[hossein761]

Hi,
I saw a Brother GT-541 in the International Textile Fair in my country, and asked some info from the guy who was showing the machine. He told me that in the worst case scenario, in which I use very high amount of ink on a design, I can get 3000 t-shirts with a set of cartridges, but normally I can get something between 10,000-30,000 depending on the usage. He also showed me a printed T-shirt which has a colorful design at the size approx a Basketball in diameters, and told me that this picture has consumed nearly 35 Cents of inke, and I was really shocked.
I came home and did some calculations, and from what I saw from the machine's brochure, I saw that a nearly big and colorful image consumes about 2ml of ink in sum. From what I got from this brochure and knowing the price of the set of cartridges in my country ( approx 830$ for a set of 4 colors) and knowing that I have 4 cartridges and each have 220ml, I concluded that an Image with the ink consumption of 2ml approximately consumes 2.1$ of ink and I can only print about 500 T-shirts using a whole set of cartridges.( I excluded the tests and possible mistakes and .... in my calculations)
Does anybody knows anything about it? Am I doing my calculations wrong? Or the guy was trying to fool me?
Thanks

 

[hossein761]

any suggestions?

 

[Titchimp]

The guy maybe was talking about how long the print heads last. The cartridges will not do 30,000 prints on one set of ink

 

[JCnSyn]

WOW I wish, if we got 1000 prints a set that would be impressive, but 10,000 that is a good one. Kind of sounds like a used car salesman is now selling LOL.

There are so many factors that it is hard to answer. Print size, vivid setting, and balance of colors are all factors that determine the ink volume used. Our Brother has a meter that we place our hope and cost projections on and gives us a good idea on ink volume per shirt.

Front pocket patch, full back with good detail we can get around 700 shirts, sometimes more sometimes less.

Just my two cents.

JC

 

[Robin]

Im not sure!

If I was doing all left chest location with the ink level dialed down to 1.......Im sure I could get a couple 1000's. But I'll let you do the math (because Im not very good with numbers).....if I do full front graphic with lots of white space, but lots of colors, I can usually still get a good looking graphic dialed down to level 5....say .33cc If I do front left chest location, dialed down to a 3 or 4 this averages .09cc per shirt.

If he is getting that many prints per set of cartridges, he isnt getting a good vivid image. It will very likely look washed out. Or.........he's pullin' your leg! (my guess)

 

[mrbigjack50]

Was he drunk or smoking something when he said that....
Sounds like it to me ha...

Put it this way.. I don't got Brother and have Anajet with 110ml ink's... They say I should get 700 shirts of a set which is complete bull, so if your inks are double than that be 1400 which is bull too

If what he was saying is true than why bother Screen printing anymore when DTG is cheaper??

 

[mrbigjack50]

Oh did this "guy" say the printer will do you laundry to Lmfao

 

[hossein761]

Thanks everyone for your replies. Well, now, I can argue with the guy since everybody says that it is impossible.

 

[skdave]

Thanks everyone for your replies. Well, now, I can argue with the guy since everybody says that it is impossible.

I do not think he is worth arguing with. Forget him, do not even respond.

I ask my guys to give me our cost of ink on the GT541 per shirt and the answer was $.619 cents on average per shirt for the last 4 months.
Some of these shirts were printed in 3 locations.
A set of ink cost $800. You can do the math on how many shirts we get per set.

 

[eaglesofttees]

there are 200cc's of ink per cartridge .. $200 bucks per cartridge. The average shirt uses 20 - 60cc's so that is $ .20 - $ .60 per shirt. Hopefully this helps at all.

 

[fdsales]

We were told by a Brother sales rep that each set of cartridges would yield approximately 1,000 single side prints, but he was not sure if that was small left chest or large full size prints. I have heard that the average print cost price ranges from .30 per shirt for small size print, up to $1.00 per print for full size prints, so the average of 0.65 would sound fairly accurate.

 

[hossein761]

Thanks everybody u helped a lot!!
Well yeah, I also believe that the average 0.65 sounds fair enough!

 

[fdsales]

The only issue I have heard of with Brother's ink cartilage system is that the software tells you when to change the ink cartridge, based on when the software thinks you have exhausted the cartridge, but there's always ink remaining in the cartridge, sometimes more than just a residual amount. At $200 per cartridge, there should be some way to override the change cartridge command in order to get all the ink you can from the ink cartridge.

 

[eaglesofttees]

The only issue I have heard of with Brother's ink cartilage system is that the software tells you when to change the ink cartridge, based on when the software thinks you have exhausted the cartridge, but there's always ink remaining in the cartridge, sometimes more than just a residual amount. At $200 per cartridge, there should be some way to override the change cartridge command in order to get all the ink you can from the ink cartridge.

all you gotta do is open the cartridge, roll up the tube like toothpaste and tape it off then reseal the cartridge then shake it gently and put it back in. you should be getting another 40+ shirts out of that

 

[speeed]

hey that guy was talking about the print heads as i just changed my own after about 30000 prints.