Question Fact or Myth? Printers don't make money unless you run them a lot.

[timjitsu]

I've been working with strictly cut vinyl my whole carrier. The company for does mostly traffic signs for either State, County or City projects and signs for property management companies. We use a Gerber FX for most of our printing and its mostly just for logo's and seals for project signs, and the random odd-ball signs for walk-in customers. We outsource all of our large print jobs.

But we have an old inkjet printer just sitting in the next warehouse just collecting dust. I'ts been there for about 10 years now. I asked my boss why he doesn't use it and he said that with both the cost of inks and printer heads along the maintenance that inkjets require. They just don't make any money unless you are running it all the time. He also said that if you go a week between uses that the inks can dry up in the lines.

So what's your guy's take on this? Is it true? Or maybe was it true for older inkjets but not anymore?

 

[Joe House]

As usual there is some truth and some exaggeration inn his explanation. Most of the printers discussed in this forum are industrial printers and are designed to work many hours a week.
Most printers can go much longer than a week without use and will not dry the ink in the lines, but there may be some clogged nozzles that require some work to recover before producing quality prints.
But a printer just sitting will consume ink and require maintenance therefore costing you money. You also have the capital of the machine to recover - another expense.
So you have to produce enough to cover those expenses before you start to make money. Thay amount isn't generally full time though.
Then once you start printing, there will be errors, misprints, samples and experiments, and you have to cover these costs too.
But it sounds like it's better business sense for your boss to sub this out for the amount of use he would get for it.

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

 

[FatCat]

Agree with Joe, and for even more clarification you have to know what type of inks and printers you are dealing with before making a blanket statement. The printer your boss has that is 10 years old is most likely a solvent machine. Older solvent printers used full solvent or mild solvent inks which are stronger smelling and have a tendency to dry and cause problems quicker than today's more common eco solvent printers. So, if you let a full or mild solvent sit for a week turned off there will likely be issues when you go to turn it back on depending on your environment, condition of the cap, head, etc...

Basically, any type of solvent based printer should run every day - with the exception that eco solvent printers can be turned off for a few days without major issues. We leave our Mutohs turned off overnight and over the weekend and they seem to do fine. However, they always print something every day and ink is constantly moved through them - you just can't let solvent machines sit idle for too long. The aggressive inks dry quickly and will start at the head, and given enough time will work their way back through the ink system causing other issues that take time and money to repair.

In truth, printers do have to run frequently to make money. I had a discussion with a friend of mine who is also in the business and if you were to purchase a new entry level type wide format machine (Roland/Mimaki/Mutoh/HP, etc.) in the $15,000 - $25,000 range you really need to be printing about $3,000 - $5,000 of work each month just to justify having one. If you're only running a few banners and misc items each week why would you buy something so costly when you can outsource and not have your money tied up in something so expensive to own and operate? Most people fail to realize that just to put 4 OEM cartridges (CMYK) in a printer usually costs about $500 - $600 or more, then you really should have at least another spare cartridge of each sitting on your shelf (another $500 - $600) to not risk running out of ink in the middle of a big job. This holds even more true if you use a 6-color or 8-color machine. Thats a lot of money itself just sitting there tied up if not being used - not to mention the materials you print on, spare parts, cleaning supplies and software (RIP) and computer needed to run the printer....

 

[BigfishDM]

I've been working with strictly cut vinyl my whole carrier. The company for does mostly traffic signs for either State, County or City projects and signs for property management companies. We use a Gerber FX for most of our printing and its mostly just for logo's and seals for project signs, and the random odd-ball signs for walk-in customers. We outsource all of our large print jobs.

But we have an old inkjet printer just sitting in the next warehouse just collecting dust. I'ts been there for about 10 years now. I asked my boss why he doesn't use it and he said that with both the cost of inks and printer heads along the maintenance that inkjets require. They just don't make any money unless you are running it all the time. He also said that if you go a week between uses that the inks can dry up in the lines.

So what's your guy's take on this? Is it true? Or maybe was it true for older inkjets but not anymore?

Just to play along, that is true with older solvent/eco-solvent machines. With Latex you can run no jobs for years and not worry about your ink getting ruined or your lines getting ruined. You can get a machine for under $10k and run 2 jobs a year and the machine can pay for itself after 1 job.

 

[GaSouthpaw]

Unless it's a Kodak/Encad printer. If those POSs sat without running for more than about 48 hours, the inks were pretty much guaranteed to have dried up in the heads.
Then again, if it's one of those, it's been collecting dust for more than 10 years.

 

[Oroscoe]

Your not making money until it is paid for. Just my opinion.

 

[Patentagosse]

My Roland is set up to turn on and clean itself like 2X within 24h period. Yes it's wasted ink but 'never had clogged head, printer runs like a new everytime I turn it on. as far "making money", it depends on what's the number in your head. I prefer by far having the printer on the floor to get the exact color I neede instead of sending a file and crossing my fingers it ends up in the approx. color spectrum I expected. Been there, done that... Not to mention the turn around of your print source, shipping charges... And if you ruin something at installation (it might happens...), you're going to wait another 48h before you can finish the job. It has some pros & cons, sure, but if you're as picky as me for color accurancy, you'd better have your own. I'm also testing of different films (metallics, pearlescents, chrome...) so it may be something not offered by your sub source.

My 0.02¢...

* my friend has 2 HP latex so the last time I had a problem with my printer, I sent him few files with solid colors (vivid blue, kelly green, cardinal red... that kinda common colors) and the prints came back almost unusable. Blue was purple, green and red were dull. The CMYK formulas were pretty safe though ( Blue 100 50 0 0 Green 80 0 90 0 Red 10 100 100 0 ). He claimed he works in RGB mode and his colors are right on when HE picks the colors (...) So maybe it's just me but I'd rather have my own equipment as long as it pays by itself. If there's xtra profits in my pocket, that's even better.

 

[timjitsu]

Just to play along, that is true with older solvent/eco-solvent machines. With Latex you can run no jobs for years and not worry about your ink getting ruined or your lines getting ruined. You can get a machine for under $10k and run 2 jobs a year and the machine can pay for itself after 1 job.

That was going to be my next question if latex has the same problem. Because a latex printer is what I'm looking at right now because I'll be running it my home office and I don't have good enough ventilation for solvents. I do side work and I brought on a buddy of mine to deal with marketing and sales. We've started getting a lot of jobs for decals and smaller stuff that we don't really make any money outsourcing because of minimums and shipping costs. Not to mention if there is a problem with the print it just adds nore time and cost. We're considering buying one just to have the ability to get jobs out faster.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G935A using Tapatalk

 

[BigfishDM]

That was going to be my next question if latex has the same problem. Because a latex printer is what I'm looking at right now because I'll be running it my home office and I don't have good enough ventilation for solvents. I do side work and I brought on a buddy of mine to deal with marketing and sales. We've started getting a lot of jobs for decals and smaller stuff that we don't really make any money outsourcing because of minimums and shipping costs. Not to mention if there is a problem with the print it just adds nore time and cost. We're considering buying one just to have the ability to get jobs out faster.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G935A using Tapatalk

Well I can hook you up for sure! Get a HP-115 print/cut, great machine and comes with some really easy to use software. If you want to talk latex, that is my specialty.

 

[Gino]

Is this gonna be in your house ?? Do you have children in the place or animals ??

Regardless of what machine you have/get, there will always be toxins in the air. Remember, when they tell you it's safe, that's for a normal work area and they are neglecting to say, the safest inks to use for the environment..... not breathing directly. So, not totally risk free, especially for young tissue or in animals.

 

[BigfishDM]

Is this gonna be in your house ?? Do you have children in the place or animals ??

Regardless of what machine you have/get, there will always be toxins in the air. Remember, when they tell you it's safe, that's for a normal work area and they are neglecting to say, the safest inks to use for the environment..... not breathing directly. So, not totally risk free, especially for young tissue or in animals.

With the HP-Latex, you can run it at home in your office no problem.

 

[TimToad]

Agree with Joe, and for even more clarification you have to know what type of inks and printers you are dealing with before making a blanket statement. The printer your boss has that is 10 years old is most likely a solvent machine. Older solvent printers used full solvent or mild solvent inks which are stronger smelling and have a tendency to dry and cause problems quicker than today's more common eco solvent printers. So, if you let a full or mild solvent sit for a week turned off there will likely be issues when you go to turn it back on depending on your environment, condition of the cap, head, etc...

Basically, any type of solvent based printer should run every day - with the exception that eco solvent printers can be turned off for a few days without major issues. We leave our Mutohs turned off overnight and over the weekend and they seem to do fine. However, they always print something every day and ink is constantly moved through them - you just can't let solvent machines sit idle for too long. The aggressive inks dry quickly and will start at the head, and given enough time will work their way back through the ink system causing other issues that take time and money to repair.

In truth, printers do have to run frequently to make money. I had a discussion with a friend of mine who is also in the business and if you were to purchase a new entry level type wide format machine (Roland/Mimaki/Mutoh/HP, etc.) in the $15,000 - $25,000 range you really need to be printing about $3,000 - $5,000 of work each month just to justify having one. If you're only running a few banners and misc items each week why would you buy something so costly when you can outsource and not have your money tied up in something so expensive to own and operate? Most people fail to realize that just to put 4 OEM cartridges (CMYK) in a printer usually costs about $500 - $600 or more, then you really should have at least another spare cartridge of each sitting on your shelf (another $500 - $600) to not risk running out of ink in the middle of a big job. This holds even more true if you use a 6-color or 8-color machine. Thats a lot of money itself just sitting there tied up if not being used - not to mention the materials you print on, spare parts, cleaning supplies and software (RIP) and computer needed to run the printer....

I would consider anyone doing $3-5k per month in prints a very small, one person, usually home based business. If a person can justify the purchase of any equipment with enough regular work, the tax benefits and greater profit potential from doing the work yourself all make sense. Besides, why even get in the business of making signs if folks just let others do most of the work for them? We're signmakers, not print brokers.

 

[FatCat]

I would consider anyone doing $3-5k per month in prints a very small, one person, usually home based business. If a person can justify the purchase of any equipment with enough regular work, the tax benefits and greater profit potential from doing the work yourself all make sense. Besides, why even get in the business of making signs if folks just let others do most of the work for them? We're signmakers, not print brokers.

My point was not necessarily what size shop they are, or even how much they do - more to suggest that is what we figured you need to be doing at minimum to "break even" to justify buying a printer such as those I listed. Realize not everyone in this business is a "printer" - I have several installers who do work for us who send me their print work because they don't have the time/money/inclination to purchase a printer and run it as they make more money doing installs. Most have their own vinyl cutter, saws, tools, etc. but not a printer because it takes a lot of time and care to keep it running which they don't have if they are out on the road doing installs.

By all means I am not suggesting someone shouldn't buy a printer, but I have seen far too many instances where someone lays out that kind of money to make it happen and in 6 months realizes they made a mistake and then try to sell what they have for what they have in it. Ain't gonna happen...you buy a $15k - $20k printer and have to sell it you'll be lucky to get $5-10k for it in 6-12 months because its used. So like I said, make sure you have the work FIRST before investing in a printer if you want to do it the smart way...'

Just my .02¢

 

[Gino]

I would consider anyone doing $3-5k per month in prints a very small, one person, usually home based business. If a person can justify the purchase of any equipment with enough regular work, the tax benefits and greater profit potential from doing the work yourself all make sense. Besides, why even get in the business of making signs if folks just let others do most of the work for them? We're signmakers, not print brokers.

Good catch. I thought it said per week.

I'm sure other work is being considered in this equation to fill out a week's product, but I'd rather see $5,000 a week in printing alone, let alone other work.

 

[FatCat]

Agree wholeheartedly with you Gino - more is better, but for someone small or who is starting out $3-5k would be enough to justify having one for most people trying to get their feet off the ground. And please note I am strictly talking about money made by printing only, not installation, design work, fabrication, cut vinyl or other items - just printing prints.

 

[timjitsu]

Agree wholeheartedly with you Gino - more is better, but for someone small or who is starting out $3-5k would be enough to justify having one for most people trying to get their feet off the ground. And please note I am strictly talking about money made by printing only, not installation, design work, fabrication, cut vinyl or other items - just printing prints.

If I can put enough through the machine to pay for itself in under a year I'd be a happy camper. I have a day job and make good money so I'm happy with a couple jobs a month for right now. But the ultimate goal for me is to make this my full time job because I work 60+ hours a week at my day job. My daughter turned 2 recently and I realized I missed so much working that many hours.

So right now I'm just slowing doing work and reinvesting it into equipment and materials. I hope that in a couple years I can have a good little shop with quality equipment and everything I need and be debt free.

 

[Gino]

Good luck...... that's everyone's dream/goal. You hafta work hard at making it happen.

edit : look around here, there is a recent thread about this very thing of hours and time invested when owning a business vs. working for someone else. Some good input and thoughts on this very matter.

 

[timjitsu]

Good luck...... that's everyone's dream/goal. You hafta work hard at making it happen.

edit : look around here, there is a recent thread about this very thing of hours and time invested when owning a business vs. working for someone else. Some good input and thoughts on this very matter.

Oh I have no misconceptions on the amount of time required for owning your own business. But would you'd agree that working more hours on your own time is better than working less hours on someone else's time?

Personally I don't mind working the hours, it's more about the flexibility for me. Right now I get a few hours with my daughter at the end of the day before I need to be in bed so that I can get 6 hours of sleep (if i'm lucky) to get up at 3:30am. Last time I took a vacation was my honeymoon 4 years ago lol. My day job just demands so much time without any wiggle room. I just want the wiggle room lol.

 

[ikarasu]

Well I can hook you up for sure! Get a HP-115 print/cut, great machine and comes with some really easy to use software. If you want to talk latex, that is my specialty.

Speaking of... Whats the difference between 110 and 115? Of course months after I buy a 110 115 comes out Oh well, the 110 was cheaper. All I could notice was the 115 had a crosscutter... have you seen the 115s? Are they better build quality or any other changes? Can't seem to find a list of differences anywhere, so I figured I'd ask since you deal with latex a lot!

 

[billsines]

Oh I have no misconceptions on the amount of time required for owning your own business. But would you'd agree that working more hours on your own time is better than working less hours on someone else's time?

Personally I don't mind working the hours, it's more about the flexibility for me. Right now I get a few hours with my daughter at the end of the day before I need to be in bed so that I can get 6 hours of sleep (if i'm lucky) to get up at 3:30am. Last time I took a vacation was my honeymoon 4 years ago lol. My day job just demands so much time without any wiggle room. I just want the wiggle room lol.

Kudos to you for wanting to start your own shop. I started mine about 12 years ago while I was still a teacher. 2 yrs later I had to choose one or the other. I chose my own shop.

At the beginning you will do everything. But I would advise you, especially since you are a family man, make it your goal to get your shop situated to where you can work less and spend time with the family. Take a vacation, take some time with them. You blink and your kids will be driving their own car out the drive for the last time. I started my shop with another owner and now there are three of us. When one of us wants some time, the other two can cover. It works pretty well. Not sure if you can do that; you need to find someone you can trust completely. Invest in equipment that turns jobs faster. Try to borrow the least amount of money possible. Find work you can make great margins on. Best of luck to you.