DTG - Any Regrets or Good News stories?

[Earl Smith]

Hi Logobear. An update.

Yesterday I rang the shop in Switzerland and thanked him for the Merrow and asked him about using it.
I also asked about the DTG. Although he has printed around 5,000 pieces on it in the last year he wishes he didnt have it. He recons that most of his DTG work was eventually for fairly large orders which is better suited to screen printing.
The smaller orders took up too much of his time, both in preperation and doing and setting up the art work and it distracted him away from his Embroidery business. DTG is a fixed cost, it does not get cheaper the more you do. It is also slow at around 10 black shirts an hour.
Losses were also a regular happening when the pretreatment didnt take to the t-shirt and the "hairs" stood up when printing.
The positive about having the DTG was that now his customers know he prints shirts and he has built up a name as a printer, he has grown from small orders to larger screen printable orders.

That is what basically happened to me. I had a lot of DTG orders when I first go the machine, 600 white ts and orders for 25 plus pieces. But I also found that many of the DTG orders were for ones and twos. I still need to do the art work which for one shirt was totally unviable. I found I was sitting on my computer doing artwork for a couple of shirts and not doing my embroidery work. Eventually the DTG got ignored in favour of embroidery because that is were my bread and butter is.

If you have the time to work the DTG yourself and your shop runs without you then a DTG is ok ( or you can dedicate one member of staff to it). But if you are involved with your customers for all aspects of your shop then I would not get one. Most of the DTG designs can be made with vinyl and the bigger orders can be ordered as transfers from a specialist. The few shirts you cannot do in this way is likely to be very few and you will loose them. But it will only be a few.

[derek]

Hi Logobear

That is very interesting what you have said !

As I can do 37 white shirts or 20 black t-shirts in an hour and that is the pre-treatment,printing and setting of them, so why he could only manage 10 is beyond me.

But even if he managed 10 in an hour that is 0ne every 6 minutes, I would love to see anyone cut, weed and print an intricate design out of vinyl in multi colours in 6 minutes ? it is never going to happen!!

In my opinion the only reason people do screen printing and embroidery these days are because they can get away with charging set up fees which are not a necessary charge !! in the past maybe..

Nobody ever charges a set up fee for sublimation printing. vinyl work or DTG printing why is this ? Because in my opinion you have already calculated this into the costing's, so why is this not done with embroidery or screen printing ? I believe the reason is that someone somewhere along the lines, decided to make out that these techniques were very hard to do and made up a figure in the air, and to this day it has just been accepted as an added cost !!!

Sorry if I have upset anyone with these remarks, but just because something does not work for you or you can not get it to work, don't put a downer on it and let others make their own informed choice, after all you mentioned transfers, I have tried them all in the past and have not found any that I am personally happy to put my reputation to, as they always feel hard or rubbery and seem to fade after a few washes, but others are over the moon with using them and I say good luck to them if they can get the results they want and the customers are happy.

As that is why we are all here at the end of the day, for our customers and to provide them with an excellent service and have them tell others and to return for more orders.

[socialgiraffe]

I can do 37 white shirts or 20 black t-shirts in an hour and that is the pre-treatment,printing and setting of them, so why he could only manage 10 is beyond me.

All depends on the machine. They all operate at different speeds and different RIPS on different computers also affect the speed. His may be like my old one which was one of the first available. It was from YES and was awful, Cost over £17k and I threw it away within 4 years, 10 black shirts an hour was lucky, there is no point in me commenting on present DTG as the one I threw away was about 10 years ago and I have never looked at them since.

I would love to see anyone cut, weed and print an intricate design out of vinyl in multi colours in 6 minutes ? it is never going to happen!!

You are right, but then using either a Versacam (which is cheaper) or even better an OKI white (cheaper still) with TMT Wow paper can and in a lot less time than 6 minutes. The added bonus is that both of those machines are more versatile. FYI TMT Wow could be as many as 40 an hour A4 or 120 A6 and can print near/over ZIPS and POCKETS

In my opinion the only reason people do screen printing and embroidery these days are because they can get away with charging set up fees which are not a necessary charge !! in the past maybe..

What? Screen printing is considerably cheaper than any digital method available and with bulk orders it is considerably quicker. For example I have just quoted a client £2.45 for 1000 red tees with 2 colours to the Front and 1 colour to the back including the garment, folding and bagging and I am making a healthy profit on it. I hasten to add I am not printing them just handling the order so the screen printer is also making money on the job.

With regards to embroidery, you obviously do not understand this process as there are lots of examples where embroidery works and looks far better than print.

I believe the reason is that someone somewhere along the lines, decided to make out that these techniques were very hard to do and made up a figure in the air, and to this day it has just been accepted as an added cost !!!

Incorrect. A set up charge is/was for things like screens. These have to be made for every single colour on every single job for screen printing. The reason they are a separate charge is because if the client wants a repeat order they do not have to pay the set up charge again (or in some cases it is halved) because the screens are already made.

You do not need to aplogise for your thoughts, after all this is a forum and we are all "friends" here. But to be brutally honest I think much of your post to be based on speculation and not what is the actual case.

Lastly, I am certainly interested in your comment about transfers being "rubbery" They were many moons ago, but papers like TMT's WOW is very different and not rubbery at all, have you actually seen modern transfers?

[derek]

Yes thank you I have seen modern transfers and in my opinion they are still not quite as good as they could be, given time they will be and the price needs to drop as well.
Our customers do not like transfers and have told us that they have had them printed at other places and have found them to be hard and uncomfortable to wear ( not printed by ourselves as we will not use them )

Have you actually ever seen or used a DTG printer ? I mean a proper one not one that was around with the dinosaurs :p they plug into the maims electricity these days you know !! you do not need to peddle your bike to make it work any more

All depends on the machine. They all operate at different speeds and different RIPS on different computers also affect the speed. His may be like my old one which was one of the first available. It was from YES and was awful, Cost over £17k and I threw it away within 4 years, 10 black shirts an hour was lucky, there is no point in me commenting on present DTG as the one I threw away was about 10 years ago and I have never looked at them since.




You are right, but then using either a Versacam (which is cheaper) or even better an OKI white (cheaper still) with TMT Wow paper can and in a lot less time than 6 minutes. The added bonus is that both of those machines are more versatile. FYI TMT Wow could be as many as 40 an hour A4 or 120 A6 and can print near/over ZIPS and POCKETS



What? Screen printing is considerably cheaper than any digital method available and with bulk orders it is considerably quicker. For example I have just quoted a client £2.45 for 1000 red tees with 2 colours to the Front and 1 colour to the back including the garment, folding and bagging and I am making a healthy profit on it. I hasten to add I am not printing them just handling the order so the screen printer is also making money on the job.

With regards to embroidery, you obviously do not understand this process as there are lots of examples where embroidery works and looks far better than print.



Incorrect. A set up charge is/was for things like screens. These have to be made for every single colour on every single job for screen printing. The reason they are a separate charge is because if the client wants a repeat order they do not have to pay the set up charge again (or in some cases it is halved) because the screens are already made.

You do not need to aplogise for your thoughts, after all this is a forum and we are all "friends" here. But to be brutally honest I think much of your post to be based on speculation and not what is the actual case.

Lastly, I am certainly interested in your comment about transfers being "rubbery" They were many moons ago, but papers like TMT's WOW is very different and not rubbery at all, have you actually seen modern transfers?

[socialgiraffe]

Have you actually ever seen or used a DTG printer ? I mean a proper one not one that was around with the dinosaurs :p they plug into the maims electricity these days you know !! you do not need to peddle your bike to make it work any more

I have, in actual fact I was chatting to a couple of guys from FreshAir about the Kornit's they have. Like me, they think the quality is superb, but they are just not up to speed right now (even the super fast ones), that, and the maintenance was the biggest bug bear with mine. Unless you kept it running everyday (including Christmas day!) it was a nightmare (a bit like Epson's and dye sub ink!). I appreciate that the hardware has got better and they are a heck of a lot more stable but from the ones I have seen they are still not fast enough in my honest opinion.

[Paul]

I recommend to watch r-jet 5 in action from resolute.
On single pass and bi-directional mode they can be acceptable fast with good quality image. But like with everything, slower you set it to be then better resolution cqn be achived.

[socialgiraffe]

I suppose it all comes down to different processes for different jobs.

A full colour picture fading into the garment colour would be (and look) far better using a DTG.
A front left breast logo on a pocket or close to the the zip would be better tackled with TMT WOW

Nobody doubts the quality of a DTG machine, its more to do with the other factors.