My Experience with my Automatic Purchase - Anatol Volt M

[Biverson]

I’ve been meaning to write a review of my automatic purchase for quite sometime – Anatol Volt M 08/07 with "heads-up" option.  I wanted to make sure I'd experience everything though - Pre-sale, Post-sale, installation, general use, and experience with their service department. I've gotten through all of those and believe I'm past the honeymoon phase to accurately describe my experience thus far. It was purchased last April and installed in July. This will be a total review of my experience versus strictly a technical review. I’ve been printing for 3.5 years, 2.5 full time. This is my first automatic. Printed with a Vastex V2000HD before this.

I needed an automatic as my weekly production totals were accumulating for my one-man operation. Factors to consider were limited space and amperage, single phase only. This left me with three brands and models I’d got it down to:

•M&R Diamondback
•Anatol Volt or Titan
•Workhorse Freedom

INITIAL IMPRESSION
I went to DAX Chicago in March of 17’ to check them out in person. I had already tried to make contact with the three companies or a sales company. I dealt with Anatol directly and they responded quickly. I contacted SPSI for Workhorse and never heard a peep from them. I contacted Midwest Sign & Supply and didn’t hear anything until a week or two later.

I first met with Anatol as they were right there in front and they had already reached out to me. They had a Volt M 08/07 on display. I was impressed with it’s simplicity, minimalistic design, and Operating System. Just by looking at it I could tell how to run it. - Very user friendly and intuitive. The salesman was helpful, but you could tell he was a salesman and needed to refer back to his sheet quite a bit. I was also pretty well informed/educated in looking into the press and asking more in-depth questions. I also liked that I could get a “heads up” option where head 7, on an 8 station press, could lift up and I could have 1 person loading and 1 unloading. Or if I’m printing by myself I can put that head down if needed. I got to talk with Anatol himself and that was neat. Definitely not a “welcome to the family” kind of guy/owner and is very much engineer oriented - still very nice. He walked away as I mentioned something to the salesman, or I asked a question. I thought that was weird. I’m willing to drop up to 50K on a press and he goes and talks to an Atlas Screen Supply worker. I mentioned I had worries about their support and service and they assured me they are getting better and would take care of me.

I then went over to M&R. I was initially disappointed as I stood there for 15 minutes waiting to grab someone’s attention. This wasn’t the M&R I heard about and I had been looking as desperately around as I could. They were either with someone or talking to each other. Finally got a salesmen’s attention and it was good from there. He was the east coast sales manager and extremely knowledgeable. Had been with the company for a long time. He wanted to know about my shop, what I needed, and how M&R could help. He showed me the whole gamut of products they have for a total print system – exposure, registration, print, and cure. Only thing he was insistent on was that I don’t get a Workhorse Freedom. He couldn’t really and didn’t say anything negative about Anatol other than their service. I mentioned that I was interested in the Volt and his statement was having an electric press would be much harder to diagnosis and too much electrical going on. He also said all shops have an air compressor and need it for tools, so why get an electric. This is the downside of M&R's perspective because the only thing I use my compressor for is drying off screens - all my tools are cordless and electric. They don't see a need for an all electric and they've said they'll never build one, but there is definitely, absolutely a market for them. I also think diagnosing electrical would be much easier than 100's of feet of air lines and then trying to diagnose, "is it the press or compressor/chiller?" Which isn't their equipment so that's adding another company and people to deal with. It was a low pressure encounter and definitely made me feel like they had all of what I’d need if I went with them and told me about how I’d be treated – exceptionally well. The value was good and I truly believe he was trying to get me into the best press for me, not the most expensive. He suggested a Sportsmen as it had more features, bigger image area, and it was 1K above the Diamondback, but I couldn’t swing it size-wise. I was ready to go all-in with a Diamondback XL, Quick Clamp, and a couple other things. The price was right in line with an Anatol Titan.

I do have to say I was overall more impressed with the Volt and Anatol’s press, and how they’re built with less airlines, etc. It seems they’re trying to innovate and simplify more. The one downside was Anatol’s service that I’ve heard about – not so well. On the other hand I was more impressed with M&R as a company. M&R assured me I’d be taken care of, their vast amount of techs, 24/7 call line, and they offered to have me come by their HQ and try out the equipment. I had a 400 shirt job coming up that I didn’t want to print manually and they said to stop on down – that would have been awesome, but their showroom was booked and I needed the job done before a date could be scheduled. I forgot to mention Anatol also offered this same experience.

I had some thinking to do but at the end of the day (actually, the following week) the Anatol Volt was the press for me. They really threw me a good deal, stood by their word, and I didn’t have the amperage or space for a chiller and compressor. I got an Anatol Volt M 08/07 Heads Up, with a Rapid Wave Quartz Flash, Adult Pallets, Youth Pallets, Arm Pallets, winged flood bars, and a 30-day 100% money back guarantee from the installation date in writing.

INSTALLATION AND TRAINING
My press needed to be manufactured as it had the heads up option and they let me know it’d be about 6 weeks until it got here. I’d be picking up the press as they’re HQ is just 3 hours from me. There was some lack of communication towards the time it was supposed to be ready. The salesmen I had been working with was no longer with the company and they’d just got a new one in. This lead to me having to call in a couple times and ask about the pick-up date. They were nice and did their best to get me the info I needed. I got it about a week after the expected arrival and brought it to my shop. Training and installation would be in 2 weeks.

 The tech showed up and got to work on installing the press. All went pretty smooth. Before we called it a day he asked if I wanted to go over the press real quick to get my feet wet, or wait until tomorrow. It was nearing the end of the day. I said I’ve got time. Luckily we did that as one of the CPU’s had an error and it wouldn’t reset or “home.” He’d never seen this before and neither did the other tech. He was willing to drive back to Chicago that night, grab a new one in the morning, and drive all the way back – that’s good service! He was also willing to stay another day if that’s what it took. After he left I felt comfortable with the press and ready to get started.

7 Months In…
I’ve had no major issues 7 months in. It works great, very quiet and smooth. I really like the rotating control panel that I can take with me to each head, or operate a head at the main station. It was different learning squeegee and floodbar pressure electronically. Most people just say, “try 35 PSI, etc.” and that’s the variable. Instead I have to pay attention to squeegee flex and how it clears the screens to determine pressure. It’s not bad, but there’s give and take with any press. If I’d gotten a pneumatic I’d be dealing with limited space, way past maxed amperage, and a louder press. 

I do believe that this is one of the safer automatics out there. I really like how the bars work, are affective and minimal.

Registration took some getting used to but once I got it down and familiar with it I have no problem lining up jobs. Most of mine are 2 or 3 colors and I can have the screen registered and ready to print in 20 minutes for a 3-color. For us that’s good. Once it’s registered it stays registered.

I also purchased an Aurora LED exposure unit in August. The price was great (2.5K) and I really needed an upgrade from my Ryonet UV unit where I had to put a cushion on the screen, then a board, then weights to add pressure. Aurora was a huge leap in terms of speed and image quality.

They’re also coming out with a new registration unit. I contacted them in November to get my hands on one and they said they’d be in around December. I’d talked with my salesmen to ensure everything was set as I’d be getting the one for the 20x24’s and 23x31’s. December got crazy for me and I forgot about it and didn’t have time to follow up but since then I haven’t heard a peep. No follow up and I can’t find any information about it online. I heard via an ISS long beach video that they’re calling the “ARME” registration unit. “Anatol Registration Made Easy.” I was bummed I hadn’t heard anything and it was now January. I didn’t necessarily need it at this time and didn’t want to drop the cash.

It’s now February and I’m still happy with the press and purchase. It really is a sturdy piece of equipment, well built and engineered. My one complaint has been their service. I am not super impressed. After the gap in communication between sale and pick-up, not getting back to me on the sale of the registration unit, and having to wait 5 days for a request to a support ticket has me worried.

I’m going to Joe Clarke’s ink transfer seminar next week so I started looking at the calibration of my press. I realized that it was not level. We had to jack it up about 0.36” or more on the back to level it front to back. That may not seem like a lot, but if you want a calibrated press is quite a bit! During installation a roller frame was used for leveling the screen holders and I realized that was a mistake as they’re not all completely flat. Also, 3 of the 8 pallets were not centered and had up to ¼ inch variance from left to right. The line on the pallets was dead center, I triple checked. I’d never checked to see if the pallets were center before. I would usually just line a screen up to one pallet, print a couple test shirts, and then line the remaining colors up to those. In my service request I asked if they had specific info on how to level/calibrate the press, as I want to make sure I’m doing it right. I’ve since figured it out on my own and the press is extremely level from the bottom up. I’d say to at least 1/16th of an inch or better. There was also some information on their site that didn’t line up with the features on the press I’d received:
•“Off contact can be controlled by 0.001’” – Mine is only controllable by 0.01”
•“Set Pallet Preheat Temperature” – I’ve never seen a feature for this.
•“Save all parameters of a job....” – I’ve never been able to do this and asked how.
•I also asked if I could set an inverse angle somehow to use a squeegee as a floodbar. Otherwise it has to be at 90 degrees to flood.

In Summary:, if I were to score my experience so far it’d be 7.5/10. My statement about Anatol as a company would be: "Anatol: A company that innovates and engineers intuitive, well-built, forward thinking industrial presses that will provide years of use. They've gotten better with their service (from what I've read) but still do need to work in that department overall."

I hope this was helpful. I tried to be as unbiased and truthful as I could. I apologize for those maybe wanting a more in-depth mechanical review, etc. I’ll get there!

[Cole]

Thanks for such a detailed review! I am starting to get serious about purchasing an auto and am considering the Volt. Definitely need more reviews like these to help out with decision making!

[blue moon]

great review! Thank you for sharing. 

pierre

[IntegrityShirts]

Good review. What is the heads up option? You should post some pics! Not many people actually SEE pictures of Anatol presses. Mine is so ugly no one would want to see it, but I like looking at nice shiny presses of all colors.

[3Deep]

Good read Brett, I was just as happy as you are 8 years ago, I can't believe it's been that long and my press has been trouble free and Anatol still to this day call and check in on me.  So service in my opinion is top notch and I've really never needed them for much that I couldn't do or they talk me thru it.

darryl

[bsdprint]

Thanks for the review...I too have wondered how buyers of the Volt press are feeling after having the press several months.  I like the idea of an all electric press.  I hope you continue to report on the pros and cons of this press.

[Biverson]

Good review. What is the heads up option? You should post some pics! Not many people actually SEE pictures of Anatol presses. Mine is so ugly no one would want to see it, but I like looking at nice shiny presses of all colors.

Here's a pic of the heads up option. This was a big reason that swayed me to Anatol. At the time I bought it I was a one-man show. Now I've got an employee to load or pull if needed. I haven't used all heads but once, but it's nice the option is there. A flash can also be added to station 7 either in the carriage or on a cart if you needed to run something in cycle mode (same as "revolver" mode found on M&R's). I should mention that there's also a stepback feature, but I most almost always prefer to use cycle. It's when you can print head one, flash, then indexes back to print head 1 again. When you flash, index back to print, and flash again that's a lot of temp at one time for a garment. For larger orders I'll do a UB White and HL White. For smaller orders, under 100 pieces, P/F/P in cycle is the way to go IMHO.

Another neat feature that is strictly aesthetic is the ability to modify the OS look. I made my own custom background and changed the icons on the shirt to be my logo. When a shirt is on a pallet it was represented by a tshirt with an Anatol logo. I just switched it to mine. Doesn't do anything other than make the press feel more "mine," which is good though. +1 for ingenuity there! I've attached a pic of this. The 15" control is incredibly nice. I look at other control panels that are smaller and everything looks and feels crammed. I can see everything visibly on this, it's spaced nicely, and again, very intuitive and user friendly. You can even upgrade to a 17" screen if you want too. When the tech was installing it he said Anatol was working on a WiFi dongle option. It could be inserted on the inside of the control panel and you'd receive future updates seamlessly, and they'd be able to log in remotely to diagnose any problems you might have. I believe I heard this mentioned in a ISS Long Beach video and I'd be very interested when available.

[easyrider1340]

Nice write up!

[Biverson]

Thanks everyone! I've updated it a little to add some more thoughts.

I should do a write-up of my experience purchasing a multihead embroidery machine. Yikes, that'd be like a good (or terrible) thriller/suspense novel.


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[Atownsend]

Great review! Thanks for positing. Would love to hear the embroidery machine story. I am considering adding embroidery in the next 12-18 mos, as soon as research and cash hoarding happens. Have fun @ Joes class, I hear they are great! I was going to try to make that one but my schedule isn't going to allow it. Aiming for the next one in Aug.

[IntegriTees]

same way with my Anatol Prodigy.  its all electric and has been great for the year I've run it.  But Anatol does lack in the customer service department. 
I guess I'm just used to M&R having a part number for every screw/washer/etc.   I needed some more bulbs for the flash and it was like pulling teeth having them figure out what was sent with the press.  Also, wanted to order some more mixing spatulas for their mixers.  there are 3 sizes (quart, gallon, 5 gallon) and after telling them I need the gallon size, they still required me to do some measuring and such to make sure it was the right piece. 

In the end, its all worked out, just have to jump through a few more hoops than I'm used to.

[amdivoff]

Holy smokes Brett, your review is perfect thank you!
what is the layout you currently have space wise? i'm thinking about going from my vastex v2000 to a small automatic and im scared i wont have space.

[Biverson]

Holy smokes Brett, your review is perfect thank you!
what is the layout you currently have space wise? i'm thinking about going from my vastex v2000 to a small automatic and im scared i wont have space.

My space is very, very tight. Production space is 15' x 30'. Not ideal but it works for now!


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[Doug S]

That settles it, I won't complain about our tight space anymore after seeing that.   

[3Deep]

I'm right there with you Doug, if Biverson can make his space work plus a nice six head embroidery I can't complain myself, just goes to show it's not about the space but how you use it!