Smoke_Jaguar
Man who touches printers inappropriately.
Starting to learn that running a print shop that does more printer repair, refurb, and engineering is a tricky prospect. Set up shop mostly to do prints for the local weed industry and am learning just how flaky that can be. Some pretty good clients left who did the smart thing and avoided overexpansion, but the inevitable price contractions have occurred, and folks are doing everything they can to cut costs. We've expanded into more exotic stuff like doing countertop displays, large flatbed prints, printing straight to devices and such to diversify but haven't had great luck.
In addition to printing, we've been working on other shops machines, mostly Mimaki, some Epson, and I even work on most Chinese if the price is right. It's let me talk to a lot of shops to get an idea of how the industry goes as a whole. Some folks really feeling the pinch, others seem pretty stable and a few even expanding. So, at least as a whole, no real signs of massive instability in the local markets. We also sometimes partner with those shops and take on some of their odd jobs when there's a need or even fill in some work if a machine is down. Additionally, we've also helped shops acquire and rebuild used equipment to help expand on the cheap. Since getting a tech in Oklahoma can take weeks to months, getting same-day or next-day service has been mind-blowing for these people.
Now for the more schizophrenic stuff we do, but it's technically all in the same vein. With the massive glut of Chinese printers coming out in the past 5 years, we've done lots of reverse engineering and learning the systems they use. It's shockingly simple and cheap to basically assemble printers from scratch or find crazy specialized printers from Chinese firms. Not having to screw with idiotic ink DRM/chips and using use of lots of common parts actually make these machines amazingly easy for me to work on. The documentation and software tend to be incredibly awful when it comes to English or any language other than Chinese, however. Had some good luck just writing in-house documentation and working with some of the vendors to help make their stuff more readable for us English speakers. That said, the consensus seems to be with some shops, if it's 1/3 the price, faster and I'm willing to support it, they will buy. We've even been looking into bolting together and setting up custom production line printers for customers. Stuff like conveyor UV printers, box printers and stuff like that, all decently easy to execute.
Lastly, we've started stocking inks for some of the local shops. OKC has GSG and Grimco, as well as Reece Supply up in Tulsa. All of which seem to be somewhat lacking on their offerings. Since I work with a lot of Mimaki UV stuff, we are starting to keep more and more of that on hand. Sales of ink are probably our only real consistent success, and it's pretty easy too. That said, it's been a slow build up to going from special ordering for people to keeping stock on hand.
As a 2 full-timer and 2 part-timer person shop, we're all a bunch of engineering nerds and totally suck at the sales, marketing and all that. Pondering just shutting down and selling things off. Not in crazy bad debt or anything, but also not in a position to hire on people who can do that kind of stuff. Half the job these days seems to be chasing down people for money owed instead of doing anything fun or productive. I've had some job offers through some printer vendors and can just walk with my skills, but I am more of the type who just likes to share what I learn rather than bulk up a company's patent portfolio. I really like the industry, but don't know if anyone has any idea how or if to proceed.
In addition to printing, we've been working on other shops machines, mostly Mimaki, some Epson, and I even work on most Chinese if the price is right. It's let me talk to a lot of shops to get an idea of how the industry goes as a whole. Some folks really feeling the pinch, others seem pretty stable and a few even expanding. So, at least as a whole, no real signs of massive instability in the local markets. We also sometimes partner with those shops and take on some of their odd jobs when there's a need or even fill in some work if a machine is down. Additionally, we've also helped shops acquire and rebuild used equipment to help expand on the cheap. Since getting a tech in Oklahoma can take weeks to months, getting same-day or next-day service has been mind-blowing for these people.
Now for the more schizophrenic stuff we do, but it's technically all in the same vein. With the massive glut of Chinese printers coming out in the past 5 years, we've done lots of reverse engineering and learning the systems they use. It's shockingly simple and cheap to basically assemble printers from scratch or find crazy specialized printers from Chinese firms. Not having to screw with idiotic ink DRM/chips and using use of lots of common parts actually make these machines amazingly easy for me to work on. The documentation and software tend to be incredibly awful when it comes to English or any language other than Chinese, however. Had some good luck just writing in-house documentation and working with some of the vendors to help make their stuff more readable for us English speakers. That said, the consensus seems to be with some shops, if it's 1/3 the price, faster and I'm willing to support it, they will buy. We've even been looking into bolting together and setting up custom production line printers for customers. Stuff like conveyor UV printers, box printers and stuff like that, all decently easy to execute.
Lastly, we've started stocking inks for some of the local shops. OKC has GSG and Grimco, as well as Reece Supply up in Tulsa. All of which seem to be somewhat lacking on their offerings. Since I work with a lot of Mimaki UV stuff, we are starting to keep more and more of that on hand. Sales of ink are probably our only real consistent success, and it's pretty easy too. That said, it's been a slow build up to going from special ordering for people to keeping stock on hand.
As a 2 full-timer and 2 part-timer person shop, we're all a bunch of engineering nerds and totally suck at the sales, marketing and all that. Pondering just shutting down and selling things off. Not in crazy bad debt or anything, but also not in a position to hire on people who can do that kind of stuff. Half the job these days seems to be chasing down people for money owed instead of doing anything fun or productive. I've had some job offers through some printer vendors and can just walk with my skills, but I am more of the type who just likes to share what I learn rather than bulk up a company's patent portfolio. I really like the industry, but don't know if anyone has any idea how or if to proceed.
