Looks like we will be upgrading soon.

[mimosatexas]

Even with the difficulties loading on our Sabre, I am waiting on the press at 58 dozen, not the other way around.  I have no doubt AT ALL that on a "better" press I could load/print with identical consistency/quality quite a bit faster.

[GraphicDisorder]

The press should never be the hold up. It just shouldn't. If the human can work faster and the print does not suffer the press should be able to accommodate.

[ebscreen]

I believe you're in the Sacramento area correct?

As something less vanilla, find out if you can go see Motion Textile over by the airport.
If numbers are your concern, go watch Tom and their MHM's just annihilate stacks.
If MHM had the features they have now, when we were in the market, they would have been a much higher contender.
We already had two older S-Types.

Or head west and check out our Roq's. We have an Eco and a You. We're high volume, but I'm of the belief that much more
than 2000/day per machine leads to worn out employees.

At 50,000 impression over three weeks you'll need a second machine sooner rather than later.

[kingscreen]

We run our Sabres, on average, 45-55/dz.hr.  Max we've gotten it up to was 76.  It really depends on the job, screens, seps, and other variables.  The Cutless has air printheads which are definitely slowing you down. As others have mentioned, there is a speed handicap with presses that table up/down.  I'm certainly being convinced of that watching videos of ROQs, G3s and C3s.

[InkSplash]

We have 2 Sabres and are hitting far better numbers than a lot mentioned. We average 65-70 dozen an hour, but have stretched it out to 81 dozen on a few occasions. Several things that are potentially slowing you down.
1) FLASHBACK vs Inhead flash. You lose 2-3 seconds on flashback in comparison to the in head flash. We average 1-1.5 sec flash once pallets are warm
2) flood/Chop delays. These delays are factory set @ .5 seconds, but can be sped up which will run your numbers up 4-5 doz an hour alone. On our 8 color we run at .2 second on flood&chop and 0.0 on our 10 color.
3) indexer- the machine is factory set at 45-50 but can be sped up (60max) which again will allow you to gain another 3-4 dozen an hour.
4) table up/down speed & cushion

[ZooCity]

much more
than 2000/day per machine leads to worn out employees.

We've found exactly the same here, funny how that works.  Our crew can consistently do this per machine on the daily.  Pushing further doesn't really seem to net many more prints achieved, just more chaos over the week.   I'll add that this figure holds for us across press brands/types of a similar class.

[mimosatexas]

With no flash or heads on, if i just let the press dry cycle on auto it is at 78dz, so hitting 81 without adjustments would be impossible with actually tabling up and down and having a print stroke and flash.

We are using a quartz and flashing at 1 second, and have tweaked our flashback to essentially also flash in about a second.

I'll look into the flood/chop delays, speeds on both are already maxed (though they still seem slower than videos of other presses I've seen).

I've read a few forum and facebook posts where people adjusted the index and ended up causing issues with it, so not sure I want to mess with that.  I think a few people even had to slow theirs down from the factory setting to prevent it over indexing.

Every press is probably a little different, but our table up/down already feels/sounds kind of rough.  Again, not sure I would want to mess with that.

[mimosatexas]

Also, kind of funny seeing the contrast between this thread and the other recent one about expected output per day per press.  People were shitting all over only doing 3500 a day in that one and saying 4500 to 5500 should be expected, while here we have multiple people saying more than 2000 a day leads to issues.  I am currently running our presses at an average of 2400 impressions a day with 2 or 3 people crews depending on the day.  I run the auto solo at 1800ish comfortably with a catcher, while we have hit close to 3000 with an added unloader. Averaging 4 setups a day right now, 3 screens per.

[ZooCity]

Also, kind of funny seeing the contrast between this thread and the other recent one about expected output per day per press.  People were shitting all over only doing 3500 a day in that one and saying 4500 to 5500 should be expected, while here we have multiple people saying more than 2000 a day leads to issues.  I am currently running our presses at an average of 2400 impressions a day with 2 or 3 people crews depending on the day.  I run the auto solo at 1800ish comfortably with a catcher, while we have hit close to 3000 with an added unloader. Averaging 4 setups a day right now, 3 screens per.

I think some shops have significantly more support around the press ops than others and maybe aren't as laid back as other shops.  We aren't trying to kill people here and make top dollar every minute.   I understand that some shops simply have to max out production on every machine everyday for economic issues and I'm sure they do.   

Also I think there is a tipping point where, when you throw extra employees on a press to keep the operator only loading throughout the shift your payroll just went up.  Did it go up more or less than the added production value those extra folks brought to the shift?  This is probably where shops with many people on a press need to have that thing screaming all day.

[mimosatexas]

Even at our lowest margin (per impression) it makes send to add the extra body any way I look at it.  An extra 1200 impressions more than pays for the added payroll, even if they ended up sitting around a lot on slower days, which we have zero of right now...

[ebscreen]

People inflating numbers on a mostly anonymous internet message board? Never.....

We ran an 80k piece job in in April/May.

We could consistently hit ~3200 in 8 hours on each of 3 presses with one floater.
We could not do that all week however.

I could probably have squeezed out a not insignificant amount more by having people swap
out singly for lunch, but eating all together is good for morale. So who knows what the gain or loss
would be in the end. Morale is extremely important on looooong runs.

Having had several 3000 plus days myself, I honestly don't know how anyone does more than that.
I'm pretty fit and have the tenacity speed and incentive to make the big numbers happen, but
at about 3K I'm stumbling around like a 12th round prize fighter.

[ffokazak]

3200 is completely doable if you are running the same graphic, and everything goes smoothly, and its not a 29 in tall print.

( we have a CHIIID, so its as fast as is humanly possible.... and even then race is a long 8 hours that day and you don't sprint through a whole marathon....}

I remember talk in this forum  a single press  average of 800 pieces an hour .... and thinking yea on a 1" tall left chest single stroke...  un realistic if you are setting up 6 colours

If my guys do 2000 prints a day , I feel like they deserve a beer. If they do 4K , they get a cold case.

[Doug S]

In our situation with just me, my wife and an occasional catcher/stacker, we over the last 3 days ran a little over 1600 pcs per day with 3 to 4 setups each day but didn't start printing until 11:00 each morning after going to pick up at UPS and sorting.  This was a rush order.  I personally wouldn't want to run more than 2000 a day unless it was the same design.  These were all bella canvas which for me is a little more difficult to load. 

[acescreen]

Hey Jeff......we worked an ISS show together at Long Beach a few years back with Workhorse......the Cutlas and Sabre are two different machines. Obviously the main difference being the electric print head but it makes a world of difference in production speeds. I'm not saying the M&R is not better or worse just make sure you compare the Sportsman with servo heads to the Sabre.

My first Sabre was an 8 color as far as production speeds go on a standard 1 stroke left chest or back tag we could run 70doz an hour. We traded in the 8 for a 10 and our production speed has dropped to 60doz an hour.They have added a "mandatory" print/chop delay(.2 sec)  that took a few dozen away and our table down is set a bit slower so I feel we could make some adjustments and get a few more dozen but honestly we are good with the 720 an hour mark. I know a few shop owners who have 6 color Sabre's that will run 72doz an hour. Point being the smaller the machine the faster it will run. Also check your print/chop delay timers and make sure you have them at the lowest setting (.2) A few months back WH did a software update that changed print/chop delay to .5 sec and killed production time....sure they got an ear full and dropped it back to .2 and it helps. Also a slow table down will hurt. Even with air heads I'd imagine you should be getting much better numbers than you listed.

 It's been a while but we've talked a few times and it sounds like you guys get big runs really often. If I were in your shoes the only thing I'd be consider upgrading to would be a Challenger 3 or an S-Roq. A heads down machine (no table up/down) is really where your gonna find some very high production speeds. Take a close look at S-Roq as well they are making a very nice machine. Loading on those 2 machines is a dream without having to hit a moving target. Also at this point get as many print heads as you can fit.... 14 color with 3 flashes you'd a freight train of a shop!

Good luck man and congrats on the growth...feel free to reach out if you have any questions.
mike@acescreen.com

[Rockers]

So this last year, my shop has seen tremendous growth.  Our numbers are growing, and this year alone we have done more 6 color work than ever before.  We currently run a 6/8 Workhorse Cutlass.  In 2 years we are approaching 300k impressions on it.  And for us, that is a lot.

We are going to be joining the M&R team we think.  After running the Workhorse for the last 2 years, I feel that I am losing out on production numbers other shops are hitting.

The Cutlass has been a great press and it has allowed me to grow as a printer, but with that, it has shown me that I need to grow in other ways.  I have gone to other shops running M&R presses, and Ive seen with my own eyes dozens per hour that I couldn't fathom getting on my Cutlass.

Our plan is to start looking into a 10 Color Sportsman at the beginning of the year.  Im also curious of the features of the new M&R press that is coming out in a couple of months.  From my understanding it will be a retooled "Diamondback" with a servo index, but Im not sure about the print heads.
Like I said, the Cutlass was a good press, and got me to where I am today, but I think it is time to move to a higher production press. 
Any of you guys out there mad a switch from one brand to the other: was it a big learning curve?

The new Diamondback is coming with A/C print heads. Price will be almost identically to the Diamondback with air heads. That`s what I`ve been told by M&R.