Chinese, silhouette graphtec Roland ?

[GoldRapt]

Thanks bud, I must look into these contracts.

[Dave271069]

Thanks bud, I must look into these contracts.

Me TOO
Is there a difference between lease and rental.? what company did you rent from, i had quotes for lease from xpress etc.

[socialgiraffe]

I rent mine direct from Roland and I have no complaints whatsoever.

Guy I spoke to there was called James Johnson (James.Johnson@rolanddg.co.uk) who is really helpful and a spot on guy. Email him and I am sure he will send you the prices. Note that at the moment they do not rent the Studio which I initially looked at. But if enough people showed an interest I am sure they would change their mind.

Renting from Roland means you have to have silver service maintenance contract. This does bump up the price quite a bit but then it depends on your needs/business whether you need that or not. I pretty much have to have it as nearly everything I print is on a tight deadline.

Not sure on the difference between lease and rental and I am probably not the best person to ask about it as I purchased a DTG machine about 7 years ago for £15k and three years later it was worth scrap. Because of this I made a decision never to spend "serious" money on purchases again, but rather rent them.

[GoldRapt]

Thanks for the insight bud.

[RogerC]

Dave if you can find one for sale that is the right price and has only ever had Roland inks through it IMO that would be the way to go. I have mine on a Bronze service contract which is pretty good. With owning one you'll always have 'money in the bank' because being on service contract makes it so much easier to sell if you ever need to.

[socialgiraffe]

No worries mate.

Purchase/Rent/lease/dodgy doorstep wonga bloke finance aside this is my insight into owning one of these.

The machine itself is superb, Rolands are built like tanks and you generally do not get any problems with them. Very easy to operate and the range of materials that you can print on is superb. I would be very surprised if any owner of a Roland actually uses it to their full potential. Also, even though the ink carts are £80.00 (plus VAT) each the actual cost per print is minimal.

However think very carefully about getting one. Many people think "I have enough work for these" and off they go. But unlike purchasing something like a mug press or even a white OKI, these machines are costing you a lot of money. Doesn't matter whether its rent or purchase it has set you back a minimum of 10 grand ish depending on what machine you buy and you need to make sure it earns back the investment.

The key is to make sure you market your product range and get the work in. Unlike a mug press for example this is 10 grands worth of kit. If its not busy it will sit there, collect dust and be a very expensive shelf!

I don't have any particular insight to how to market it, and you could argue that I have not done enough marketing as it is not as busy as I would like. But as a general rule of thumb I would want, or you should expect, this sort of machine to be invoicing out a minimum of £2000+ per month.

Not a great deal of money, but if you are printing stickers, or posters or garments etc etc then that is a lot of items to push out.


Other key things or points to consider (in my opinion)

If your main business is garments then don't bother with a Roland but get a OKI White instead.

Think carefully about the configuration, mine prints white and metallic colours. This is very useful but percetage wise I think the ratio 90%+ non white/metallic jobs. This is probably down to marketing but worth noting as a white/metallic machine is more money

Think about the stock you may need. If you are going to offer banners, stickers, window clings, posters and garments then 1 roll of each will set you back about £300-500 which is a considerable amount to have sitting there in the hope that someone purchases a banner at £20.00 for example

A set of carts for these machines are £480.00 +VAT for the smallest carts and a 6 colour system. That's £500.00 paid out in ink before you have printed and sold anything.


There are more things to consider which I have probably forgotten but the above are the first things that have popped into my mind. I will not point out the positives (which there are many) as I do not think it helps as much as pointing out the negatives.

I am not trying to put anyone off, just think that, although these machines are industry leaders, you need to think carefully because the investment is considerably more than anything else that you may have already purchased.


Sorry for rambling and as I do not know anyone's background in business I may be teaching your grandmother to suck eggs here. But I think it is better offer this up than to hold back.

[GoldRapt]

No worries mate.

Purchase/Rent/lease/dodgy doorstep wonga bloke finance aside this is my insight into owning one of these.

The machine itself is superb, Rolands are built like tanks and you generally do not get any problems with them. Very easy to operate and the range of materials that you can print on is superb. I would be very surprised if any owner of a Roland actually uses it to their full potential. Also, even though the ink carts are £80.00 (plus VAT) each the actual cost per print is minimal.

However think very carefully about getting one. Many people think "I have enough work for these" and off they go. But unlike purchasing something like a mug press or even a white OKI, these machines are costing you a lot of money. Doesn't matter whether its rent or purchase it has set you back a minimum of 10 grand ish depending on what machine you buy and you need to make sure it earns back the investment.

The key is to make sure you market your product range and get the work in. Unlike a mug press for example this is 10 grands worth of kit. If its not busy it will sit there, collect dust and be a very expensive shelf!

I don't have any particular insight to how to market it, and you could argue that I have not done enough marketing as it is not as busy as I would like. But as a general rule of thumb I would want, or you should expect, this sort of machine to be invoicing out a minimum of £2000+ per month.

Not a great deal of money, but if you are printing stickers, or posters or garments etc etc then that is a lot of items to push out.


Other key things or points to consider (in my opinion)

If your main business is garments then don't bother with a Roland but get a OKI White instead.

Think carefully about the configuration, mine prints white and metallic colours. This is very useful but percetage wise I think the ratio 90%+ non white/metallic jobs. This is probably down to marketing but worth noting as a white/metallic machine is more money

Think about the stock you may need. If you are going to offer banners, stickers, window clings, posters and garments then 1 roll of each will set you back about £300-500 which is a considerable amount to have sitting there in the hope that someone purchases a banner at £20.00 for example

A set of carts for these machines are £480.00 +VAT for the smallest carts and a 6 colour system. That's £500.00 paid out in ink before you have printed and sold anything.


There are more things to consider which I have probably forgotten but the above are the first things that have popped into my mind. I will not point out the positives (which there are many) as I do not think it helps as much as pointing out the negatives.

I am not trying to put anyone off, just think that, although these machines are industry leaders, you need to think carefully because the investment is considerably more than anything else that you may have already purchased.


Sorry for rambling and as I do not know anyone's background in business I may be teaching your grandmother to suck eggs here. But I think it is better offer this up than to hold back.

Very thought provoking Bud, never looked at an OKI white, I have a 5600. The white will be a TMT machine or a general OKI product?

[socialgiraffe]

The white toner system is a machine sold by OKI through various resellers including TMT.

Personally I purchased from TMT as I like them as a company. Plus they give you a couple of boxes of paper to play with.

I have printed on standard black and coloured paper using the white oki and it prints fine.

It will print things like car stickers but unlike a Versacam will not cut them.

I would also look at www.sunangelimaging.com they were at Fespa and had converted OKI301's to print white. The whole process is a bit of a faff but it does have its benefits, below are the key good and bad points:

Negatives.
You need two machines to print colour and the registration might be a problem. 1 machine to print the white and the other to overprint any colour.
The whole process is untested and the company is unknown so how do you know whether the actual prints will last etc.

Positives
Cheap as chips (about £250.00 for a white)
You can also purchase machines to print day glow white and florescent

So I suppose it boils down to:
If you have the cash and want to increase your product lines buy a versacam.
If you have the cash and want to make your process easier and quicker but do not want to steer too far away from garments buy an OKI White
If you do not have the cash but want a easier process to print white and have the time to do all the durability checks etc then possibly a sun angel system will be the way.

I know that Justin was looking at the sun angel but I am not sure how far he got.

[GoldRapt]

More insight. Four process screening sounds a lot easier