Sorry for the delay. I had typed up a very detailed response that night and was going to finish it in the morning, but my computer did an auto-update and rebooted. Needless to say, I lost it. Here we go again:
We did go to the training and came back with the printer. We immediately bought a humidifier and a hygrometer. We keep the humididty between 50-70%. The capping station is clean, the nozzle checks were good.
The problem is this: We print a photo in white ink only onto a black shirt. The first one looked great and the very next one banded at the top and then got better towards the middle & bottom. Sometimes it bands throughout the entire image. What can be done to get more consistant results?
have your tried the "super fine" setting? if your nozzles checks are good, then you shouldn't have a problem with the "super fine". can you attach a picture?
I haven't tried that. To be honest, I never even heard of that setting and had to look to see where it is. I don't think it was covered in the training. I did find it, but am wondering if it uses more in than the "speed" setting or not. I'm a bit shocked at the speed at which the white ink cartridges empty. It seems almost impossible to do wholesale pricing on black shirts at the rate it goes. But I will start a new thread on this topic.
I haven't tried that. To be honest, I never even heard of that setting and had to look to see where it is. I don't think it was covered in the training. I did find it, but am wondering if it uses more in than the "speed" setting or not. I'm a bit shocked at the speed at which the white ink cartridges empty. It seems almost impossible to do wholesale pricing on black shirts at the rate it goes. But I will start a new thread on this topic.
Super fine is slower and uses more ink, so you'll have to adjust levels and dot size. There is more overlap and smaller increments on the platten feed. Printing wholesale w/ white ink is a tough road. I generally do not do it. How are you pricing "wholesale"?
Ian
__________________ imprimeo! ....Digitizing, DTG and Embroidery..FREE Embroidery SOFTWARE Sierra Consultant, Stitch ERA Universal Dealer, Digitizing trainer for GUNOLD USA
It seems that I've got the banding under control for the time being. I may try the superfine setting if it becomes a problem in the future. In the meantime I am trying to keep ink costs down, so will keep to the least expensive method possible.
Honestly, on the wholesale front, we were told by Anajet (and it’s posted on their website; see http://www.anajet.com/fin.html ) the ink costs for a white shirt would be about $.60/shirt, and for a black shirt with white base and color on top about $2.25, which would be acceptable. Additionally we were told that those cartridges should last anywhere from 150-200 shirts.
However, we blew through the first set of four white cartridges very quickly. At best we only got about 45 shirts, including errors (you’ve gotta love the learning curve!). But of course this included the initial ink charges to get the machine going for the first time, which were numerous. We also, had been mistakenly printing white ink at “Heavy 2”. While struggling with the humidity (the 45-55% range doesn’t work well at all. So much for the “operating range” of 45-85%!) we also had to do MANY head cleans and a few ink purges of several white channels.
All that had been dealt with by the time we installed our second set of white cartridges. We now use “Medium 2” as a standard setting for white. We maintain a humidity level of 60%-70% at all times, and combined with daily printing and weekly maintenance have reduced our need for so many nozzle checks and print purges.
This would lead me to believe that our white ink cartridges would, from then on, last considerably longer. When the new cartridges were installed, I weighed them and the spent ones each on a postal scale. New ones weigh in at 7 ounces, while spent ones weigh between 3-3.5 ounces. Translation: at best we get four ounces of ink for $84. This fact alone is infuriating.
As of today we have printed 45 shirts on the new set of cartridges, and they weigh about 4 ounces each. In essence, I’ve used 3 ounces from them and got 45 shirts, so using this average, I will only be able to get 60 shirts (15 shirts per ounce) from the full set. This translates to a cost of $5.60 each, not including the color layer if used!!! ($84 x 4 cartridges = $336/60 shirts = $5.60)
At this rate I don’t see how wholesaling shirts using white ink is even possible. This is extremely upsetting considering that 1) Anajet represents that wholesaling black shirts is possible, 2) Wholesale was part of my original business model, and 3) It is very unrealistic to expect every possible customer to be happy using a white or natural colored shirt (this is also a problem since we are doing our own original designs and many of them work best or were designed for black shirts).
I am looking for other Anajet owners’ experiences with these pricing issues. Any suggestions as to how to keep your white ink costs down (while still being able to print with it, obviously) would be very much appreciated; i.e, alternative ink sources, different settings that still yield good results, etc.
Thank you very much for addressing this topic and your helpful suggestion about the banding. I will additionally post this in it’s own thread to allow more users to see & respond. BTW Ian, your reputation precedes you. You were mentioned several times during the training as someone I should pay attention to due to your experience!
After reading stories like this, prior to ordering my SPRINT, i contacted sales and support and discussed the usage. The stated that more often than not these expensive runs were due to incorrect print settings and could be corrected easily. The informed me that should I have questions regarding any print to contact support and they would be glad to assist me. Might want to just pick up the phone and call Ken and see what he can do to assist you.
banding issues 
. Ken sounds like a good guy
