I have a Blazer for a year and it works well. I don't know much about brother. but I know for my market, it would not work, because most of my work are dark shirts.
1 - 20 of 24 Posts
It's amazing what sales people will say, when they are trying to promote their own product. You kinda get the feeling that if the rep got a new job with T-jet the following week, they'd be saying negative things about the Brother machine.
The people on here who actually use the machines day in day out, will always give you the most honest answers.
I have a white ink printer and love it. I have replaced my printhead once, but that was only by my own fault for letting it sit too long without printing, and that is after owning my machine for over a year. I have to say that my target market is not the biker/hotrod group but the majority of my garments I print are on dark colors. I find that alot of people that have me print are people that cannot find others with printers that print on darks I was not willing to limit myself with only being able to print light colors, so that is why I went with the decision I did. With my printer I have no limits, but it also fits my business model as I intended. That is the most important decision that you have to make, is what do you need that fits your plan.
I dont agree with the Brother rep telling you that the epson printheads break down, that is simply not true. As with any printer as long as you understand what kind of care goes into owning it, they should last no problem. The epson printheads are also alot cheaper at around $275 for a machine that only takes one printhead compared to the brother which has four printheads that cost around $1000 a piece. My best advice is to do your research and compare all of the information, and make a decision on that. Read all the forums you can, go and see as many of the distributors as you can in your area, go to the trade shows, bring your own file and get the same print done by each machine, do wash tests. Have all of the information you can get and go from there
I was not willing to limit myself with only being able to print light colors, so that is why I went with the decision I did. With my printer I have no limits, but it also fits my business model as I intended. That is the most important decision that you have to make, is what do you need that fits your plan. I dont agree with the Brother rep telling you that the epson printheads break down, that is simply not true. As with any printer as long as you understand what kind of care goes into owning it, they should last no problem. The epson printheads are also alot cheaper at around $275 for a machine that only takes one printhead compared to the brother which has four printheads that cost around $1000 a piece. My best advice is to do your research and compare all of the information, and make a decision on that. Read all the forums you can, go and see as many of the distributors as you can in your area, go to the trade shows, bring your own file and get the same print done by each machine, do wash tests. Have all of the information you can get and go from there
Even though we do not currently print with white ink- at any time we can add it back in. To us that was an important option. We don't use white ink now because we have no demand for it- not because of clogging issues. But as Bobbie Lee said- your business plan should determine whether you need the white ink option.
Many Epson print heads last two years- and even the more expensive ones cost $500ish.
There are plenty of good salesmen out there- plenty who are just really excited about their product. They should be able to sell you on their benefits without giving slanted info on the competition IMHO. Ask for the study which showed the Epson heads last only six months If they can provide that then the info is objective and then I would consider it fair game for a salesman to use to sell his product.
Many Epson print heads last two years- and even the more expensive ones cost $500ish.
There are plenty of good salesmen out there- plenty who are just really excited about their product. They should be able to sell you on their benefits without giving slanted info on the competition IMHO. Ask for the study which showed the Epson heads last only six months
If they can provide that then the info is objective and then I would consider it fair game for a salesman to use to sell his product.
I agree with what both Rodney and Don are saying. Unfortunately early on in my opinion there were too many sales reps that either did not know the dtg printers well enough or made unjustifiable remarks about what these printers can / cannot do that it hurt the dtg part of the industry. I personally heard one person (not naming names) state the printer could "basically print money". (I assumed this was figurative speaking). These types of statements are misleading and have caused some people to lose thousands of dollars because dtg printing is not for every business model. There are also some very honest sales reps out there as well that will tell you the pros and cons of their machine(s). It is important to find a sales rep that you can work with and trust. I have found the ones that are willing to help and answer questions on the forums (i.e. Don at DTG, Harry at Equipment Zone, Brian at Direct2Shirt,...) tend to be very honest and helpful with prospective dtg owners because their words are published worldwide and thus have to stand up to what the wrote.
I wrote the almost 50 page paper on dtg printing (www.multirip.com/dtg101.pdf) because I wanted prospective buyers to have a good foundation of knowledge before they even approached a sales rep. I included information and pictures about as many printers and in an unbiased approach as possible. Yes, everyone has some type of bias and it will affect your decision making process. I do think that there is a certain amount of responsibility of the decorator to making sure they know what their business model is, what their target market wants and is willing to pay for. Knowing this key information should be done before ever looking at which printing technique you should use.
I have done way too many trade shows in this industry in the last 6 years than I care to mention. The best advice I can provide to anyone is see what the sales rep cares more about – talking about the product(s) he/she is trying to sell or getting to know your business. If they ask questions about your business first, then they are trying to determine whether their product(s) would be a match for your business model. Otherwise, how can they tell you that their product(s) are correct for you? Find a sales rep. that cares about your business and you will be in a much better starting position.
Mark
P.S. Don, I spent some impressionable and crazy years in grad school around your area (Tampa / St. Pete). Do you know something I don't know when you say:
I wrote the almost 50 page paper on dtg printing (www.multirip.com/dtg101.pdf) because I wanted prospective buyers to have a good foundation of knowledge before they even approached a sales rep. I included information and pictures about as many printers and in an unbiased approach as possible. Yes, everyone has some type of bias and it will affect your decision making process. I do think that there is a certain amount of responsibility of the decorator to making sure they know what their business model is, what their target market wants and is willing to pay for. Knowing this key information should be done before ever looking at which printing technique you should use.
I have done way too many trade shows in this industry in the last 6 years than I care to mention. The best advice I can provide to anyone is see what the sales rep cares more about – talking about the product(s) he/she is trying to sell or getting to know your business. If they ask questions about your business first, then they are trying to determine whether their product(s) would be a match for your business model. Otherwise, how can they tell you that their product(s) are correct for you? Find a sales rep. that cares about your business and you will be in a much better starting position.
Mark
P.S. Don, I spent some impressionable and crazy years in grad school around your area (Tampa / St. Pete). Do you know something I don't know when you say:
.
You mean in the way that people with zero feedback ask questions via pm's, as to where a third party item has been obtained, when it is mentioned in a thread?
Sadly there are sham postings on almost every type of forum, about every type of product. Some are put there for commercial advantage, some are malicious and some are just wholly inaccurate. It is other forum members ability to respond to sham postings that allows a balanced decision to be reached, based on information received from more than one source. It's called informed choice.
You got a dog or something??????? Right???????P.S. Don, I spent some impressionable and crazy years in grad school around your area (Tampa / St. Pete). Do you know something I don't know when you say:
[/SIZE]Originally Posted by Don-SWF East![]()
DA Guide has done a lot to promote this industry, but, he also has to feed his family as well.![]()
.![]()
You're probably right. It was a broad brush. Not *all* sales people are the same. However, to put it in context, I was addressing the original poster who did have a sales person that was obviously distorting the facts.
Even a site admin can have opinions. That's all these are, opinions to help people try to make good decisions about which DTG product they should buy. I'm not trying to sell them any machine, but give them good advice on how to objectively assess the benefits and drawbacks of the different machines and how to deal with salemen that were "driving them nuts".
I didn't point fingers at anyone. Just tried to be helpful and answer the member's question. Feel free to add on your own helpful tips on how they should choose a printer.
Nothing wrong with feeding a family, but the DTG paper I referred to didn't read like a sales ad to me. It didn't seem biased to any one printer. It was more educational (in my opinion) than promotional. That's why I referred to it.
Hopefully we can get this back to the topic of helping the member evaluate the DTG choices out there
Apology accepted, sorry if I get a bit touchy about this subject, I take my job very seriously and don't like being painted with a broad brush. Besides, all site admins are "meany-heads" anyway!
1 - 20 of 24 Posts
