It sounds like you've already read the info in other posts that Mod-1 owners have shared that made it stand out to them?
Hopefully an owner will see your post and have time to answer your numbered questions above
Search Continues, Any Mod-1 users wish they had bought different
Ok, so this thread is what made me buy the brother gt-541. I had posted similar in the ms-thread and V-Jet thread now to be fair to me and other manufacturers I thought I would post this here.
Are there any owners of this machine who now after having it wish they had gone a different direction?
Are you happy with:
1- Prints
2- Cost of Printing
3-Service and support from your rep and manufacturer
4-Any Major Drawbacks you have encountered?
How many white tees with a 10x12 can you get per hour
5- How many black tees with white base and 4cp can you do per hour( i have a conveyor over and will have 3 heat presses total)
6- do you own a speed/pretreater or hand pretreat ?
7- what are average cure times on whites and darks?
8- Maintenance- My biggest fear- how much time is needed daily and after printing to keep this unit ready to rock and trouble free as I do not think it will run daily for some time
I am getting to the point where it seems like sitting out and watching game from sidelines may be my best bet. We are updating 3 of our companies websites and we want the tee design feature on each and we want to do more than just light tees. If we get big orders we can always broker our screen print but having a tee platform with our new site launcehes and e commerce packages seems best and I just do not see transfers cutting it. I know I can never be all things to all customers but i want to get close and in my town this is a huge advantage as I would be the only game in town for true pure 1 stop shopping from paper print and banners, transfers, poster,brochures and direct mail all under 1 roof and we have 2 artists as well so having light and dark dtg seems like it would make us a complete package for any customer or sports team and grow our presense and business dramiticly.
What makes the mod-1 stand out above the crowd as many others have pointed out in their posts?
Thanks again for the time to answer all my questions and for all the guidance. I just do not want to get into something that takes me to the poor house. I want to grow and thrive in this business and these forums have really helped me learn what I am getting into and have really made me question if I even want to keep going down this road.
Thanks Again Everyone
Are there any owners of this machine who now after having it wish they had gone a different direction?
Are you happy with:
1- Prints
2- Cost of Printing
3-Service and support from your rep and manufacturer
4-Any Major Drawbacks you have encountered?
How many white tees with a 10x12 can you get per hour
5- How many black tees with white base and 4cp can you do per hour( i have a conveyor over and will have 3 heat presses total)
6- do you own a speed/pretreater or hand pretreat ?
7- what are average cure times on whites and darks?
8- Maintenance- My biggest fear- how much time is needed daily and after printing to keep this unit ready to rock and trouble free as I do not think it will run daily for some time
I am getting to the point where it seems like sitting out and watching game from sidelines may be my best bet. We are updating 3 of our companies websites and we want the tee design feature on each and we want to do more than just light tees. If we get big orders we can always broker our screen print but having a tee platform with our new site launcehes and e commerce packages seems best and I just do not see transfers cutting it. I know I can never be all things to all customers but i want to get close and in my town this is a huge advantage as I would be the only game in town for true pure 1 stop shopping from paper print and banners, transfers, poster,brochures and direct mail all under 1 roof and we have 2 artists as well so having light and dark dtg seems like it would make us a complete package for any customer or sports team and grow our presense and business dramiticly.
What makes the mod-1 stand out above the crowd as many others have pointed out in their posts?
Thanks again for the time to answer all my questions and for all the guidance. I just do not want to get into something that takes me to the poor house. I want to grow and thrive in this business and these forums have really helped me learn what I am getting into and have really made me question if I even want to keep going down this road.
Thanks Again Everyone
1 - 20 of 46 Posts
Hopefully an owner will see your post and have time to answer your numbered questions above
Yeah, I don't expect anyone to take an hour to reply by number was just trying to bullet point my goals and identify the primary things that I think I am looking at, a few sentance answer or any answer would be great. Have read through the entire thread. I honestly ended up buying the brother because of a very similar thread and did the same in 2 other manufacturers forums so mainly thought as this is my newest evaluation some owners now having the unit for a while could share any thougt with me but no, a novel like my post is not what I am expecting in return.It sounds like you've already read the info in other posts that Mod-1 owners have shared that made it stand out to them?
Hopefully an owner will see your post and have time to answer your numbered questions above
I just want so badly to make the right decision and the folks on this place have helped me in so many ways that I thought I would return to the well one more time.
thanks Rodney and anyone who takes the time to read and offer any advice.
take care
This looks familiar like I've responded before, but here goes:
1- Print quality is great on the R1800 platform, we like it much better than the 2200 - Kiosks.
2- White ink will always get you, but CMYK prints on white / light shirts is where the money is at.
3-Top Notch, best support we have come across. They even were helpful with our Kiosks when switching over to the Bags. Belquette has always gotten back to us the same day, usually within the hour when we had questions about the Printer.
4- The only drawbacks so far is a Rip software issue un-related to the hardware. We were using version 3 on our Kiosks and run version 4 on the MOD. Between the 2, there are subtle differences between the black ink detect threshold, so prints that looked great with a black background could sometimes be more trouble on the MOD. Nothing a quick tweak to the image doesn't solve though.
How many prints per hour depends on the image. Most of the time you can get away with a single pass using pre-treat. It's always important to use real production times and not theoretical times from the manufacture.
Our best times so far on a 10x12 is 40 per hour with 2 people loading / unloading and pre-treating white shirts.
5- Again, depends on the detail of the image. The wolfpack design I posted awhile back we chose to run at 1440x1440 it took 6min to complete. A similar image that size without details we could have run at 1440x720 and it would have taken 4 min 15 seconds.
That is just print time, a lot of time is wasted loading and unloading shirts from the printer and that is where the MOD really shines. So far, it is the easiest machine to load and unload that we have seen. With multiple platens, down time between prints can be 10 - 12 seconds vs 1 min in some cases on the Kiosk.
Also, MOD has Rapid 2nd pass feature that is unique in the industry which saves a bit of rewind time doing the CMYK layer over white.
6- We pre-treat by hand.
7- Dupont inks are 2 min for white shirts, 3 min for colored shirts with white base.
We use a Vastext DB-II conveyor dryer, 2 passes through.
8- Again, another area where the MOD1 shines. It's so easy to open the entire front cover and spray the entire area down with Windex without worrying about hurting critical components. See my post here with pictures:
http://www.t-shirtforums.com/direct-garment-dtg-inkjet-printing/t78753-2.html
In short what made the MOD1 stand out for us was:
* Ease of Maintenance
* Modular machine design
* Easy loading / Unloading of shirts (we do a lot fo batch orders so speed was important to us)
* Warranty - If the machine goes down and they cannot help you over the phone, they will ship you a new printer unit that sits right on top of the print bed. This helps eliminate down time if the machine goes down.
1- Print quality is great on the R1800 platform, we like it much better than the 2200 - Kiosks.
2- White ink will always get you, but CMYK prints on white / light shirts is where the money is at.
3-Top Notch, best support we have come across. They even were helpful with our Kiosks when switching over to the Bags. Belquette has always gotten back to us the same day, usually within the hour when we had questions about the Printer.
4- The only drawbacks so far is a Rip software issue un-related to the hardware. We were using version 3 on our Kiosks and run version 4 on the MOD. Between the 2, there are subtle differences between the black ink detect threshold, so prints that looked great with a black background could sometimes be more trouble on the MOD. Nothing a quick tweak to the image doesn't solve though.
How many prints per hour depends on the image. Most of the time you can get away with a single pass using pre-treat. It's always important to use real production times and not theoretical times from the manufacture.
Our best times so far on a 10x12 is 40 per hour with 2 people loading / unloading and pre-treating white shirts.
5- Again, depends on the detail of the image. The wolfpack design I posted awhile back we chose to run at 1440x1440 it took 6min to complete. A similar image that size without details we could have run at 1440x720 and it would have taken 4 min 15 seconds.
That is just print time, a lot of time is wasted loading and unloading shirts from the printer and that is where the MOD really shines. So far, it is the easiest machine to load and unload that we have seen. With multiple platens, down time between prints can be 10 - 12 seconds vs 1 min in some cases on the Kiosk.
Also, MOD has Rapid 2nd pass feature that is unique in the industry which saves a bit of rewind time doing the CMYK layer over white.
6- We pre-treat by hand.
7- Dupont inks are 2 min for white shirts, 3 min for colored shirts with white base.
We use a Vastext DB-II conveyor dryer, 2 passes through.
8- Again, another area where the MOD1 shines. It's so easy to open the entire front cover and spray the entire area down with Windex without worrying about hurting critical components. See my post here with pictures:
http://www.t-shirtforums.com/direct-garment-dtg-inkjet-printing/t78753-2.html
In short what made the MOD1 stand out for us was:
* Ease of Maintenance
* Modular machine design
* Easy loading / Unloading of shirts (we do a lot fo batch orders so speed was important to us)
* Warranty - If the machine goes down and they cannot help you over the phone, they will ship you a new printer unit that sits right on top of the print bed. This helps eliminate down time if the machine goes down.
I forgot to mention, we are extremely happy with this machine.
Once we phase out our kiosks, we will be adding another MOD1 or possibly a MOD2.
Once we phase out our kiosks, we will be adding another MOD1 or possibly a MOD2.
yes, thank you i think we have spoke or traded a pm and this may have been a rehash for you and I want to thank you again for taking the time to help me, If i am reading right I can upgrade a mod 1 to a mod 2 at a later date which seems like a big plus. To your point I have the small electric conveyor and I do plan on installing 2-3 more heat presses. In theroy I would love to take on larger 2 sided jobs. Print the most expensive design using the brother rip price and then printing the expensive prints on the lower cost unit(1 side only) then doing the say cheaper left chest on brother, so with 2 operators and 3-4 heat presses I think and some extra platens I can get my guys multi tasking and bust out some numbers and make some higher profits as the bagged/bulk inks are cheaper then the cartridges on my brother(light shirts only obviously) but with 1 press dedicated to pre treat, 3 heat units dedicated to pressing inks for cure and left chest small running thru a conveyor I may be able to consume more of what I send out to keep my peoples hours up and maybe turn some better or even equal profits while controlling all my manufacturing and process which is lost when you broker.
Thanks again for the reply and taking the time .
I am really hoping to wrap up a purchase soon but the more I dig and learn the better equipped I feel that I am when I pull that trigger.
You guys have all been awesome and I really do appreciate the time. Jerid has been great and is doing some samples for me right now. Of course as luck would have it repair man is coming for my washing machine tomorrow. Luckily with 3 kids we have like 40 loads to do so I can get 3 weeks of wash tests done this week. Been sockless for a few day, cant wait to get my wash testing and some clean socks back.
Thanks again
after all this is finalized I think I will jump over to the ecommerce thread and start driving people crazy with a million questions so as soon as I pick my hopefully perfect solution for a printer then comes the best ecommerce platform and hopefully i am on my way, Thanks again
Thanks again for the reply and taking the time .
I am really hoping to wrap up a purchase soon but the more I dig and learn the better equipped I feel that I am when I pull that trigger.
You guys have all been awesome and I really do appreciate the time. Jerid has been great and is doing some samples for me right now. Of course as luck would have it repair man is coming for my washing machine tomorrow. Luckily with 3 kids we have like 40 loads to do so I can get 3 weeks of wash tests done this week. Been sockless for a few day, cant wait to get my wash testing and some clean socks back.
Thanks again
after all this is finalized I think I will jump over to the ecommerce thread and start driving people crazy with a million questions so as soon as I pick my hopefully perfect solution for a printer then comes the best ecommerce platform and hopefully i am on my way, Thanks again
I am slowing following in Adam's footsteps. We just purchased our 2nd Kiosk (great deal and couldn't pass it up) and both Kiosk's are bagged.2- White ink will always get you, but CMYK prints on white / light shirts is where the money is at.
3-Top Notch, best support we have come across. They even were helpful with our Kiosks when switching over to the Bags. Belquette has always gotten back to us the same day, usually within the hour when we had questions about the Printer.
Belquette customer service is above and beyond our exceptions. We were down with our Kiosk one day, mind you they don't service them or work on them. They called us right away one the next day knowing we were down to see how we were doing all because we had their inks..not their printer but their inks
Our future is to purchase a Mod and phase out the Kiosk but right now the bagged Kiosk are doing great. We can work a 12 hour day and virtually have no problems..the only problems we get is the ink cartridge/waste ink counter reset error (Epson normal error codes)
We have had the same printhead 6 months in our older Kiosk and been printing over 50-60 shirts a day 7 seven days a week with no problems, no ink starvation, no clogs..
Now with the 2nd kiosk running we have doubled our production needed another heat press because sometimes we can't keep up with the two but its a learning process.
We can't wait to add the Mod into the mix because we feel we have mastered the white ink and Belquette invented the solution.
I don't need WIMS or Bulk Ink just the bag conversion. If you really need anymore proof visit Belquette or Adam or anyone who has them and see them in action. These are engineers working on these printers not salespeople selling a product they don't know anything other than "sell, sell, buy, buy, did you go to training?, its your fault, you did this or that wrong".. its not like that..
Mark, Brett and Kevin and the staff at Belquette want to produce a working product not just push it out there and hope it works.
We also own a mod 1 and it's by far the best machine we have had in our 3 years of DTG printing. Also, as Adam said Belquette tech support goes above and beyond to help you along the way which will be critical to your success if you are new to DTG printing.
If I had to do it all over again I would without question buy the Mod 1 again.
Hope this helps,
Andy
If I had to do it all over again I would without question buy the Mod 1 again.
Hope this helps,
Andy
Thank you very much.
I've heard this said on several different occasions by different people; can you explain this to me, please? What exactly constitutes "Rapid 2nd Pass"? The 48xx machine that I am currently using, sends the platen back in as soon as the white layer is done, without the platen ejecting and then going back in for the 2nd pass - I am pretty sure there are a few others as well, so unless I misunderstand what this is, it is not unique to the industry.Also, MOD has Rapid 2nd pass feature that is unique in the industry which saves a bit of rewind time doing the CMYK layer over white.
Aside from that, the two people I know with Mod1 printers have had nothing but great things to say about them!!
I'm not sure how your printer works, but when the Mod1 first came out, it was the only one with this feature. The feature on the Mod1 is streamlined to get it to print as fast as it can between passes.
As soon as the last pixel is printed, the platen automatically rewinds. At the time of rewinding, the next layer starts to print. So by the time the platen returns to the print position, within a couple of seconds, the 2nd layer begins printing.
As soon as the last pixel is printed, the platen automatically rewinds. At the time of rewinding, the next layer starts to print. So by the time the platen returns to the print position, within a couple of seconds, the 2nd layer begins printing.
Justin- your 4880 reloads after the last white pixel is printed, it doesn't advance to the end of the document size?
Correct; the machine prints the white layer, it might kick the platen out an inch or so, then sucks it right back in and prints the color layer (there might be a few seconds delay before the color layer prints, but its pretty quick). There is a button on the machine which sets it from "Single Pass" to "Double Pass" mode, which allows you to determine whether you want it to go back in or pop all the way out.Justin- your 4880 reloads after the last white pixel is printed, it doesn't advance to the end of the document size?
Marc and Justin,
Here is a video that shows the Auto Rapid 2nd Pass to clarify the way that it works.
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAdsNnBRLZI[/media]
Here is a video that shows the Auto Rapid 2nd Pass to clarify the way that it works.
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAdsNnBRLZI[/media]
Thanks for that video, do you happen to have one showing the cap printing feature?Marc and Justin,
Here is a video that shows the Auto Rapid 2nd Pass to clarify the way that it works.
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAdsNnBRLZI[/media]
Also when doing a second pass, do you lower the ink volume or density(only familar with brother-maybe wrong terms) and does the second pass equal double ink costs or does it mainly cost about the same or a bit more because the double pass has factored in that it is a double pass and does not lay down too much on each pass?
Thanks again
You choose 720x720 with a double pass. It's already profiled to use less ink. With the double pass, it costs about the same as a single pass at 1440x720.
Kept the ink density at 100 percent. The ink cost for that small image was $.013. Two passes = $.026, so about three cents total.
Thanks for posting this video.Marc and Justin,
Here is a video that shows the Auto Rapid 2nd Pass to clarify the way that it works.
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAdsNnBRLZI[/media]
This along with the ease of maintenance was one of the main selling points for us. As the video shows how simple it is to swap out the platen, you can have a second one staged and ready to go really cutting down on idle time.
We're really put this to the test after getting our MOD, we've had several batch orders that were well over 300 pieces.
have you found that 1 extra platen is enough? Also have you tried the cap printing , it seems like there are good margins in that. Not quite sute how to cure the bill and forehead area yet but seems very interesting and we have had a few requests but the platen for my other printer costs too much to justify the purchase currently.Thanks for posting this video.
This along with the ease of maintenance was one of the main selling points for us. As the video shows how simple it is to swap out the platen, you can have a second one staged and ready to go really cutting down on idle time.
We're really put this to the test after getting our MOD, we've had several batch orders that were well over 300 pieces.
Thanks
1 - 20 of 46 Posts
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