Flatbed Printers

[Tonya.Nehren]

Hello!
Very excited to have found this forum. I manage a small in-house print shop for a large school system. We don't profit from our services, our goal is to breakeven year over year. I'm new to the print world, I stumbled across this opportunity and very happy I did. Over the past year or so, I've been doing a lot of outsourcing of signs, yard signs, magnetic etc..enough that I'm starting to look into getting a flatbed printer. I've talked to a couple sales reps and have spent hours researching, but I'm not getting the information that I need and I'm sure someone on here has already gathered the information I'm looking for.

So far I've been looking at the Xante X33 and Mimaki UJF-6042

1) Cost comparisons of different flatbed options.
2) Break down of average operating cost per sq ft
3) Break down of average maintenance cost (monthly or yearly)

Ultimately, I just want to see if it would be worth the investment to bring this work in-house.

I appreciate any feedback!
Tonya

 

[Pauly]

Welcome!

Those little flatbed printers are for promotional items etc. I wouldn't be printing any yard signs or signs in general on those.

As cost is a factor. Keeping UV printers maintained is a must. More printing you do, the better. You want them running daily or minimum once a week,
It would be honestly more cost effective outsourcing to someone like firesprint (members here)

If you want to do it yourself, better off buying a wide format machine and a laminating table and just stick self adhesive vinyl stickers onto the boards.

 

[Gino]

If you can't get the simple information, you'll probably have more trouble with tech support later.

 

[Tonya.Nehren]

Welcome!

Those little flatbed printers are for promotional items etc. I wouldn't be printing any yard signs or signs in general on those.

As cost is a factor. Keeping UV printers maintained is a must. More printing you do, the better. You want them running daily or minimum once a week,
It would be honestly more cost effective outsourcing to someone like firesprint (members here)

If you want to do it yourself, better off buying a wide format machine and a laminating table and just stick self adhesive vinyl stickers onto the boards.

Yikes! Really? We really don't do a ton of yard signs or signs. For yard signs last year I order 5,000..orders were between 100 to 400 signs at a time. I can't imagine manually applying stickers to all of those. We do have a Canon 4000 for posters and banners. It's definitely a balancing act of trying to keep my small team (4 people) busy, but not too busy. I'll look into firesprint

 

[Pauly]

Yikes! Really? We really don't do a ton of yard signs or signs. For yard signs last year I order 5,000..orders were between 100 to 400 signs at a time. I can't imagine manually applying stickers to all of those. We do have a Canon 4000 for posters and banners. It's definitely a balancing act of trying to keep my small team (4 people) busy, but not too busy. I'll look into firesprint

For those quantities, those little flatbeds wont keep up. No offence, but they're toys (just expensive)

I'd be looking at a proper flatbed in that case. Something that can handle a full size 1220mm x 2440mm sheet. and obviously somewhere to cut them up.
But sometimes, it's literally just easier to outsource this type of work.

 

[Gino]

Ya know, if you did 5,000 average last year, that's a 100 signs a week on an average. That would be nice to keep it in-house, but really doesn't warrant buying an expensive machine. Plus, the real estate one of those things takes up is kinda big. Using a big squeegee or a laminator would make short work of applying a few hundred faces.

 

[netsol]

tonya,
at that quantity, i would consider finding a used or off lease piece of equipment ASSUMING the school system would allow this sort of purchase (watch ebay/craigslist/offerup/facebook marketplace) IF YOU CAN THEN PLACE IT UNDER CONTRACT, with a servicing vendor, who can perhaps sell you your supplies (perhaps "per click")

we have had a lot of private sector clients go this route. you could start by finding out if your school system's copier vendor has a tech with wide format or flatbed experience. if they do you could get a pre sale inspection (it's much easier to write a contract on a piece of equipment your company has already inspected)

a more appropriate piece of equipment would make sense, since, we all know your 5000 sign requests did not come in, evenly spaced 100 per week.

 

[Tonya.Nehren]

tonya,
at that quantity, i would consider finding a used or off lease piece of equipment ASSUMING the school system would allow this sort of purchase (watch ebay/craigslist/offerup/facebook marketplace) IF YOU CAN THEN PLACE IT UNDER CONTRACT, with a servicing vendor, who can perhaps sell you your supplies (perhaps "per click")

we have had a lot of private sector clients go this route. you could start by finding out if your school system's copier vendor has a tech with wide format or flatbed experience. if they do you could get a pre sale inspection (it's much easier to write a contract on a piece of equipment your company has already inspected)

a more appropriate piece of equipment would make sense, since, we all know your 5000 sign requests did not come in, evenly spaced 100 per week.

Thank you for this. A service contract would be easier for me to manage for sure. I can buy used, but I have a ton of red tape to go through, which is fine. I have reached out to about 5-7 vendors to gather information. The ones who have responded don't offer service contracts for flatbeds. I will see if I can expand my search.
Tonya

 

[Tonya.Nehren]

I appreciate this feedback, its helpful. I have other binding equipment on my dream list I'm just trying to figure out what makes the most sense.

 

[petepaz]

if you could find a roland LEJ, used in good condition in your price range that might be the way to go.
it's not fast but quality is good and easy to use. it's hybrid printer so you can print on rigid material up to 1/2" thick and also roll/flexible media.

another important point already brought up which ever print you go with make sure tech support is readily available locally would be best

 

[netsol]

tonya,
depending on the level of cooperation in the school district, this can make a lot of sense

in the past, we have justified programs like this, purchasing a larger/faster piece of equipment & then you become a service bureau for that type of request for other schools in the district

a great way to work around budget constraints & make more of that wish list possible

 

[Squared2002]

Tonya, my first question would be “do you have an idea of what your budget might be”? We are a Print & Fabricating Company in Las Vegas and we currently have Roll to Roll Latex Printers and 2 Flatbed Printers, 1 is Latex and 1 is UV. If you could give me an idea of what you think your budget could possibly be I am sure you would probably get more recommendations?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[GC Decor]

I would 100% contract your signs out to a B2b printer like Firesprint. Owning a flatbed is a nice though but they are a lot of work and require constant attention. Expect to pay well over $3k per year for a service contact (most likely more) they don’t cover print heads either, depending on the machine a simple head hit can cost over $10k.
You wouldn’t be saving much either on yard signs, might even cost more to make them yourself due to economy of scale. Buying a few sheets of coroplast would be expensive, you have to buy multi pallets to get the cost down and same goes for yard stakes (stakes are more than the signs now). Flatbeds can be great investments but from my experience yard signs have been beaten into the ground with pricing and the margin is low even for the large shops. Hopefully this is helpful.

 

[FireSprint.com]

I made this spreadsheet for you to consider:

Yard Sign Printer ROI Calculator

docs.google.com

We also have a video on making large equipment purchases where we go into detail about something like this (Hint: We generally encourage people to buy their own equipment, but not to make yard signs specifically. There's good margin in larger and/or specialty signage and if you do a lot of this, a printer might be well worth the purchase)

 

[FireSprint.com]

Also, to edit that spreadsheet as you see fit, you can make a copy to your own google account:

 

[AGCharlotte]

I had Xante demo the X33 here (not sure why my boss brought him in though). I would not recommend that machine for doing anything outside of promo work and the occasional one off yard sign. Machine is only big enough to run one at a time so it's really a time sink in labor if you're trying to churn out yards sign. Even doing what it's more suited for (promo work), it still seems very much of a toy.

 

[Sansign Printing]

Hello!
Very excited to have found this forum. I manage a small in-house print shop for a large school system. We don't profit from our services, our goal is to breakeven year over year. I'm new to the print world, I stumbled across this opportunity and very happy I did. Over the past year or so, I've been doing a lot of outsourcing of signs, yard signs, magnetic etc..enough that I'm starting to look into getting a flatbed printer. I've talked to a couple sales reps and have spent hours researching, but I'm not getting the information that I need and I'm sure someone on here has already gathered the information I'm looking for.

So far I've been looking at the Xante X33 and Mimaki UJF-6042

1) Cost comparisons of different flatbed options.
2) Break down of average operating cost per sq ft
3) Break down of average maintenance cost (monthly or yearly)

Ultimately, I just want to see if it would be worth the investment to bring this work in-house.

I appreciate any feedback!
Tonya

Please don’t buy Xante machine horrible customer service and equipments are no good. This is from personal experience

 

[Tonya.Nehren]

Please don’t buy Xante machine horrible customer service and equipments are no good. This is from personal experience

Oh geez..not good to hear. Did you go with another machine?

 

[mjames]

Hello!
Very excited to have found this forum. I manage a small in-house print shop for a large school system. We don't profit from our services, our goal is to breakeven year over year. I'm new to the print world, I stumbled across this opportunity and very happy I did. Over the past year or so, I've been doing a lot of outsourcing of signs, yard signs, magnetic etc..enough that I'm starting to look into getting a flatbed printer. I've talked to a couple sales reps and have spent hours researching, but I'm not getting the information that I need and I'm sure someone on here has already gathered the information I'm looking for.

So far I've been looking at the Xante X33 and Mimaki UJF-6042

1) Cost comparisons of different flatbed options.
2) Break down of average operating cost per sq ft
3) Break down of average maintenance cost (monthly or yearly)

Ultimately, I just want to see if it would be worth the investment to bring this work in-house.

I appreciate any feedback!
Tonya

Your best bet is to outsource.

 

[Sansign Printing]

Oh geez..not good to hear. Did you go with another machine?

We bought HP printers. Z6800 Designed jet for posters etc. and HP 365 latex for signs and banners.