Mug Oven (150 mugs per hour)

[rgarner]

I'm currently looking to produce around 150 mugs per hour and I am looking for advice as to how best to achieve that. My first thought was the conveyor style mug ovens, but I've received quotes for between £25,000-£30,000 for those and they're built in the US (I'm from the UK) which means support and replacement parts will be expensive and time consuming.

There is also the health and safety aspect of our warehouse to take into consideration. Any ideas?

[Andrew]

What style mugs are you wanting to print? Is this regular volumes several hours a day?

The Hix oven tends to be the main option which is possibly what you are talking about and parts are fairly easy to get. Wraps are a pain and not always as cheap as you might hope as don't have a long life span.

[rgarner]

We will be making a variety of mugs, durham, travel, and so on for sublimation. One issue we do have currently is if we want a black mug then we have to use those horrid photo mugs with a white panel (we need a way around this). So long as it can print 150 mugs per hour, it is fine. I expect the most mugs we will want to print in a day is around 450-600.

The Hix Sublipro oven is what costs £25,000-£30,000, so that is a definite no.

[Andrew]

Presses are fine for 500 a day. Travel mugs if they are the metal version cannot go in an oven. You can also get large desk top ovens rather than conveyor. Ovens do bring their own problems beyond what you get with presses.

[GoonerGary]

Presses are replaceable. If you lost your oven due to malfunction, no mugs get printed until it is fixed. With one press malfunction, you've got the rest of the army to work with.

[rgarner]

A very good point.

I have seen mug presses which can do 5 at a time and take around 5 minutes, that would result in 60 per hour. So I would need three of the 5 mug presses. Do you recommend any particular model?

There is also the problem that I can only print white mugs. The black photo panel mugs aren't very good. Is there a way to print on an all black mug using a press?

[Andrew]

The answer to your last part is yes but not with good results. Look at TMT papers as a starting point as easy entry hut would adise against that route until improvements are made. We get good results with panel mugs.

Presses are down to preference. Find one you are happy with and buy more. Some 5 presses work okay and others are rubbish.

Not sure why you are going to want to have that many presses for 500ish a day. Is there a requirement for only a few hours a day making mugs rather than full 8 hour day? Running 15 heads will take about 3 people.

[rgarner]

The reason I want more presses is because I have a very limited number of staff. I would rather pay more for equipment than hire more people. But you're telling me a single person can't handle more than 5 heads?

But if the results are ''okay'' then the 5 Mug Press won't be suitable. The results need to be great, so I assume I am better off buying, say, 5 Genie Presses from Listawood (I know they are good) as opposed to buying one 5 Mug Press?

[socialgiraffe]

Me and my wee helper have just finished a run of 700 ish mugs.

Started at 9am this morning (printed sheets were already done). Used convection oven and mug wraps we are getting very close to 96 per hour (70 minutes to be precise).

Oven is this one....
https://www.cs-catering-equipment.co.uk ... ction-oven

If it breaks then I will order a new one. At £300 its a bargain tbh. Not tried black in there yet as only just got a new ink set (don't bother with white panel mugs and Sawgrass ink).

[GoonerGary]

How many mugs in the oven at a time? Or should I be able to work that out myself given the existing information lol?