talk to someone who uses the tabletops direct to garmet machines

i have had my kiosk since March. It is a pretty easy machine too use. Maint. is easy to keep up with, inks are a little less than the brother (at least that is my thought). Does well with the darks using the pretreatment. I have been able to switch about 95% of my customers so far to the digital print instead of screen printing. We are in Florida and once I show them how much easier they "breath" instead of using the plastisol inks and how we can add colors to their logo's it is pretty much a done deal. My suggestions as to which ever brand you buy is how close you are to a service or training center. These machines are heavy and if you do need to return it for repair they are heavy and this could get expensive. So far I have not had any bad repair issues to speak about. I had the printer guide (ribbon) replaced under warranty. I was cleaning it and I broke it. About a $4.00 part even if I did have to buy one, not bad. I was told that the newer kiosk do not have the individual ink valves, but cost a little less. I prefer the valves. If you need to flush or refill a certain color ink, the way mine is set up sounds alot easier. To get a good imprint with the white, sometimes you need to do just a white ink fill to get the white moving good and with the valve system it makes this easy.
Besides when I went to the ISS show the SWF Southeast was the easiest to deal with, they gave me the best deal and price vs. T-Jet and a few of the other dealers that were there. I checked out the Brother and they do a fantastic job, more money than I was ready at the time to shell out and did not do darks.
Also when making your deal - ask for extra platens, software updates to be included and tech support. I got an extra adult platen and a sweet discount on the heat press as well as updates. So take as many factors into consideration when purchasing which ever model you decide too. Wish you the best and let me know if you have any other questions.
Janet

It kinda depends, 720 x 720 or 720 x 360 dpi. What I can do is if you send me a good ai or photoshop file I can run it through the rippro program and tell you at both dpi's what it would cost. It truly depends on the art. If your interested shoot the art to me at [email protected] and I will get back to you on Monday.
The other thing I would do is contact the different Garment printer companies you are truly interested in and have them do you a sample shirt (pref with your own graphics) on a white and dark shirt. Ask them what resolution and how many pases they used to imprint your art. That way you have apples to apples to compare imprints and washability tests you can do. Also when talking to the companies along with the other things I suggested you negotiate for add inks to the list.
Janet

Alot depends on your local graphics. Some charge as few as $5.00 to $15.00 (on white and light shirts) More for darks that you have to pre-treat. Quantity has somewhat a factor in what you charge. The best bet is to figure what the shirt & ink, pretreat cost you, double that and add at least $1.00. It is hard to give a price sometimes because they may want a Gildan T or a Hanes Beefy-T. Big price difference between the two, then if they want pockets well that is extra too. So your best bet is just to do what I suggested to get you started. White Shirt, Ink, $1.00 (1.50 +.50 +1.00=$3.00 x 2 = $6.00, add another $1.00 if the imprint is 2 sided). Also order a couple extra shirts just in case you have a printer or operator error. I hope this makes sense. Good luck and also which machine did you decide on?