I love it. It's fast. The design software is great. And I can print right from Photoshop.
The heatpress / heater oven is simple to use.
A shirt takes about 2.5 min to print and 3 to cure.
The pre-heat/press takes 30 sec. It came with three platens (Two A4, and one A5). I purchased another A4. BTW, for us Americans, A4 is about 8.5x11.
With three A4 platens, I can be pre/heating one shirt, and printing another, while threading another. So that's about one shirt per 3.5 minutes. so about 15 shirts an hour - full color.
What this does for me, is it gives me the ability to take one off orders at $25 per. Or small, full color orders at $25/10 shirts.
I have never found a heat transfer that lasted that long. They all seem to fade.
I still screen print, but now I can do small jobs (as in one) really fast. And the cost per shirt is like $.30 of ink. Over the years I have lost so much money on Epson or Brother inkjet printers that jammed - losing me the cost of the transfer paper.
I suspect I've spent way to much time fighting inkjet printers. Now I only have a cannon (not multi-function) for screen positives.
The Ricoh Ri 100 has a small print field, does not do black without a hack, and is not super fast. BUT ... it's super small, under $5k, and prints well. For me, it fills a niche. I have found a way to print on dark shirts, and extend the print area.
For example, I screen print one color as an overall print, then use the Ricoh to print the A4 center area. The overall look is a full color, all over print - with only one screen.
I've also done dress shirts. The printer can do a left chest all day long.
A full color logo on a dress shirt, without any screens, is profitable without any set-up. I can print left-chest logos with each person's name in no extra time. Every shirt get's a custom name.
Overall the Ricoh fits a need for either small jobs or multiple variation jobs (like names or numbers). I think the Ricoh will help me earn more business this year.
For most dark one-offs, I have an OKI 711WT and the forever transfers. About $3 per print and three step process. About the same amount of time. For me, these two printers let me take small jobs at a profit.
One day I may get a DTG that has a larger field and can do black without a hack. The Kornit Breeze is about $40k or so. That's too rich for me right now. But the Ricoh lets me say YES to small jobs on light fabric, and profitably.
1,000 prints of transfer paper for lights might be $500 (paper + ink).
1,000 prints on the Ricoh is $300 and less time for the operator.
That's $200 is savings per 1k prints. So it will take a while to justify a $5k investment.
But with better quality than transfers (in my opinion), I can charge more. So I think I'll see this paid off in a quarter.
Sorry to be so long winded, but I love this printer!
Eric