advice to have my foot in the door to the printing business. equipment/supplies etc..

[epsonianguy]

Hi guys, I really love to design and print but never had the chance to push forward. What can I do to start? I have a canon imagepro 300 and considering buying a used canon prograf ta-20. Is that a good starter printer? If not, what can I do with my imagepro 300. I also have a vinyl express q42 thats been sitting around for 3 years only used for car films. I have no idea what free programs can be used with that plotter to print registration marks and such to do diecut/kiss cut stickers. Please help point me in the right direction or any experience how to utilize these equipment. Thank you!

 

[garyroy]

Try sales, see how good you are with that. The sales come first, then the equipment.

 

[Gino]

Yeah, learn how to sell and see what you sell the most of, because the printer is only for paper from what I remember. Nothing for exterior use. Your cutter can do die-cut, but it doesn't take much to design for a die-cut job. As for free programs, if you're looking to break into the sign industry, you need more than freebie software in most cases. Sub out your sales and THEN decide what kinda printer you should be looking for.

 

[Stacey K]

Well, you have to start somewhere so if the printer in question works and is in your budget then go for it. The best thing you can do is look on YouTube and see how the printer in question works, what kind of quality the prints are, watch someone print then cut. Start small and if things go good you can always upgrade and sell the printer down the road. The cutter you have usually comes with software. Make sure the cutter has an eye for registration marks. My old Graphtec did not so I needed to buy a new one when I got my printer.

 

[caribmike]

If it were me, I'd start selling first and farm out my orders to wholesalers before I started to worry about equipment. You might make a bit less profit but you can grow at your own pace and acquire equipment as you go. As for me, I'm going the other route. I'm closing my 10,000 sq ft plant and will be a distributor/reseller for the most part going forward. I'll keep my Mimaki and laminator because I do enjoy making a few signs here and there. But, much less stress now that I'm almost out of the manufacturing end of things. But, don't get me wrong, its been a very profitable 20 years!

 

[spb]

canon imagepro 300
canon prograf ta-20

These are pigment inkjet printers. You can buy inkjet sticker paper, and it works okay, but if you want to sell durable, long-lasting, scratch-resistant waterproof stickers then you will want either an eco-solvent printer or a latex printer. Both of those kinds of printers use special ink and processes that allow you to print directly on vinyl. I suggest you look into the wildly popular, wildly successful Roland BN-20A for a starter printer. It will also cut the vinyl (albeit very slowly, and there's no heater so you have to wait for the ink to dry if you are doing full bleed stickers).

There are a lot of very helpful videos on YouTube on how to get started with printing stickers. I suggest Time To Make Something and Da Print House.

You should also check out this glossary that was recently posted here.

 

[garyroy]

To me the BN-20 is a toy. It's like buying a direct to garment printer that prints 1 T-shirt at a time. You can't make a living with that machine.
Don't waste your money.
Sell, sell, sell, get some orders, sub them out, then buy a decent eco-solvent printer IF your volume merits it.
Roland, Epson, Mimaki, they all should work for you.