shout out to Belquette and JeridHill!

[blue moon]

few months back we purchased the Belquette MOD1 and their EDGE pretreater. Could not be happier with what we got! The colors are just spectacular, the Coca Cola red is right on! If somebody showed me the print, I would not believe them that it was a CMYK off a DTG machine. Very, very vibrant and bright. I ran a couple of wash tests and everything is holding up like it was not washed. On whites it is cruising! We set ours for 720x720 and are under a minute per print (smaller size but bigger than left chest). On darks it is taking longer, but that's because we are running it unidirectional at highest resolution. Still, just amazing. Had a Kornit guy look at it and say they cant do that! (on a printer that's 10x the money!)

Additionally, our DTG guy has been away from work for a couple of months so I had to step in. 'talk about customer service! Jerid has been AWESOME! I've been bugging him for help since taking over the DTG part and he helped bring me up to speed on several procedures and advice. Great guy, with great reputation, which I am learning is deservedly so. Over the last couple of years I talked to several digital decorating (not just DTG) companies and they all talked very highly of Jerid. Now I know why; knowledgeable and helpful without any attitude. 'just taking care of business. . .

Thank you Jerid for all your help during the sale and afterwards. It is one of the best experiences I've had.

Anybody wanting to see a sample, let me know! 'will gladly send some out.

No, Belquette or Jerid did not compensate me for this, nor will they. This is just because they are great ppl to deal with and more should know about it!

pierre

[JeridHill]

Wow, I never realized a dude could make me blush, hahaha.

Thanks for the kind words. My philosophy throughout the years has been if you are down, you are losing money and I don't want that! We do take that seriously and have always been appreciative of positive or negative feedback, it's what helps strive to always do better.

[Stinkhorn Press]

I'm a bit familiar with your shop Pierre - where are you finding customers/demand that requires that you chase DTG at all? How does this fit into your system? What holes does it fill in?

Inquiring minds would like to know!

[blue moon]

I'm a bit familiar with your shop Pierre - where are you finding customers/demand that requires that you chase DTG at all? How does this fit into your system? What holes does it fill in?

Inquiring minds would like to know!

digital is coming!!! We bought DTG to get ready for the future. It gives us an opportunity to set up the operating procedures for digital workflow. That was the main reason for the purchase.

Right now, we are getting about an order per week without any advertising of the services (we only told 4 customers). As we dial the systems in and let everybody know we can do it, I expect about an order per day (for now, and at our prices). So we will print mon, wed fri. . .

Many of our customers want smaller quantities of high color work which are not cost effective with seps and screens. I just printed an order for a gaming company that needed 3 pcs of several simulated process designs we print on regular bases. This was a sample pack on a particular garment and particular size for a particular person (international sales rep I think). So scenarios like this one keep popping up. Think preproduction samples so customers can show it and close sales, small quantities for reunions and so on. If they want more than one color, this fits the bill.

It will also allow us the print one or two pieces we were short during the run when the numbers have to be exact. Instead of setting it back up on the press, we'll run them on the DTG.

ask me in 12 months and I'll have a better answer of where it fits! 

pierre

[Stinkhorn Press]

thanks!
long term goal of having an almost imperceptible difference between DTG output and your printing processes? or is that an unreachable goal?

[mimosatexas]

What printhead does the machine use?  What's daily/weekly/monthly maintenance like?  Ink costs?  Is it dupont ink?  Modified?  Which pretreat are you using?  What base rip is it using?

[blue moon]

thanks!
long term goal of having an almost imperceptible difference between DTG output and your printing processes? or is that an unreachable goal?

honestly, don't really know. . . we are waay to early into this.

pierre

[blue moon]

What printhead does the machine use?  What's daily/weekly/monthly maintenance like?  Ink costs?  Is it dupont ink?  Modified?  Which pretreat are you using?  What base rip is it using?

it's an EPSON printhead with DuPont ink. MOD1 is pretty cool as everything is easily accessible. It takes 3 screws to pull the head out.
I've been printing last few days and very little maintenance was required. Shake all the inks and pretreatments and do one head cleaning (not sure if it's necessary, but I just do it in the morning before running a nozzle check which keeps coming clean). When the printer sat for several weeks, it took few hours to get everything back up and running, but that was after 5-6 weeks of sitting. At the end of the day, wet the capping station and park. Pretreater requires pushing the fluid back into the bag before shut down. So less than 5 min before and after use.

Ink is expensive!!! Don't know the cost per shirt yet, but I can see $3 easily. Could be a mistaken though. Give me few months to start tracking it. We do run a very heavy deposit of white which drives the cost up, but delivers brighter, more vibrant images. Ink cost is not a concern right now, we are looking for great prints.

Belquette uses C-Breaze RIP, not sure if that's their's or not. Jerid would know better, hopefully he chimes in.

I bought almost a skid worth of pretreat at an auction at about 70% off. It was Image Armor Light Formula and Belquette's Dark formula. Both seem to work great.

This should not sound like it's just plug and play, as it is not. There is a very, very steep learning curve to both the equipment and the process. It is very comparable to an automatic press. It takes time to learn how to use it properly. It seems my tinkering with the 4800 and the 7900 (CTS) have made me comfortable with inkjet technology. I am not seeing anything that's an issue or out of the ordinary here. Just the opposite, some things they implemented are pretty cool.

pierre

[mimosatexas]

We've run two of the modified epson DTG's (there are a bunch of different ones) for the last 5 years or so and we average around 50 DTG prints a day right now.  You're right, the learning curve is steeper than you think, and nailing down the right combo of ink deposit, garment choice, pretreat choice, pretreat amount, curing process, etc is tough.

Be wary of the thick white deposits with the modded dupont inks.  If you wash a garment and leave it wet overnight then dry it, the print will sometimes stick to itself and peel right off the shirt.  They tend to crack as well after only a few washes.  We have seen it happen with a huge combination of variables when it comes to pretreat, garment, curing, etc.  We typically print less white ink as a result for better durability.  That's one area I havent seen Kornit have any issues with as the print seems to sit more in the shirt vs on the shirt in all of the shirt samples I have from those machines.