Mlink in the building.

[Mr Tees!!]

That's a damn good print on a G200. Both sellable for sure. Thanks for the info Shelly, hope you feel better.

How many grams (or ML) of pretreat are you laying down and what is the area you are spraying (like 14x18)?

Both sell-able prints for sure, id say both are great prints.

The test proves is that the Brother is using more ink. I believe she picked this design randomly and we have not run it on either machine prior to this. So it was a even Steven test at least until someone starts objecting about swamp gas refracting light off Venus making Pluto release toxic laser beams that made the M&R use less ink. I am sure even this test wont be enough for some and we will need to bring in Nasa to measure the PSI used per print nozzle and weigh the ink at the atom level. I dunno folks. Take it for what it is, we've tested these things as even as we know how.

I find them both to be good machines, but they are different. Period.

I'm gonna need you to weight that swamp gas.

[bulldog]

Brandt, what brand of pretreat are you using?

[GraphicDisorder]

Brandt, what brand of pretreat are you using?

Brother for Brother, M&R for M&R.

[bulldog]

Brandt, what brand of pretreat are you using?

Brother for Brother, M&R for M&R.

Have you tried printing out just a block of white like 5"x5" on a Gildan? I can lay down a pretty good full color print on a Gildan but if I'm doing a white block test it shows some pitting. Still experimenting with pre-treat variables but wondering if you've done anything similar and what results were? I also know I could be pissing in the wind with the Gildans.

[GraphicDisorder]

Brandt, what brand of pretreat are you using?

Brother for Brother, M&R for M&R.

Have you tried printing out just a block of white like 5"x5" on a Gildan? I can lay down a pretty good full color print on a Gildan but if I'm doing a white block test it shows some pitting. Still experimenting with pre-treat variables but wondering if you've done anything similar and what results were? I also know I could be pissing in the wind with the Gildans.

We haven't printed a solid large white square image as I am not sure what it would/wouldn't prove in relation to the typical images we print. I suppose we could do it but we already know the Brother as of this second will put down a bunch more white and so far its not been as good of a white as the M&R. So it will cost more and look worse I suspect. Kind of more of what we already know. I am curious after Monday we have any differences in the way we use it after Brother comes. 

I am still happy with both machines. Many people have the Brother and it works great for them and its a cash maker I am certain. I wouldn't argue otherwise nor would I tell someone not to buy the Brother. I am sure some believe I would tell someone not to buy the Brother, just not the case. I would however make sure anyone asking me understands there are vast ink costs differences and maintenance time involved so far between the two. if they ask me which I like better id say M&R.

Remember there is always more than one way to skin a cat, neither are really wrong just different.  Most of us run our shops a bit different and if we plugged in each of us into the others shop it would probably be chaos. M&R and Brother likely have a much different philosophy as how they do things. I suspect if we sat down at the main table at each we'd find M&R wants to sell the machine, Brother wants to sell the consumables. Doesn't make either wrong, just different. In some case I believe you could make a case for each being more ideal depending on the situation.

As of today if I had to do it again knowing what I see with my own 2 eyes, id buy the M&R. We will see how/if that changes over some time and ill give my updated opinion then. 

[jvanick]

if brother is coming on monday, I assume/am hoping that you're going to leave the machine in a non-powered up state until they arrive, so they can go through the monday morning pain with you or your staff and tell you if/what you're doing wrong?

[ScreenPrinter123]

So the ink chemistry is similar and the brother lays down more white and looks worse.  Is it possible that the pretreat is contributing to the difference?  I know nothing about DTG so maybe it is not possible but have you tried swapping the pretreats to see if that changes the print results?

[GraphicDisorder]

if brother is coming on monday, I assume/am hoping that you're going to leave the machine in a non-powered up state until they arrive, so they can go through the monday morning pain with you or your staff and tell you if/what you're doing wrong?

The machine prompts you for all the maintenance on Monday, not sure how it could be done wrong. It's pretty cut and dry as far as that goes. Not sure what time he is coming in but we will likely start that maintenance at 8 am with or without him so we aren't wasting 2hrs of his time.

[GraphicDisorder]

So the ink chemistry is similar and the brother lays down more white and looks worse.  Is it possible that the pretreat is contributing to the difference?  I know nothing about DTG so maybe it is not possible but have you tried swapping the pretreats to see if that changes the print results?

Each machine has its own pretreat.  We've used both with each other just to see how they react.  Both machines print worse with the others pretreat. I'm going to assume each recommend using their own version of pretreat so we'd like to stick with that for now as we learn. 

Also remember it seems with our testing the Brother ink has more water or carrier fluid in its ink.  So while its laying down more cc a higher percentage of it is evaporating in the heat pressing process.  But that does mean higher costs as your using higher volume of more expensive ink. 

[pwalsh]

So the ink chemistry is similar and the brother lays down more white and looks worse.  Is it possible that the pretreat is contributing to the difference?  I know nothing about DTG so maybe it is not possible but have you tried swapping the pretreats to see if that changes the print results?

Each machine has its own pretreat.  We've used both with each other just to see how they react.  Both machines print worse with the others pretreat. I'm going to assume each recommend using their own version of pretreat so we'd like to stick with that for now as we learn. 

Also remember it seems with our testing the Brother ink has more water or carrier fluid in its ink.  So while its laying down more cc a higher percentage of it is evaporating in the heat pressing process.  But that does mean higher costs as your using higher volume of more expensive ink.

Brandt:  Based on Shelly's testing where she weighed the wet ink deposit and the after heat pressing weight I'd have to say that the opposite result occurred.  Unless I screwed up and misinterpreted the numbers here is what the results of Shelly's test regarding ink evaporation and remaining solids content indicate:

M&R M-Link Ink Usage = 2.12cc ink volume reported, 5.6 grams of weighed wet ink, & 0.3 grams of ink remaining after heat pressing / drying
Brother GT-381 Ink Usage = 4.26cc ink volume reported, 7.9 grams of weighed wet ink & 2.3 grams of ink remaining on the garment after heat pressing / drying.

Observation:  assuming that all weights were consistent it appears that the Brother ink has a higher solid content
M-Link –  Weight wet inks 5.6 grams, and  0.3 grams remaining solids after heat pressing, for a reduction from wet to dry ink of 94.6%
GT-381 –  Weight wet inks 7.9  grams, and 2.3 grams remaining solids after heat pressing, for a reduction from wet to dry ink of 70.9%

[GraphicDisorder]

Looks like it yes, never did the % math, my bad so much going on. I was more focused on what ink weight was left which was the point of the test really.  .3 vs 2.3.  Pretty much proving it is using more ink. I would suggest that just logically if one has more solid content then cc for cc wouldn't the higher solid content ink look better? Doesn't seem to be the case. Brother comes today, so today should be interesting.

[GraphicDisorder]

Good day with Brother/Nazdar today. He showed us some options on using a bit less ink but over all we still felt the white needed boosted to get us the print we had in mind so the ink cost just went back up. We were also shown a different rip that we felt created more issues than it solved. We'd probably pass on using that and it did add cost. We did see some banding on both machines today and we found it to be a humidity issue. We haven't seen much banding on either machine after the first day of printing so this is a new one. It was cold as hell today and snowing no idea if that had any thing to do with it.  He did check our humidity level and it was super low. We may put in a humidifier to see if that helps any. To be fair today we used only the Brother pre-treat even when messing with the M&R.

Both companies care about the customer clearly. I remain happy with each machine but still would take the M&R over the Brother given the ink costs/up keep of the Brother compared to the M&R.  Id still recommend the Brother to anyone with a smaller budget or doing lower volume. 

We hope to start selling garments this week. So I think we will start seeing some real world use not just testing soon. 

[Crazy Mike]

I see you have the Brother listed for sale. The Mlink wins!

[GraphicDisorder]

I see you have the Brother listed for sale. The Mlink wins!

Yes, figured id list it and see if there is any interest. If it sells it sells if it don't it don't.  The Mlink is the better package for us. The Brother remains very good machine though and some would suggest better for them. There are people making great living on them.

[jvanick]

so what happened yesterday with the brother folks in house to make you decide to list it today?

was it only related to the upkeep/ink costs?  Or was there more shortcomings on the Brother unit?

-- also, what did they say about the white ink issues on monday mornings that you've been having?  Is that just related to humidity?  (wondering if these units need to be kept in a truly temperature controlled environment, kinda like our screen rooms, but with an automatic humidifier to keep the room humidity at a certain level)