Need Help Printer Cutter for non-graphics business?

[Antigravity]

Alot of real good posts above....and that was what I was hoping for from this forum... to point out the broader picture of what real use is like. I thought I had already done a ton of research but some of your ideas put me into other areas I needed learn about. So thanks to all.

I'm excited going to the ISS tradeshow this weekend and getting some real life demos.... but I will keep a skeptical eye on what they tell me knowing there will be some claims of how easy and how cheap it is.... when I'm well aware it wont' be a piece of cake. But we have a massive head start being we already do all our own Vector Artwork, Product Photos, Product design and Magazines ads... so now I have to look at some of the software for these machines and how it relates to the artwork we create. I've watched quite a few video on this, and it seem simple compared to some of the stuff we do overall in our Adobe Suite, but need to get some hands on time and have it shown to me at the show so I can better understand the relation to the Artwork we will produce and proper layout into the machines for printing and cutting.

 

[Antigravity]

If by 'obnoxious' you mean merely stating facts, then obnoxious it is. It's these facts that you find obnoxious, so don't shoot the messenger.

I never said 'incredible skill set', it's not incredible but whatever level it might be, you don't have it.

Funny how the others who replied to my questions let me know the issues I was getting involved with but without the condescending attitude you continue to emit.

By the way your statement are OPINIONS not FACTS as you proclaim. So using your analogy, in this case, I would shoot the messenger... because your an awful messenger. And by shooting you I don't mean that literally so don't get all PC on me. I mean if we were playing a game like Call of Duty... and you said I wasn't capable of running a large-format printer, and even if we were wearing the same uniform and on the same team, and your Mom and my Mom were best friends in real life. I would actually take my gun, gernade launcher and shoot your foot and say " you suck as a messenger". By the way I'm actually too old for Call of Duty and should not be replying to you in such a immature manner, but oh well.

 

[ddarlak]

I wish you luck in your adventure, I am sure when you are all set up and up to speed you will find all the time you spent, your employees spent will be well worth the $1,000's of dollars a you will "save".

what's after that, your own dumpster company??

 

[bob]

Funny how the others who replied to my questions let me know the issues I was getting involved with but without the condescending attitude you continue to emit.

By the way your statement are OPINIONS not FACTS as you proclaim. So using your analogy, in this case, I would shoot the messenger... because your an awful messenger. And by shooting you I don't mean that literally so don't get all PC on me. I mean if we were playing a game like Call of Duty... and you said I wasn't capable of running a large-format printer, and even if we were wearing the same uniform and on the same team, and your Mom and my Mom were best friends in real life. I would actually take my gun, gernade launcher and shoot your foot and say " you suck as a messenger". By the way I'm actually too old for Call of Duty and should not be replying to you in such a immature manner, but oh well.

You sir or madam as the case may be don't want advice, you want encouragement in your folly. And no, these are facts, as much as you wish to deny them, they remain facts.

Awaiting Yet Another incoherent rambling.

 

[Antigravity]

I wish you luck in your adventure, what's after that, your own dumpster company??

A Dumpster Company? Why would I do that when I'm going to make so much money as a Sign Company, and I think we're packing up and moving to go ole' Niagra Falls to boot!

Your worst nightmare has come true Mr. Darlak... I'm just about to pull the trigger on a Silhouette Cameo 3 Starter Bundle, it makes Glitter transfers, star speckles, Rainbows AND Unicorn Stickers..... and all for pennies. I've heard from Bob that my head will explode on how difficult it is to learn to do, but with Penelope Pennyweather videos on Youtube, showing how to make millions with stickers I'm going straight to the top!

 

[C5 Service&Repair]

You sir or madam as the case may be don't want advice, you want encouragement in your folly. And no, these are facts, as much as you wish to deny them, they remain facts.

Awaiting Yet Another incoherent rambling.

I'm curious why it's a 'fact' that you don't believe he can run a wide format printer? I've installed well over 300 machines and have yet to find anyone that couldn't handle it with the proper training.
Please, enlighten us.

 

[Antigravity]

You sir or madam as the case may be don't want advice, you want encouragement in your folly. And no, these are facts, as much as you wish to deny them, they remain facts.

Awaiting Yet Another incoherent rambling.

Hi Bob, try to keep up here because you're proving yourself to be quite the ignorant "know-it-all".

You are obviously threatened by me, it driving you crazy that a "layman" could enter your domain and actually produce the same product you could. You chase me post after post to insert your nonsense... just let it go Bob. Your opinion has no value to me. You are the typical internet forum "Blow-Hard" without any vision. 5 year to learn a Printer? Give me a break, your just not smart then.

So let get beyond this... I'm sure you know your way around an old school sign shop where you "walked 10 miles in the snow to cut letters with an exacto knife" but this is the present day and we are only limited by our creative vision of what we can do with our ideas. These machines are good, it not rocket science for relatively intelligent people. It might have taken you 5 years to learn, but for me I say one weekend to get the basics, and one month to be kicking-butt with it.

I'll even offer to have a direct competition with you Bobby.... We send hi def images of production we have done. If I do what I say I wanted to do, you then can post up that you were absolutely wrong, and acting like the blow-hard you have been acting like. You up for that Bob? A Layman vs a Professional? I'm calling you out you jack-a-ninny.

 

[Rick]

Okay, so I'll bite...

I only design, I do not own a printer, or laminator. I was trained to run them as a production monkey.
Now, it's true, they are not all that hard to run - but I was taught by very knowledgable trainers who
were there, day in and day out showing how to use them, maintain them and tips on how to be more
efficient. I have worked at sign shops and in-house. What you are doing is easy - once you learn how to do it, and you can remember how to do it if a certain time has passed

I think you are getting some push back (besides the fact that under the terms of participation, you
technically are not allowed on here) is we get people coming on here all the time with no experience
even with design or software thinking they can make a go of it. If you did time to search the forum we
almost always suggest 3 things:
--- Sub it out till you get enough work to justify the cost of the equipment
--- Get a job in a sign shop
--- Hire someone to train you

The other reasons for the push back might be...

One little known fact, most sign shop owners can not run their equipment proficiently... how can they,
they have to wear so many hats.
One universal fact, it's hard to find employees who are really good at running production equipment.
Signshop owners deal with this all the time... so enough of that.

So, I'm going to pretend you are a newbie sign guy and say that if you had a guaranteed $5-7,000
of promotional graphics a year, sub it out until you do 4-5 times that. Concentrate on what you are
good at till you can justify the cost of running the machines profitably. You are not all that much different
than a newbie sign guy except you will only ever have one client. You want to bring it in-house to save
money... 7k a year in reality is nickels and dimes. I highly suggest subbing it out... not because you
intimidate me, but because I think your time might be better spent building the business to the point
where when you get to 20-35k a year in promotional graphics and then you can justify that time and
expense.

That Roland BN-20, comes with your RIP (Versaworks) you'll need various print material and one set of inks will only run you around 10-12k, and seems to fit well for your needs. I would think laminating would make them last longer, never trust manufactures durability limits. If you get a sample, test the prints to see if they hold up to cleaning solutions that your client might use, then you will know if you need a laminator. I probably would not wrap a car using that printer, if you do, laminate it!

This is obviously a rough estimate because it depends on how large your decals are, but say you get this.... you have to maintain the machine, say 15 minutes a day, thats a min of 62 hours, then print/cut/cut down your decals down to individual stickers at the rate of 1 hour a square foot - and you make 200 square feet a year. 262 total hours

262 x 30.00 total employee hour is 7860.00 a year - it does not seem to add up. Especially with the initial 10-12k expense, getting a clean, ventilated space (depending on the printer) ready for it, training and hiccups.

Good luck to you in whatever decision you make...

 

[ams]

Don't forget a laminator, ink, rolls of laminate and vinyl, etc. It's going to cost $35k+ for everything.

 

[Johnny Best]

always read

labels...

 

[sign girl]

HI All,

I own a Lithium-Ion Battery business, we sell Lithium-Ion Batteries to the Powersports and Motorsports Channels. We outsource about 6000 stickers every 6 months for Promotional purposes....and about another 4000 for the lables on our Battery products we make. Additionally we usually buy Tradeshow Shirts that are dye sublimated maybe 10 every year or two ($100 dollars each) and last year had about 500 T-Shirts made (screen printed) for a few thousand dollars and some other stuff....So that about $5k to $7K a year in decal/promotional materials...

So to bring up my point I was thinking of getting something like a Roland BN20 or the next step up 30" printer/cutter so we could just do this all ourselves and in house and do it in smaller runs, and have the complete control over it and change a decal design right away if we wanted to. Or make 10 different decal designs if we want.... When I look at spending a good few thousand on stickers/decals/apparel each year it seems we could do this all in house with one of these printer/cutter machines and actually even make Shirts or other value added items for promotional use also, or even brand our shop truck (that haven't already been wrapped).

So I am looking for any input on if this idea is reasonable.... I know we will not be saving a tremendous amount of money right away due to the cost of these machines and the purchase of new material for the decals and heat transfers, and a heat press and labor. My concern is more about having the control over everything and being able to whip our short runs of decals for sponsored riders and do all our basics also. But overall it appears that for that roughly $10K to $15k investment we can do alot of stuff in house and with more control.

So are there things I'm missing? Do other businesses do this? We don't need speed since we are not a graphics business we can print a few thousand decals over a day if that's what it takes... Should we actually invest in these professional printer/cutters as a regular business not intending on being a full time graphics company?

Thanks in advance for any input.[/Q
Get a gerber edge II with the foils you need and hs15" cutter

 

[DerbyCitySignGuy]

Hi Bob, try to keep up here because you're proving yourself to be quite the ignorant "know-it-all".

You are obviously threatened by me, it driving you crazy that a "layman" could enter your domain and actually produce the same product you could. You chase me post after post to insert your nonsense... just let it go Bob. Your opinion has no value to me. You are the typical internet forum "Blow-Hard" without any vision. 5 year to learn a Printer? Give me a break, your just not smart then.

So let get beyond this... I'm sure you know your way around an old school sign shop where you "walked 10 miles in the snow to cut letters with an exacto knife" but this is the present day and we are only limited by our creative vision of what we can do with our ideas. These machines are good, it not rocket science for relatively intelligent people. It might have taken you 5 years to learn, but for me I say one weekend to get the basics, and one month to be kicking-butt with it.

I'll even offer to have a direct competition with you Bobby.... We send hi def images of production we have done. If I do what I say I wanted to do, you then can post up that you were absolutely wrong, and acting like the blow-hard you have been acting like. You up for that Bob? A Layman vs a Professional? I'm calling you out you jack-a-ninny.

Your best bet is to ignore the unhelpful folks on this site, of which there are MANY.

Roland makes printer/plotters that will do exactly what you need them to do without breaking the bank, but brand new it'll probably take you several years to see any return. They're easy to run and maintain as well as cost effective (they're workhorses, if you take care of it, it'll run for years with few to no problems). That being said, there is a bit of a learning curve and even with training you're going to end up using a lot of ink, vinyl, and time.

I wouldn't recommend non-laminated stickers, but that's just me. You can do a lesser quality sticker without laminating, but they're not going to last very long on a vehicle. If you do want to make a quality sticker, you'll also need a laminator. That's also going to require materials and training.

Like Rick said, unless you're outsourcing $40,000 a year, I wouldn't even consider it. It'll take you years to see any savings if you're only spending $6,000 to $7,000 a year. Probably five or more.

 

[NateF]

Another thing to consider. I own a roland eco-sol printer. When I have a customer who needs 4,000 stickers, I usually outsource them to a vendor who has equipment that is far more efficient than mine and can run the entire process (print, laminate, cut) all in one step. Running thousands of stickers is going to take time, regardless of the learning curve.

I don't know enough about your staff, the urgency of these jobs, etc, to evaluate if this is right for you. It may be. Just make sure you're being honest in your evaluation. I know that far too often I'm guilty of trying to do something myself to save money when it reality it's just an excuse to buy more tools.

 

[DerbyCitySignGuy]

Another thing to consider. I own a roland eco-sol printer. When I have a customer who needs 4,000 stickers, I usually outsource them to a vendor who has equipment that is far more efficient than mine and can run the entire process (print, laminate, cut) all in one step. Running thousands of stickers is going to take time, regardless of the learning curve.

I don't know enough about your staff, the urgency of these jobs, etc, to evaluate if this is right for you. It may be. Just make sure you're being honest in your evaluation. I know that far too often I'm guilty of trying to do something myself to save money when it reality it's just an excuse to buy more tools.

This is a very valid point. You can do what you want to do with a Roland (or any other printer/plotter), but it's going to be a pain in the butt.

Print a reasonable amount of stickers (probably only a couple hundred, depending on the size of the sticker) so that the Roland doesn't slip pulling the material when it goes to plot it. Take those stickers, laminate them. Go back to Roland and plot them. Weed and tape the stickers. Cut them to size (by hand, unless you're also going to buy a piece of equipment to do that for you). Repeat the process several times until you have the amount you need.

We also outsource when someone wants massive quantities of stuff. Could we do it? Yes. Would it be cost effective? Probably not. Better to just pay somebody else who does it faster, better, and cheaper.

 

[mpn]

"I know that far too often I'm guilty of trying to do something myself to save money when it reality it's just an excuse to buy more tools."
This is an issue I have as well
ooo oohhohhOOhh in a Tim Taylor voice. Now off to turbocharge my roland.

 

[Bigdawg]

I currently print thousands of battery decals a year (probably for your competitor) and don't send them out to be done as suggested above (yes, we are a sign company not a battery company). Mostly because we have the flexibility to print one or one thousand as needed.

When you say you are running x-thousand number of decals - are these all the same? Or are they for different products? I understand the want to get these done cheaper, but cheaper isn't always better or more cost-effective in the end. Are you running side label and post labels both? What quantity do you order at a time? That makes a huge difference in pricing from your vendor. Do you frequently change your labels? Do you have any color management experience? Because the bright green in your current race car batteries is one of the harder colors to hit. Or are you okay with an inferior product as long as it doesn't cost as much? Even if you are paying $3 per label for your $600 battery... that doesn't seem to be an out-of-line expense...

And on the promotional decals... are these also printed and contour cut? Are they all the same so it's one big order or several little orders?

I ask these questions because there may be some cost-savings you could get by how you handle your current way of doing business. Maybe your orders are small enough quantity that the set-up makes them expensive, but if you ran 500 instead of 250 the cost would be considerably less. Are you currently designing your labels in-house? Or is part of your expense the design time from your vendor? If you want to take the printing in-house that's up to you, but it will be years before you realize a return on your investment - and then it will be time to upgrade the printer. And no one has really mentioned the cleanliness and area you will need to run a printer in a production facility.

 

[Gino]

I can name that tune in 3 notes.

Get real buster..... you wanna save money for your company by spending somewhere in the neighborhood of $35,000 for a printer, cutter, laminator and a few super flat tables ?? Forget the learning curve, which won't amount to much, until you run into a problem and too cheap to get a real tech there to fix it, but you are not including the vinyls, inks, laminating and off-fall needed, The added electricity and whatnot, won't amount to much, but do you realize, it will take between 5 and 7 years to get your initial investment back ?? That doesn't even include the vinyls and inks and laminate needed to produce the stuff. Anyway, by that time, you'll be needing upgrades and new machinery as this stuff doesn't last for ever. So in about 6 years, you'll be putting out for this same stuff all over again. Where's the savings ??

Don't get me wrong, do it if ya want, but it seems like a very foolish move on the owner's part to do something such as this. This sounds more like an over-reaching employee department head who wants to bring some toys in and d!ck around with them.

You won't take food off of anyone's tables, except for the people who have been doing this work for you all along. Rather than spend the money on needless equipment, why not discuss with your vendors for a better deal ?? Most likely the two of you can reach some agreement.

Think man, don't just daydream of nonsense. ​

 

[GB2]

There was a time when this wouldn't have gotten past the first post....I guess those rules don't apply anymore?

 

[Christian @ 2CT Media]

I think its crazy how much some of you have a Us vs Them mentality and try to destroy an enterprising thought process.

The reality is all these assumptions that everyone is throwing out, is just that... assumptions. He/She asked for options, and methods to accomplish what they are trying to accomplish. The reality is there are options that don't require a lot of money to get started, don't require laminate, don't require super flat tables, and don't require years of experience to operate. I know everyone wants to protect that last little bit of secrecy our industry has but in reality our industry is flooded with easy access and cheap entry.

The old adage is you catch more Flies with Honey than Vinegar, and its true. I have clients that have brought processes in house but in return I got the larger and larger jobs that they couldn't handle. You can make clients for life if you are there to help when they need you.

 

[BigfishDM]

We outsource about 6000 stickers every 6 months for Promotional purposes....and about another 4000 for the lables on our Battery products we make. Additionally we usually buy Tradeshow Shirts that are dye sublima

HI All,

I own a Lithium-Ion Battery business, we sell Lithium-Ion Batteries to the Powersports and Motorsports Channels. We outsource about 6000 stickers every 6 months for Promotional purposes....and about another 4000 for the lables on our Battery products we make. Additionally we usually buy Tradeshow Shirts that are dye sublimated maybe 10 every year or two ($100 dollars each) and last year had about 500 T-Shirts made (screen printed) for a few thousand dollars and some other stuff....So that about $5k to $7K a year in decal/promotional materials...

So to bring up my point I was thinking of getting something like a Roland BN20 or the next step up 30" printer/cutter so we could just do this all ourselves and in house and do it in smaller runs, and have the complete control over it and change a decal design right away if we wanted to. Or make 10 different decal designs if we want.... When I look at spending a good few thousand on stickers/decals/apparel each year it seems we could do this all in house with one of these printer/cutter machines and actually even make Shirts or other value added items for promotional use also, or even brand our shop truck (that haven't already been wrapped).

So I am looking for any input on if this idea is reasonable.... I know we will not be saving a tremendous amount of money right away due to the cost of these machines and the purchase of new material for the decals and heat transfers, and a heat press and labor. My concern is more about having the control over everything and being able to whip our short runs of decals for sponsored riders and do all our basics also. But overall it appears that for that roughly $10K to $15k investment we can do alot of stuff in house and with more control.

So are there things I'm missing? Do other businesses do this? We don't need speed since we are not a graphics business we can print a few thousand decals over a day if that's what it takes... Should we actually invest in these professional printer/cutters as a regular business not intending on being a full time graphics company?

Thanks in advance for any input.

If that is your budget, I would get a Latex print and cut combo. I can show you how to do all those applications with this setup.