Mlink in the building.

[GraphicDisorder]

Thanks!

Between this and our new Sprint 3000 it feels like Christmas!

[jvanick]

Brandt, I realize that you don't do any large areas of a single color, but... if you have...

did you notice any speckiling in those areas on either the M&R or the Brother?

I got our official TSB shirts that were printed on the Brother, on a black shirt, and the print is just not what I would have expected... I'm wondering if this is something that is 'normal' for DTG or not...

[cbjamel]

This thing is still kicking.

Are the amount of ink and pretreat spray dollar wise working out like it was on the test samples you did?
Very nice prints.
Shane

[GraphicDisorder]

Brandt, I realize that you don't do any large areas of a single color, but... if you have...

did you notice any speckiling in those areas on either the M&R or the Brother?

I got our official TSB shirts that were printed on the Brother, on a black shirt, and the print is just not what I would have expected... I'm wondering if this is something that is 'normal' for DTG or not...

In the beginning we seen specking on the Brother. We then started rolling the pre-treat flat after coating prior to heat press. Never saw much after that on either.  A lot of our artwork doesn't really have a large solid area of ink, so I haven't really tried to do that as I can't think of many scenarios where that would be "real world" for us.  Again anyone can send a sample artwork over and Ill print it off the Mlink and mail it back to you. Cost you  nothing but your garment/shipping back. 

[Maff]

Really awesome artwork and prints!!

So are you starting to see situations now that you would pull a job from the Auto over to the M-Link?  from a production standpoint...

Or are expecting to only market this service and type of work just within DTG??

[GraphicDisorder]

This thing is still kicking.

Are the amount of ink and pretreat spray dollar wise working out like it was on the test samples you did?
Very nice prints.
Shane

If anything we seem to be stabilized at most shirts being about $.90-$1.10 in ink total for 2 location shirt.  Fronts are often left chest or center not SUPER big prints. 4.5-12 inches.  Backs are all pretty damn big around 13.5-14 wide and are very tall around 14-17 inches. Pre-Treat is costing nearly what the print is. Around $.25-50 per print.

As we do some lose maths we are very happy though. 

Gildan Shirt: $1.70
Rough High Ink costs for 2 sided print: $1.00
Average Pretreat: $.75
Hard costs: $3.45

Labor, we did 30pcs (60 prints) in 5hrs the other day at a fairly decent clip but not humping it. So let's say labor is $13 a hour. You have $65 in labor.

So on 30 shirts with 2 sided prints (most all different prints BTW, would be much faster just printing same print over and over), we retailed them for $20 plus ship.  Thats $600.

Sales: $600
Labor: $65
Garment/ink/pretreat: $103.50

So in 5hrs we put over $400 in the bank. If my shop can turn 30 shirts a day with that type of profit, 250 working days a year days, that is over 100k in profit for us per year running this thing part time. Also keep in mind this same employee will be running our Roland printer at the same time so his labor could really be divided between the two processes and neither should slow him down much from the other as the printer can print for hours at times without being bothered.

Ill take it. I think people running smaller designs or single sided designs would be even more pleasantly surprised at the profit/etc.

[cbjamel]

Nice!
Shane

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G890A using Tapatalk

[GraphicDisorder]

Really awesome artwork and prints!!

So are you starting to see situations now that you would pull a job from the Auto over to the M-Link?  from a production standpoint...

Or are expecting to only market this service and type of work just within DTG??

We haven't decided that we'd pull a auto job for the Mlink yet, but I can see that we my should look at it in certain scenarios. Time will tell on that.  Right now with our DTG sales we wouldn't have a lot of open time for it.  But that may change.

[Maff]

Really awesome artwork and prints!!

So are you starting to see situations now that you would pull a job from the Auto over to the M-Link?  from a production standpoint...

Or are expecting to only market this service and type of work just within DTG??

We haven't decided that we'd pull a auto job for the Mlink yet, but I can see that we my should look at it in certain scenarios. Time will tell on that.  Right now with our DTG sales we wouldn't have a lot of open time for it.  But that may change.

Yeah i considered getting a DTG a while ago, just for the sake of pulling high color low quantity jobs over to it, but what your describing makes more sense using it for a DTG specific market... just in a profit sense with the a higher mark up. 
We pulled away from the idea to focus our efforts and finances on expanding our screen printing instead... but I can see DTG still being a good idea in the future if we market the service right.

It's really great to see all the math that you've been calculating... it makes the whole venture better understood.

[GraphicDisorder]

Really awesome artwork and prints!!

So are you starting to see situations now that you would pull a job from the Auto over to the M-Link?  from a production standpoint...

Or are expecting to only market this service and type of work just within DTG??

We haven't decided that we'd pull a auto job for the Mlink yet, but I can see that we my should look at it in certain scenarios. Time will tell on that.  Right now with our DTG sales we wouldn't have a lot of open time for it.  But that may change.

Yeah i considered getting a DTG a while ago, just for the sake of pulling high color low quantity jobs over to it, but what your describing makes more sense using it for a DTG specific market... just in a profit sense with the a higher mark up. 
We pulled away from the idea to focus our efforts and finances on expanding our screen printing instead... but I can see DTG still being a good idea in the future if we market the service right.

It's really great to see all the math that you've been calculating... it makes the whole venture better understood.

I certainly get tired of seeing 8-12 screens for a 24pc job. Sure we are charging good for it but I think we could run them cheaper on the DTG. Not faster maybe, but cheaper. CTS makes any job go pretty quick even with a lot of screens so its hard to justify using dtg on some jobs in my shop.  But maybe ill start offering 12pc runs, do them DTG only, unlimited colors.  Might be a idea. 

I would never focus our finances on DTG, we basically upgraded our screen printing equipment to the point where we are VERY modern, CH3D/CTS/Starlight/Sprint 3000/etc. I wanted another revenue stream and start working on growing it. 

[Maff]

[/quote]

I would never focus our finances on DTG, we basically upgraded our screen printing equipment to the point where we are VERY modern, CH3D/CTS/Starlight/Sprint 3000/etc. I wanted another revenue stream and start working on growing it.
[/quote]

Right, Open a new door to a new market, new revenue stream and more growth... right on man!

[GraphicDisorder]

Couple Mlink Videos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SysVVMBzg3s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ve36l5pOZOo

[Gilligan]

So in 5hrs we put over $400 in the bank. If my shop can turn 30 shirts a day with that type of profit, 250 working days a year days, that is over 100k in profit for us per year running this thing part time.

Hey, that's six figures just in DTG... Can't beat that.

[jvanick]

I certainly get tired of seeing 8-12 screens for a 24pc job. Sure we are charging good for it but I think we could run them cheaper on the DTG.

HOLY CR@P...

8-12 screens for a 24pc job, we'd be at $32 a shirt on the low side to $50 a shirt on the high side for retail to cover shop time, job staging, handling, etc.

[GraphicDisorder]

I certainly get tired of seeing 8-12 screens for a 24pc job. Sure we are charging good for it but I think we could run them cheaper on the DTG.

HOLY CR@P...

8-12 screens for a 24pc job, we'd be at $32 a shirt on the low side to $50 a shirt on the high side for retail to cover shop time, job staging, handling, etc.

We do a lot of jobs like that. Many seem to lead into bigger jobs later but people like to try it out I guess.  On top of that we get a ton of jobs like that with $200-500 in artwork fees before we even print the job.