CET Flatbed Printer Electrical Issues

[Gino]

Knock on wood, our flatbed has performed flawlessly for 4 years now. We service our own machine and while our machine is not a CET, with Dave's help we replaced our first head a few weeks ago.

I'm not taking sides or anything, but I think this is the first time here on s101 where so much was said about performance/non performance to who said what along with all kinds of other technicalities and really no real trash is being talked by anyone.

I for one am really glad to see most of these problems are being addressed by both sides in a most adult manner and slowlt being taken care of.

Good luck to all parties involved..... ​

 

[Plopez210]

DUDE ours too!

OUR CET xpress 1000 IS A FREAKIN BOAT ANCHOR

white is a daily issue even when maintaining it properly

heads will just drop out 50% of the time

have had the head board replaced 3 times in less than 2 months and even had the negative pressure reset

Our advatange tech Larry is the best and he cant even get this 3000lbs hockey table running

HELP!!!

 

[Plopez210]

Cet delivers wrong printers too!

have advantage tell yall about the guys in cali who bought a 4x8 and got a 5x10

FUNNY STORY!!!

 

[Matt-Tastic]

OUR CET xpress 1000 IS A FREAKIN BOAT ANCHOR

white is a daily issue even when maintaining it properly

heads will just drop out 50% of the time

have had the head board replaced 3 times in less than 2 months and even had the negative pressure reset

Our advatange tech Larry is the best and he cant even get this 3000lbs hockey table running

HELP!!!

CET YOU SUCK MONKEY D***

Well, Gino, there goes your civil and adult communication. It was bound to happen sooner or later.

 

[Plopez210]

haha i apologize if i offended anyone... will edit the post.

for the most cet is great nadim is terrific and knows his stuff
hopefully the techs can get her up to 100%

Dave always has tried his best to stay on top and involved with these things


best of luck to all

 

[aaronmgd]

Aaron, I am trying my best to put you back into my happy customer category. I am doing my best to do so. I find it vey disengenuos that you are saying I chose to ship it on a flatbed truck, especially publicly. I am willing to be very flexible, own my issues, and to create a win win situation here, but bluntly, I was asked to ship it on an open bed truck on the po issued to me, as you have no loading dock. Also, their is no doubt that the printer got wet in transit, you have the pictures of the torn tarp, and I offered to build a replacement right away, but because of your situation, the three of us agreed on a course of action which included the wet printer to get you up and running ASAP because of your other situation. As I said on my call today, I stand behind my product. We can work this out face to face next week. Sean, and other CET customers who called today, I thank you for your efforts. That said, Aaron is unhappy and it is my repsonsiblity to try my best to resolve the issues, however unique they may be. Please allow me to do so. Thanks-Dave

Dave, at no point did I ever say that you were the one that chose to ship it on a flatbed. What i did say is that I was not asked how it should be shipped. Read my post. As Coloradosigns said, it seems the dealer was the one that made that decision. Regardless of how the printer was shipped and whether or not it arrived wet, what boggles my mind is that it took me reaching out to the public on signs101 about their experiences with cet to finally get you to call us on friday and try and work something out.

You finally did, and I am glad that you gave my partner your word that we will find a resolution to the problem.

We are a small company, and to invest a large sum of money into a printer that was supposed to turn a profit and instead it ends up costing us out of pocket losses that amounts to thousands of dollars is very painful and stunts further growth to the business. We as a company never had the confidence in taking on larger jobs for fear of not being able to deliver due to the mechanical issues with the printer. At one point when the printer was down and had a very large job to fulfill i reached out to cet and asked them if they are willing to take on the job to Express Color (owned by cet as well) and have them fulfill it for us. They said no....

My frustrations are not with dave personally. Its not with the cet trchs (who i think are great, and probably the biggest asset to cet). Its with the lack of reliability we experienced over the past year with the printer, the lack of real conern from cet and the fact that one years worth of sweat and sleepless nights my business' growth was being stunted by an issue that never should have been and was beyond our control.

We are a company that stands behind our product no matter what the cost. We owned an Epson GS6000 for 2 years. In those 2 years we printed and installed 50+ vehicle wraps using the epson printer. After 1.5 years epson admitted to their yellow inks being faulty and not being able to stand up to the years they originally claimed it would. All the customer that had designs that contained a lot of yellow in their prints, or colors that had a large yellow makeup started experiences excessive fading of their prints just after 1-1.5 years of having their vehicles on the road. We contacted epson and explained that we now have a responsibility to replace these vehicle graphics with new prints and asked if they can share the burden of cost due to the fact that they openly admitted to the yellows faults. The best they said they can do is give us "great deal" on a trade in for one of their newer bSure printers.... We literally got rid of the printer the next week and picked up a Mutoh instead. The customer service that Graphics Resource Systems (the dealer that sold us the machine) has showed us since the day of purchase is unbelievable. The printer prints non-stop all day, 5 days a week.... When issues with parts going on the machine GRS was here in less than 24hrs to fix it. That is the way a company that sells/makes printers really shows that a trustworthy partnership is what will give their product a good name. Having to buy a new Mutoh was a small price to pay in contrast to us having to replace an unreliable $100k flatbed. There is no way we could afford that.

We as a company took on the burden of replacing one wrap after the next (we are still in the process). We will end up replacing close to 20 complete vehicle wraps without charging any of the customers a dime.... Thats 20 vehicles that need to have their old wraps removed, reprinted and re-installed. The out of pocket cost to my company was/is enormous. But more important than turning a quick profit was establishing a business with a reliable name. I never once turned to my customers and tried to excuse myself out of replacing a defective product. I believe its reasonable to expect that same trust out of CET.

Dave called us on Friday and from what I got from the conversation he had with my partner is that he is really going to try and figure something out to try and remedy this disaster. I hate the fact that it took me going public with our issue to move closer to a resolution. I really had no choice...

I am hopeful that next week when Dave comes to meet us he will have a solid solution for us and an offer for compensation. I am ready to once again, even after all this time to put my trust back into the CET brand. Being a happy CET customer is probably one of the highest things on my "want list" right now. But, its like a marriage - both sides must give in order for the relationship to be solid. We gave our part....$100k, now its CET's turn to give their part....

Its never too late to make things right.

Thank you all who showed concern and shared your experiences with us. Thank you Dave for promising a resolution.

Aaron

 

[Letterbox Mike]

Well said Aaron.

 

[artbot]

all i can say is "amen". well said. i personally believe CET should gut your printer and rebuild it on site. it'd take about five days leaving the wiring harnesses in place. they could then take the parts back, bench test each one, keep the good and lightly rebuild, and toss the bad. many of the small parts don't cost that much wholesale in bulk. i've found replacement parts for the FK series i was using that were from china at huge (massive) discounts. i'm sure CET has spent more in plane tickets than that pile of parts would cost.

in the end, whether it's the shipping this ...or the rain that, ...it's just splitting semantic hairs. we can all get lulled into "this is the last fix and now we're done" routine (i had a porsche that cleaned me out in the 90's) but water and electronics with all the corrosion and trapped moisture that's a domino effect that should have marked that printer DOA. but then hind sight is 20/20.

we all deserve a bright future. you, me, CET, all of us. we all work hard, too hard to be crippled by a "bad call", or fine print, or being guinea pigs for early release technology. as small businessmen we are sheep before wolves, hoping we can just be treated fairly. and we believe that if we play fair, we will be treated fairly in kind. let's hope that's true. we absorb the loses and in turn deny our families things they need for the sake of this ideal.

 

[aaronmgd]

Thanks, guys. Just an update. The CET tech is still here (day 4). Will give an update if the issue gets figured out. Dave is scheduled to be here Friday morning, I will let you all know what ends up happening with the meeting.

 

[aaronmgd]

Guys, Dave Cich was here today. We had a very pleasant conversation. He told us by Wednesday/Thursday of next week (August 14th/15th) He will send us a proposal of some sort of a solution. I hope it will be a positive proposal that will address all of our concerns. I do not want to comment on the details we discussed as of yet. I will wait and see what they come back with and keep you all updated.
Thank you all for your show of support and concern. Hopefully this story will have a happy ending.
Aaron

 

[boxerbay]

^^ just tossed the CET brochure and samples into the garbage. thanks for this thread. I hope they work it out for you. We wont be taking that chance. CET out FB700 in.

 

[billram570]

So Aaron, what was the proposal from Dave? Enquiring minds want to know.

 

[aaronmgd]

Well... As of yet we have not received a proposal. On Wednesday (the day we were supposed to get it) Dave asked if he can send it on Friday (Today) instead since he said he had kinks to work out. I dont know what to think about it, since in my mind the options are pretty simple.... Lets hope he sends it today and the playing around stops.
Aaron

 

[Gino]

I know this is gonna be hard to swallow, but it's taken quite a long time to get them this far. A few more hours or a day or two, can't hurt.

I would expect, they are trying to figure out how to make you whole again. The ball is in their court, so let them do what they can, since almost all the CET owners and possibly future owners are closely watching this thread. I suspect, this could easily be a 'do or die' moment for them.

Again, knock on wood, we have a different manufacturer than you, but I can't say enough of how great our system has been. Had I gone through near what you did, I'd be a whole lot more upset. I would've taken action much earlier, but we are all where we are due to whatever decisions we've made. That being said, you've been well above and beyond what any customer could be, so don't let a few minutes of a deadline ruin what you most likely have coming your way. I'm sure it will be more than you had figured on. This company seems to be one of a select few that still have integrity in this world.

Good luck..........!!
​

 

[aaronmgd]

Gino, Thanks. I know a few days wont hurt. However I do expect Dave to send me something today. The reason I expect it is since in the past CET has ignored our requests to wrap up this problem. Now that they finally came down to us and and agreed that the machine is not what it is supposed to be I would hope they dont give us the run around for a proposal. Wednesday turning into Friday I can live with, but not if it gets dragged out further. I will keep you guys updated when and if we do get anything. I gather that other people, possibly potential new CET customers are watching this thread so I just want to give CET a last chance so I will not ramble too much until a proposal is sent.

 

[boxerbay]

^^^^watchin^^^^

 

[FatCat]

I've been following this thread with much interest as well, mainly because of my friendship with Mike at Insignia who is a great guy and straight shooter. I can only imagine the stress and money this whole mess has cost him and his company and I wish for nothing more than for him to get back on track and put this all behind him. Here's hoping CET comes through and makes it right.

 

[aaronmgd]

Sean, you have no idea how much financial stress this whole shenanigans has caused us. If i had to estimate a conservative number would be $100-130k of actual losses, in the past year. My losses are more than the value of the machine. With the machine being down about 25+% of the time our production was always getting interrupted in the midst of jobs and then be out for days. Finance payments, employee and shop overhead need to be taken into account as well as endless sheets of materials and wasted hours trying to remedy the issues over the phone with CET. Another factor is canceled jobs. On a few orders we had customer cancel jobs midway due to the fact that we were unable to complete the job in the required time. In my figure above I did not calculate lost revenue from repeat customers that no longer use our services due to the fact that we disappointed them.... I cant possibly imagine how much thats gonna cost us in the long run...
Aaron

 

[RyanFelty]

Aaron, I was not going to chime in but I can honestly relate to you and everything you have going on... and I mean to EVERYTHING. We had the same problem with our first CET flatbed. A year or more of losses, lost customers, and getting the run around. Electrical problems that nobody could fix. We also had a horrible year business wise because of all the lost customers and thrown away materials. I will say though David and CET stepped up and made a deal with us. So far so good with our new printer *knock on wood*. David is a good guy and I hope he settles this for you. But honestly I can relate to everything you are talking about and it was probably one of the worst years of my life. I thought we wouldn't recover but we are making our way back. Good luck to you man I have faith that CET will settle your situation. I'm not on either side here but I just wanted let you know that I definitely feel your pain.

 

[aaronmgd]

Ryan, Thanks for your post. I am glad to hear that someone in situation found a way out. You mind me asking which printer you are running now? How long have you been running it problem free? Did Dave give you a hard time with the resolution? Just asking so that I know what I will be up against...
Thanks

 

[Typestries]

I'm following this thread, not a CET owner but it was close as we were intrigued by the fact that the table setup was similar to our Gandi/Agfa flatbed.

Aaron-we're not far from you, if you are ever in a bind to get a print out just give a shout and we'll help you out.
thx
Rick