3D machines and their uses

[socialgiraffe]

Hi Guys

I see a lot of you have been purchasing and using 3D sublimation machines. Having signed up a new client this month they are looking at a lot of smart phone covers and I am now thinking about purchasing a decent machine so I can simply offer my client a better product, its only my opinion that the 3d covers are better but I assume a lot of you agree.

So now that I am thinking about it I am now wondering what you guys are using the machine for apart from smart phones. Is there much else on the market that these are good for?

I am not interested in plates as my market is not into that sort of thing, but I am failing to see what else is on the market for these machines.

So what are you guys pressing using your machine?

Not interested in if your sales figures of any particular item, just interested to see what is out there.

[Andrew]

I've often been contemplating on this and whenever I think of a product I could take to market the blanks are inevitably not available. It just seems very limited....... and the phonecases appear to be very fiddly. I personally don't think this field is going to develop much anytime soon when it comes to blanks selection.

[socialgiraffe]

I kind of agree with you except I would be looking at a machine that uses the film which simply lays over the case once it is on the puck and in the machine. Seeing the you tube videos of people taping and cutting the edges etc put me right off that particular style of machine as the minimum order quantity I would think with my customers would be 50ish across each model.

[Justin]

Personally if its phone cases in particular you want to do, I'd be buying (and may well do) a machine specific for these. The new Case I'd machines recently launched look excellent and use the film. Not a cheap option but I think the flood of cheap machines has given the impression that 3D can be done cheaply but on a good scale I think a more expensive machine can be justified.

[socialgiraffe]

I do not want to do just phone cases. Although I suspect that would be the main bulk of the work I am just interested to see what else these machines can do as I am struggling to find anything other uses except smart phones and plates.

[Dave271069]

I would like to know how do mugs come out Like? You hear of all the problems people have with mug press,s and blankets etc so I was thinking of getting one (from BMS) as 4 mugs etc can be done in one go and instead of buying a decent press for a few hundred pounds I fancy a 3d machine to other stuff too.
Dave.

[JMugs]

They should do a good job on slate but I haven't heard anybody mention it.

[socialgiraffe]

You hear of all the problems people have with mug press

Not if you purchase a quality press. Something like the Genie from Listawood is a cracking little machine. I also have a DF50 (I think that is what its called) which initially came from BMS (I purchased it secondhand) and has also served me well.

Most problems with mugs come from cheap press, cheap paper and cheap mugs

They should do a good job on slate but I haven't heard anybody mention it.

I heard that as well, but I have not had a problem when doing them the traditional route with a flat press.

From what I can gather there are not many items out there that are truly 3D and I think the video's knocking around support this. Most of them showcase phones then mugs and a couple of other items. If there were other products out there then personally I would not show case a mug as they are not new and can be done already without the need to purchase a 3d machine. perhaps I am expecting more from 3D than I should be...

[purpledragon]

Im with you on this sg im struggling to see what other uses there are for these machines i can get 3d phones done by out sourcing at a very reasonable rate which still gives me plenty of mark up and gives them the hasstle so dont really see the point as yet

[pisquee]

I think we're waiting for someone to come out with products which aren't currently available, which take advantage of a vacuum heat press. We make a very good mark up on aluminium plate style phone covers, and are able to print a lot of the aluminium plates in one go, so can't see we could justify the outlay on a vacuum press to just do phone covers, as I doubt we could sell them for enough more than we already sell our covers for (retail and/or wholesale) to make it worthwhile. Also, looking at the demo videos etc, they seem very large machines for printing just phone covers - not that I mind big machines, as we have wide format printers and presses, but these are versatile machines that can print lots of different product lines, the wide format sublimation printer can do a run of mugs and phone cover transfers in the same day as printing metre lengths of fabric for lampshades. I just don't see the same versatility of the vacuum presses at the moment. I had thought about the slates being a good thing for them, but as mentioned, we don't have problems with doing them, and can fit 6 of them on our flat bed press at a time - the base of our press is cushioned quite nicely, so the sides of the slate get enveloped quite nicely to print around them.

It's not to say that my thinking cap isn't on. We have a number of products which aren't standard sublimation, or some product lines which aren't using standard blanks, where we have put a lot of time, money and research into developing unique products/designs, and so I'm trying to think ahead of ways we could use a vacuum press all the time, but haven't struck gold yet! (I have a few ideas, but like the phone covers, it is slightly improving on what can be done on a standard flat bed press, and not to the point of being able to make enough/more money out of the resulting product, to make it a worthwhile avenue.)