DTF Station Prestige Printer

[Nation03]

Anyone have experience with this DTF printer? I'm looking to add one for 2023. Wondering if it's worth the cost or if it's just a future PITA.

[3Deep]

Just a quick glance, it looks like a soup up version of the L1800 printer, auto circulation of white a plus.... now for me it's how much you plan on doing with this machine being it's single sheet feed and not roll ( I didn't read everything on it so I might be missing things).  We have the L1800 printer and it's been a work horse for us, but we don't printer a ton of stuff per day plus it's slow not a fast production printer which is still fine with me for what we do.  If your planning on heavy production day to day bigger printer and go rolls, Homer has one that I think kicks butt for heavy production, but for light to mid work that printer might be a good choice, also check what type print heads it use and the cost, trust me your going to need a few head replacements.

[Nation03]

Thanks for the info! I believe this can use a roll as well but the print speed is slow. I think it's using an Epson 1430 print head which is a little strange since i thought those have been discontinued.

I don't plan on doing crazy bulk orders with it. Just need something to handle the folks that need low quantity, high color prints. I've gotten too many requests over the years to ignore at this point so I figured it would be a good tool to have around for these types of orders. Plus it would be nice to do hats as well since I don't do embroidery this will fill that void.

[zanegun08]

Not a plug, but save yourself the headache and just order from Supacolor, they have a 10 piece minimum.

I haven't seen any desktop printer that puts out great quality DTF, always leaves a lot to be desired although I'm sure it will continue to improve.

However not having to deal with a machine that clogs, and when you can get just 10 pieces from Supa in 3-4 days.

Yes you'll have a "higher cost per transfer", but no up front costs, and then you have access to a very expensive printer, with a screen print base, rather than a lower cost headache.

For 10 pieces you should be damn near retail price on your garments anyhow, $20-$25 in my opinion, any less and you are losing money unless you are using it as a "loss leader" to bring in new business or keep certain people happy.

I've done 1 piece orders for certain people that are good clients, still use Supacolor and just charge enough to cover costs.

[3Deep]

@ Zanegun08 I 'm going to disagree with you on some of what you said there, I will agree that yes access to a really good printer, no clog headaches is a plus, now I don't know how high your expectations are on a DTF print is, seems very high from reading your post, but being able to do your stuff inhouse is great, and I think we've done some killer prints here with our machine.  The big plus is we've been able to knock out stuff in a few hours for customers that need 2 or 3 shirts the same day, and yes we upcharge for that, extra money that I use to let walk out the door.  I've got some of supacolors DTF prints and a few other companies samples and I think ours look just as good, but that's what I see, I'll post some of our DFT prints in a few.
@ Nation the 1430 use the same printheads as the L1800 and I think alot of other printers use those same heads in there printers not sure, but I do know about the 1430 and L1800 because I have both and the print heads interchange.

My phone pics don't do these two print justice, but they look great in person LOL

[Nation03]

Yeah I've used Supracolor in the past. Not sure if the process changed, but ordering from them was too clunky from what I remember and since we're in the "I need it yesterday" business, I don't have time to wait on shipping. Especially how inconsistent UPS and FedEx have been since the pandemic.

My only other thought is to add a DTG machine that also does DTF since we're looking to add DTG eventually anyway. Might be worth it to just kill 2 birds with 1 stone.

[Homer]

If you want a DTG, I will give you a Belquette Mod 1 I have here, you pay shipping, it's yours.

Outsourcing DTF defeats the purpose for me, we experiment too often, trial and error with various products, quick turns, upselling, just wouldn't work for us. But I totally understand not dealing with head clogs....which reminds me I need to go do a head cleaning on this mo fo 

[Nation03]

If you want a DTG, I will give you a Belquette Mod 1 I have here, you pay shipping, it's yours.

Outsourcing DTF defeats the purpose for me, we experiment too often, trial and error with various products, quick turns, upselling, just wouldn't work for us. But I totally understand not dealing with head clogs....which reminds me I need to go do a head cleaning on this mo fo 

That is an enticing offer lol. I don't know if I'm industrious enough to fix an older DTG. Does it work and is there still support and software on those Mod 1's?

[Dottonedan]

Not a plug, but save yourself the headache and just order from Supacolor, they have a 10 piece minimum.

I haven't seen any desktop printer that puts out great quality DTF, always leaves a lot to be desired although I'm sure it will continue to improve.

However not having to deal with a machine that clogs, and when you can get just 10 pieces from Supa in 3-4 days.

Yes you'll have a "higher cost per transfer", but no up front costs, and then you have access to a very expensive printer, with a screen print base, rather than a lower cost headache.

For 10 pieces you should be damn near retail price on your garments anyhow, $20-$25 in my opinion, any less and you are losing money unless you are using it as a "loss leader" to bring in new business or keep certain people happy.

I've done 1 piece orders for certain people that are good clients, still use Supacolor and just charge enough to cover costs.

If I could give a LIKE, I would and 5 stars.

[rusty]

We use transfer express for DTF transfers and its great.

I would love to do it in house but willing to wait as we build this up.

[DonR]

As one of the oldest and now largest vendors of ready to press DTF transfers, I would like to chime in. If your volume of DTF transfers is less than 50 prints per day, financially, you are much better off outsourcing the prints to any good DTF supplier. See our DTF cost calculator which will give you a very conservative estimate of your costs. https://www.tprnt.com/CostCalc.html
What you lose in flexibility will be made up by consistent quality prints.

[Sbrem]

We use TPRNT.com, and Supacolor, fine products from both. For us in Mass., TPRINT is in Conn. and shipping is free, and if I put the order in before noon, it usually ships that day and I have the next morning. We try not to need rushes like that, but there's no rush charge. For me, that's good in case I forget to place the order at all, lol.

Steve

[3Deep]

I think this topic has kind of gone side ways ( tell me if I'm wrong) lol, Nation wants to bring in and do his own stuff inhouse and have control over how fast they can get service to his customers, and looking for good info on a DTF printer that can get the job done, and so far the info he is getting is to outsource.  I going to say this and then keep my trap closed, Yes there're some very good DTF companies out there to buy from that have put big money into there equipment to sell great prints to whomever might need then, but also there are pretty good printers to be had for people like me that like to do things inhouse, same reason why just about everyone on here went out and bought a press instead of contracting out the jobs.

[inkman996]

W use TPRNT well ofcourse since we are in the same state. But yes they ship nearly the same day and we order nearly every day from them. I do like the Supas but man their order process sucks, the sizes available never match  up with reality of print sizes so we always have to go up a size increasing the cost and what once was a fairly decent ship time it is now two weeks or longer for us.