[treefox2118]

Well, I beat my Spectra P600 duo up pretty hard core since yesterday at noon until today at 2pm. 420 shirts (all CMYK, but double pass) in just over 26 hours with 1 guy, 1 heat press running. And, yes, I did sleep 8 hours somewhere in there.

That's $2000 in profit in basically a day, folks.

The breakdown:

Price of tees: $1,113
Price of ink: $257
Price of head cleans: $31
Electricity: $10
Rent/Insurance/Overhead: $100

Gross Cost: $1511

Price per tee sold (all were rush jobs): $10 average x 420 = $4200 gross income

Gross profit: $2689 in 14 hours

Cost of labor: $543 including overtime, taxes, benefits, etc

Net profit: $2146 in just over 24 hours.

Our biggest issues:

* We really need 3 platens per printer to pre-load shirts. This is a huge time sink when we're replacing blanks and the printer sits there doing nothing.

* The print cartridge-dampers are kinda sucky but we tried 4 different brands and the ones that come with the Spectra are the least suckiest. At least they're cheap at $3ish a piece to replace, so make sure to keep TONS of them around. When you do your daily priming, you'll know when the cartridge is KIA.

* Stupid manual heat press. Go for auto open and auto close. Seriously. 840 lifts and presses in 24 hours is going to kill your back and arms unless you're 17 years old.

The Spectras held up remarkably well -- and the issues we had were basic DTG issues that might happen with any brand.

Good job, Spectra dudes, I can't wait to order 2-4 more printers soon. If I can get me 10 more 24-hour sessions like this one, we'll have the cash to buy a lot of spare modulars, too.

 

[raise]

Without curing, how long did each shirt take to print using double pass and what was the length in inches of each print?

Is Dupont ink still curing at 90 seconds for CMYK without white?

Agreed on the heat press, with a manual that does not sound like a fun job but congrats on finishing it!

 

[treefox2118]

The image was 11"x11" by boundaries but had a lot of empty space on the sides. The P600 doesn't do a full horizontal return on each pass so it prints really quick on jobs like that.

I'm not sure how long each print actually took because I was busy doing other things. Two printers, 14 actual print hours, 420 shirts means 4 minutes per print but I also responded to 100+ emails and probably 40 phone calls and let things fall behind (one huge reason for having spare platens ready to load!).

Also had to run a few F1 cleans which take time, and the P600 has a weird glitch with the waste ink memory setting not fully resetting so we reset those a few times a day which requires a printer reboot.

Overall I'm extremely pleased with the outcome. One of the jobs we printed was way overpriced and one was way too cheap but both already have generated new client inquiries which I'm hoping will lead to more days like this one. We've been DTG printing for almost 6 years, though, so we already have a great customer list, but I envision 10-20 printers by year's end covering a wider range of locations.

The Spectra Duo with all accessories is under $20,000 and if you have 100-150 shirts a week in orders, it'll pay for itself in less than a year.

If Spectra can figure out how to make the P800 work well, they'll be top of the entry level market. While I'm till considering a $40-70,000 M-Link, I honestly think ten Spectra P800s would be superior in performance, profitability, etc.

As for ink, we are using Image Armor. Brian has excellent technical support and has been working in his labs on making the ink better. 35 second cure times means the heat press isn't the block. One heat press can manage 4 printers worth of output with one man loading and unloading (I'd suggest two, tho).

 

[raise]

Thank you for the additional info. We are actually waiting for our shipment from Spectra to be ready for pickup.

Yes a larger format would make it an instant buy as we are keeping our GT-782 online just to be able to print 16x18 and for long CMYK runs like you described.

 

[mgtGrafix]

Could you explain what a F1 clean is with the spectra. Also when you mention the cartridge -dampeners are you talking about the carts or the dampeners or both.

I'm running a spectra 3000 now and waiting for my platen/drive upgrade so I can setup a second printer. Just finished 51 hoodies and it was hell but managed to get them done between my regular job. Took 6 days but I was only able to print about 3 hours each day

Sent from my SM-N900V using T-Shirt Forums

 

[treefox2118]

Could you explain what a F1 clean is with the spectra.

F1 clean is also called a CL1 clean in the adjustment program. You can do 4 levels of cleans: F1 (simple), F2 (medium), F3 (heavy) and "ink charge).

Also when you mention the cartridge -dampeners are you talking about the carts or the dampeners or both.

I mean the cartridges themselves that the ink bags feed into. They aren't just cartridges, though, they're also dampers. For example, my Neoflex ink cartridges are JUST cartridges that feed hoses that feed dampers. The P600 DTG has two dampers: one in the cartridge, and one above the printhead.

I'm running a spectra 3000 now and waiting for my platen/drive upgrade so I can setup a second printer. Just finished 51 hoodies and it was hell but managed to get them done between my regular job. Took 6 days but I was only able to print about 3 hours each day

I won't do hoodies DTG anymore. We probably lost $10,000 last year doing hoodies and sweatshirts on our Neoflex and DTG is just not a good solution for us there. Labor costs are extreme, sometimes we only printed 2-3 hoodies PER HOUR. Now if someone wants hoodies I tell them to do plastisol transfers and we'll apply them. So much easier.

 

[mgtGrafix]

Thanks a bunch for your answers.

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[fredtoram]

F1 clean is also called a CL1 clean in the adjustment program. You can do 4 levels of cleans: F1 (simple), F2 (medium), F3 (heavy) and "ink charge).



I mean the cartridges themselves that the ink bags feed into. They aren't just cartridges, though, they're also dampers. For example, my Neoflex ink cartridges are JUST cartridges that feed hoses that feed dampers. The P600 DTG has two dampers: one in the cartridge, and one above the printhead.




I won't do hoodies DTG anymore. We probably lost $10,000 last year doing hoodies and sweatshirts on our Neoflex and DTG is just not a good solution for us there. Labor costs are extreme, sometimes we only printed 2-3 hoodies PER HOUR. Now if someone wants hoodies I tell them to do plastisol transfers and we'll apply them. So much easier.

Hello,
I dont' understand why you don't print hoodies ... can you explain please. I plan to buy a DTG m2 and i would like to sell hoodies because i can have more money from a sweat.

 

[DTGarment]

How many headclean cycles you do between prints?
We run the neoflex800 after every 10-15print max a headclean has to be done
to get all nozzle back. Is it normal?

Temp & Humidity is room controlled.
All parts of the machine are new.