I have a quote for $210,000 on the dual pallet Kornit 931D. The suggested dryer is another $21,000 (though I think other dryers will work for far less). But if we take that package then we are at $231,000 before delivery costs and the other associated costs of set-up.
We do not have $231,000 in the bank, so we have to turn to a lease or loan scenario. At normal business equipment lease rates, it would be over $5,000 a month for this equipment. The other option is to get an equipment loan at standard interest rates.
I am interested to hear how other people have cracked the "capital start-up" process. Did you lease your equipment? Did you wait until your business levels were allowing for the cash flow to buy? Obviously a set-up like this requires thousands of shirts a month (in my opinion) to recoup the start-up costs required...but maybe I am wrong.
Interested in all the angles when it comes to looking at maximizing the business potential on DTG.
Thanks, as always, for the great info on this forum.
We have lease quotes coming this week for a Kornit. I will update this thread in case people are interested in seeing how the process of setting up a Kornit works (or does not work).
Michael, thanks for the PM, I will give you a call. Do you run a DTG?
I am wondering why the Kornit has such an astronomical price difference compared to, say, a DTG HM1 or Eclipse? What made you choose the Kornit and not any other DTG Printers? Is it really worth it?
when it comes to the choice between leasing and buying a piece of equipment.. one thing you should really do is talk to your accountant and find out what he suggest for the best tax benefits.. . Many times there are tax advantages to leasing.
. that being said.. for those thinking about leasing any piece of equipment.. know that your companys financial records will make a big differance as to the rate you get.. I know when we got our versacamm for the sign shop we ended up leasing.. we shopped around and contacted several leasing companies.. I know that if we had been a new company.. or had bad company and personal credit ratings the machine lease would have been almost 2 times what we ended up getting..
If you were to look into both machines and see them operate in person, you would see where all the money goes. Inside ANY Epson based machine you will find plastic encoder disks, and other plastic parts. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but you can easily see where the Kornit is made to be so much more industrial. Heck, the Spectra printheads alone are worth almost $5,000 a piece. They could actually be less than that, but I have that number for some reason from Long Beach. They are the Spectra Nova JA 256 / 80 AAA printheads, if anybody wants to look up price. But at that figure, you are looking at a total of around $30-40,000 in printheads alone sitting inside that machine. Therefore, it is no wonder the price can escalate so quickly.
Now, that is not to say that the Kornit is a better choice for everyone - it is truly intended for the shops that are printing digitally 8 hours per day, 5 days per week. The smaller price tag printers like the HM1 are a fabulous option for those interested in keeping their investment costs to a minimum, and who might only be printing a few hours per day.
Thanks Justin. So its the spectra printheads, and the Kornits have more than 1 of them, right? How about the cost of the ink, or the cost per print as compared to an HM1 or Eclipse, does anybody know? Will the Kornit give you the lowest per print cost?
The Kornit 932D has 8 printheads. 4 for CMYK, and 4 for white ink. The older Kornit 932's had only 6 printheads for the solvent based inks, hence the requirement for two passes to get good results. This is where alot of confusion is stemming from regarding the print quality of the machine. For anybody looking into these printers, I always suggest making sure that the one you are viewing is NOT an older, converted model, but one of the newer ones with all the latest improvements.
As for cost of ink, the Kornit RIP software does not have a built in ink usage calculator, so it is difficult to tell at this point what the ink cost truly is (I never trust manufacturer's claims). I am on about 2,500 prints with mine right now, so when I get closer to 5 or 6,000 I will be sure to figure it out manually. It is tough in the beginning because so much ink was used for purging and prepping the machine.
The HM1 is using a RIP by IProof, which has a very nice ink usage calculator built in. The CMYK costs are INCREDIBLY reasonable on this, or any other machine running DuPont or R&H CMYK inks. As for the white ink, there are reports that range between $3 per print to $7 per print, depending on coverage. This is not HM1 specific, but ANY printer running the DuPont white ink.
Thanks again Justin. 3 to 7 USD for white ink is a bit too much for my market. We already have a DTG distributor in my country, so I'm seriously looking at this machine, (HM1 or Eclipse). My main purpose is to print on dark shirts, but at that Ink cost, I'm very sure that it will be very difficult to sell here. I was informed by the DTG distributor that they are using Dupont Inks but I still have to check for myself the approximate printing cost on dark shirts. At the moment, as for white shirts, I'm still content that my Canon CLC and Forever laser transfer papers can do the job at an acceptable cost.
Thanks to everyone who posted. There were a lot of great comments and I do not mind the hijacking.
I have two lease quotes coming today and will post some ideas here.
I also received my Kornit samples today. The light colored shirt was impressive (CMYK only). The dark colored shirt, not as impressive (CMYK and WHITE)--the shirt color showed up through the white ink.
It looks like the site prep is no small order for these units as well and should be something a business needs to calculate into the overall start-up of use for a Kornit machine--or any large scale machine for that matter.
Thanks.
Last edited by nlwilson; June 22nd, 2007 at 01:08 PM.
Good point! Site prep is a HUGE ordeal. I had it pretty bad, because I am on the second floor. It cost me two or three thousand dollars to do everything I needed to do to get the machine up here, in addition to the dedicated print room we had to sanction off and the humidity and temp controls. This machine is NOT for garage printers or warehouse shops!
As for the white ink sample - this furthers my point that most Kornit owners do not really know what they are doing when it comes to artwork prep and RIP settings. If you'd like, you can get another sample through contractDTG (follow the link in my profile). Maybe it would help you feel better about your purchase if you ACTUALLY knew what the machine was capable of.
I dont mean to be a snail in the pudding but dont you think the company who is selling a 200 thousand dollar machine should be able to send to send samples of dark shirts where the color of the shirt DOES NOT show through the white ink?.......just a thought
Great thought. I think to be fair it is the distributors who make the samples and I am not sure what controls are in place--at least that is what it looks like to me. I do not think my samples came from the factory direct.
Pink I think it is the same phenomenon we see day in and day out with companies like USSPI, Belquette / DDM, DTG and more. MOST of them do not send out samples that truly show what the machine can do, ESPECIALLY when potential clients provide their own artwork that needs to be adjusted and processed. I have heard complaints about people who got bad T-Jet samples, and I have seen YOU blame it on operator error, not machine failure. I have seen and said the exact same thing about crappy Flexi samples. It is just part of this industry. It is rare that we find a distributor who can actually do more than a dedicated end user. In fact, I almost never see it.
Heck, when I was at the show talking to the TexJet guys, I was amazed that they even knew the NAME of their printer, let alone how to achieve the best possible prints from it.
And on top of all that - the Kornit has probably the most in-depth artwork prep of any of the machines. Not to say that it takes the longest to prepare to print, but you DEFINITELY need to know what you are doing.
Justin...Your point is well taken.....I remember hearing about practically every one of these companies sending out poor quality samples or creating a sample at a show that when the customer washed it once it disappeared!! It was always frustrating because I knew for sure I could make that beast print perfect
Kornit Purchase. Do you lease or buy? 
Re: Kornit Purchase. Do you lease or buy? 
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