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Thread: DTG pros & cons

  1. #11
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    Hi Mr-Gobby

    I completely agree with you.

    DTG is not for everyone and its not a magic box that produces perfect prints at the click of a button, it takes work.

    As for cons, at this end of the market print cost and print speed are the biggest.

    Ink Cost
    Epson ink is £147.00 per 600ml cartridge, a solid white A4 print will cost about £2.00 in ink a full platen around £4.50 in ink. But you don't need to print the job to get a price, just RIP the job in Garment Creator (RIP provided by Epson) and it will tell you the estimated ink usage so you can quote the job accordingly.


    Print Speed
    A good operator should get 15-18 dark shirts an hour, double that for white t-shirts.
    The Brother GTX prints at twice the speed but at twice the cost. For the same money you can have two F2100's and when one goes down ( they are printers they will go down) you are still in production.
    If you PM me your address I will post out a print that you can wash test so you can see how the wash affects the print firsthand.

    Ricky
    Xpres


    Quote Originally Posted by mr-gobby View Post
    I guess what every sceptical garment decorator wants to know is the cons, as much if not more so then hearing about the pro's. We can all sell anything on pro's but it's how you manage to still sell something even after explaining the cons. Resellers want to sell a machine for sure but they also want the cusotmer to prosper so they buy another or go for bigger and better model from them. Aside from any salespersons targets (which can skew a sales pitch, especially if its comission based) it's in the resellers interest to look after you, give you the truths and explain how to best optimise or capitalise from using the machine but equally explain that they can be a use it or loose it situation if you only print minimal quantites a day, week, month, year and the cleaning cycles eat what should be going on products. Sometimes the cons aren't clear until the new model comes out either, with additional/better features you didn't realie you needed but thats the way of the world with most things these days. Those T shirts look epic Ricky, so how about telling us what the cons are, is it amount of ink used or the time to print, logevity of such intense colours or is it a decorators dream with no downsides only positives and this time next year we'll all be millionaires! Okay you probably want to save that for conversations with potentials at the show, I'll pop along on the Monday, your bound to spot me, I'm the handsome one :)

  2. #12
    Premium Member logodigitizing's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ricky@Xpres View Post
    Hi Mr-Gobby

    I completely agree with you.

    DTG is not for everyone and its not a magic box that produces perfect prints at the click of a button, it takes work.

    As for cons, at this end of the market print cost and print speed are the biggest.

    Ink Cost
    Epson ink is £147.00 per 600ml cartridge, a solid white A4 print will cost about £2.00 in ink a full platen around £4.50 in ink. But you don't need to print the job to get a price, just RIP the job in Garment Creator (RIP provided by Epson) and it will tell you the estimated ink usage so you can quote the job accordingly.


    Print Speed
    A good operator should get 15-18 dark shirts an hour, double that for white t-shirts.
    The Brother GTX prints at twice the speed but at twice the cost. For the same money you can have two F2100's and when one goes down ( they are printers they will go down) you are still in production.
    If you PM me your address I will post out a print that you can wash test so you can see how the wash affects the print firsthand.

    Ricky
    Xpres
    thanks Ricky, what is the next level up? what machines should we be looking at please?

  3. #13
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    The jump up in price to industrial DTG is considerable , 50-60k for the entry level Kornit (around 30 dark shirts an hour) but if you want low running costs (50-60p per print) and 60-70 shirts per hour from one machine its closer to the 250-300k mark.


    Quote Originally Posted by logodigitizing View Post
    thanks Ricky, what is the next level up? what machines should we be looking at please?

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    There is a guy over on the T-shirt forum in America who has one of each - F2000, F2100, and the Brother GTX. He gets on well with all of them, with some very good results that wash well. He posted some VERY impressive pics recently ( on the other forum) - if I can find the post then I will post a link.

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  7. #15
    Senior Member logobear's Avatar
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    Ricky@Xpres. thanks for the details.

    Given what Andrew said earlier, do we need to double your figures to get an accurate idea of costs ?

    What is the advantage of using the air drying cabinet over a heat press?
    It is rated at 3600w which is a lot of power, and will make any print shop VERY hot.....

    Is temperature and humidity an issue with the Epson? - if we have 3600w of air drying cabinet, I guess that the print shop humidity will be very low ...... ?

    Thanks in advance.
    Phil
    1 Hour T-shirt printing shop in Newcastle upon Tyne.

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    Logobear t-shirt print and embroidery. 74 Clayton Street. Newcastle. NE1 5PG. UK

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    Quote Originally Posted by pw66 View Post
    There is a guy over on the T-shirt forum in America who has one of each - F2000, F2100, and the Brother GTX. He gets on well with all of them, with some very good results that wash well. He posted some VERY impressive pics recently ( on the other forum) - if I can find the post then I will post a link.
    Here is the link- hope it is not against the rules.
    https://www.t-shirtforums.com/epson-...s/t881833.html

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    Hi Phil

    Garment creator has cost calculator built in, I have attached the calculation from the Skull print. This estimates the cost based on the setting that you have used to print the job, you can even add t-shirt and labour costs.

    Given what Andrew said earlier, do we need to double your figures to get an accurate idea of costs ?
    Like all printers (solvent and dye sub) the Epson will use ink in cleans. If you only print one shirt per week then yes the cost per shirt is going to be more due to the ink that has been used in the cleaning cycles. If you are using the machine daily then it will do less cleaning and the cost calculator will be more accurate.
    If you only plan to print the occasional t-shirt then i would question if DTG is right process for your business.

    What is the advantage of using the air drying cabinet over a heat press?
    Many people use heat presses but I find you get more consistent results when using the cabinet dryer or tunnel dryer, as there is no contact with the printed image.

    It is rated at 3600w which is a lot of power, and will make any print shop VERY hot.....
    Is temperature and humidity an issue with the Epson? - if we have 3600w of air drying cabinet, I guess that the print shop humidity will be very low ...... ?

    With all DTG printer you have to regulate the humidity at around 40%-50%.
    We have had an f2100 sat on a drying cabinet for the last six months with out any issues.

    Ricky
    Xpres


    Quote Originally Posted by logobear View Post
    Ricky@Xpres. thanks for the details.

    Given what Andrew said earlier, do we need to double your figures to get an accurate idea of costs ?

    What is the advantage of using the air drying cabinet over a heat press?
    It is rated at 3600w which is a lot of power, and will make any print shop VERY hot.....

    Is temperature and humidity an issue with the Epson? - if we have 3600w of air drying cabinet, I guess that the print shop humidity will be very low ...... ?

    Thanks in advance.
    Phil
    Attached Images Attached Images

  10. #18
    Senior Member logobear's Avatar
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    Ricky, does that show just the cost of the white ink .... looks like you can select colours in the drop down?
    1 Hour T-shirt printing shop in Newcastle upon Tyne.

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    Logobear t-shirt print and embroidery. 74 Clayton Street. Newcastle. NE1 5PG. UK

  11. #19
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    Hi Logobear

    The calculation is for all inks not just the white.

    When you set up the ink cost calculator you can add what ever name you like, for some reason someone named the preset white ink on our RIP. As you can see from the attached screen shot this is easily changed.

    Ricky
    Xpres

    Quote Originally Posted by logobear View Post
    Ricky, does that show just the cost of the white ink .... looks like you can select colours in the drop down?
    Attached Images Attached Images

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  13. #20
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    I have here a sample skull one that Ricky sent me guys and gals. Visually it's very crisp and bright and even fits me nice :) good feel/hand that is not too thick or thin. The T shirt is an Xpres Vanilla in black that is relatively thin but feels nice. I wondered what other brands have been tried and tested and how do they compare/perform? We all use the regular Gildan & FOTL with some Russell, Sol, T Jays etc so are there some that don't work so well? There is an outline around the sides presumably from the pretreat heat press curing, probably disappear after a wash but I'll give it some wear first then some washes and see how it holds up. Thanks Ricky for the quick service, I only asked yesterday afternoon. It's something you need to have a market to go to with which will keep the equipment ticking over I think. So as well as machinery it's business and marketing that is required as well as some practice I'm sure. Artwork wise I assume just a decent vector file will print, no faff like in screen printing with of seperations for screens/colours and so on.

    EDIT - Add on- Also what other types of garment will fit in the machine?

    Regards
    Mark
    Last edited by mr-gobby; 14-01-2020 at 11:19 AM.

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