipment => Topic started by: farmboygraphics on July 12, 2017, 12:56:53 PM
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We have been using our Diamondback for about 4 years now with just one hiccup early on. Our 6 color manual is still on the floor on the other side of the dryer. It's mostly used as a big lazy Susan at this point. Do any of you single auto owners still have a manual on stand by?
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I am starting the process of selling our 2 autos and buying a shiny new one, I mentioned we should grab a new manual too and my one employee said, why?! this one holds our drinks just fine..... ;D
but I have to say, I just printed some pant legs on it the other day, so I guess it does see some ink....not much though, think I'd quit if I had to run a manual again..
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Like he said. Holds drinks and spills drinks pretty good.
Other than running 1 color names or numbers...it sits.
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we print too much weird stuff to get rid of it. small tote bags, wine pouches, sleeves on small garments, etc. plus it helps us for re-sets on orders that have defects or shortages. easier to pop it in the manual for 3 or 4 shirts than re-set the auto for a 3 color imprint.
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I.m right there with Cleveprint, I put my big jobs on the auto and setup smaller jobs on the manual...and we print some crazy tote bags that would take special pallets for the auto.
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Same here with the wierd stuff. Took it down once and it went back up for good
about two weeks later.
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My shop space is small enough we had to get rid of the manual to have room for the auto. If I had the luxury, I think I'd like to have the manual around for some things- short runs of the aforementioned "weird stuff" and for certain prints that are easier if you can finesse them. And it was nice being able to easily make a few extra pallets of random shapes & sizes. So far it seems most things can be printed with adult, youth, or sleeve pallets. (Exception is hats. Those I now have no choice but to heat press... which is easier anyway.) But I'm only a couple months into having the auto, so for me the jury is still out.
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I think a big issue is - are you a small shop doing some of the printing yourself? The manual would be a lot more useful still. Whereas if you are bigger, training people to screen print manually and actually getting quality and consistency are much more difficult (referring to the more complex printing, special placement / platens / multi color manual work).
We figured it's not worth trying to train on and ruin garments, so we have 1 small and 1 big auto and sold off the manual. Having one 60" wide dryer factors in as well of course, the manual wasn't positioned for it too well anymore either.
Setting up the Diamondback hardly takes more time than the manual so why have the extra difficulty of manually printing which has a higher defect rate (at least for us, anyone lower than auto printing? that would be interesting).
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We still use ours almost daily, 8/4 chameleon.
12 and 14 color Sportsmans for the autos.
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Sits unused 364 days a year but for that one day.....
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im with cleveprint.
we use it all the time.
but we only have 1 auto..
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Yep we have 5 manuals here that we use for classes. Other then the classes we teach they never get used, ever.
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we have 1 set up, that we use for ink testing, and i print transfers on it!
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We have an 8 color Rototex that runs a few hundred odd pieces a day, real short run yoga stuff, hats, lunch bags, etc...
Steve
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Just ran bags on one of them this morning.
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I still use mine regularly. Anything I think will take too long to setup on the auto will go on the manual (Depending on the size of the order). Going to pull the trigger on some kind of a pre-reg system soon and hopefully that will mean 90% of the orders will go to the auto.
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We have 8 manuals, 2 number presses and 7 autos, a flatbed printer and room for random flat printing with a table top hinge press.
We have staffed and scheduled daily 7 manuals, with some flex people who print transfers (truckers, interior branding, difficult placement garments) and can hop around to the number presses because we don't do a ton of numbers, but when we do they are typically for large programs.
I don't understand how you could not have a manual press in daily operation, either you are turning down business, or we say yes to way to much.
Our magical number is at around 100 pieces a job goes to autos, which I disagree with because we print a lot of things that I think would get better results on manuals, and a lot of jobs that could get knocked out much more quickly than on an auto, but it is how it is.
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Our 6/6 is now a 2/3 and pushed up against the wall for more room, but we use it for the weird stuff, we probably build a new custom platen every week for it.
Everything that can go on the auto does, everything, it is sooo much faster to set up from 1 colour to 8 on it. I just wish I had a smart flash or even an IR flash for the auto, tired of burning Heather Charcoal shirts on it....
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I use the manual as much as the auto when counting jobs. I'm in a small town and built the business being willing to do a 12 minimum. Yesterday I did a 4 color 12 piece job on the manual which I find much easier to set up - and clean up when finished using 20x24 screens rather than 23x31's
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We use both manuals a lot still...We just did a 700+ piece order that got 40 different one color backs(troop number for boy scouts) Some had 1 piece, some had 30 pieces.
All the fronts went on the auto...all the backs went on the manual presses.
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I take that some of you that don't still use a manual don't except odd jobs that can't be produce on an auto or you have a butt load of specialty pallets for your auto, I just had a set of baby pallets made for our manual as we print for a lot of daycares, plus if you print any kind of sports uniforms I just can't see you without a manual press in the shop.
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1 auto, 1 manual, 12 shirt minimum.
Both get used, almost evenly.
12 Polo left chests?
24 sleeves?
30 Black on light?
perfect filler for the manual. we probably make more money through the manual press still, just because of the large number of very small jobs we run.
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I take that some of you that don't still use a manual don't except odd jobs that can't be produce on an auto or you have a butt load of specialty pallets for your auto, I just had a set of baby pallets made for our manual as we print for a lot of daycares, plus if you print any kind of sports uniforms I just can't see you without a manual press in the shop.
We do onesies, koozies, hip prints, totes, and a few other things like that on our smaller auto just fine. We don't do multicolor transfers in house anymore, and rarely posters both of which were better on the manual.