Small Printer/Plotter

[Geneva Olson]

I wanted to ask opinions of some experienced shop people here.
I have noticed a new market out there in our area. These "pop up shops" that people have. Making vegan candles, and soaps or honey or those wax smelly things for the cars. Those are all great products and personally I buy them myself. People are wanting stickers for their homemade items to sell.
What I want to know is do you guys think it would be a good investment to buy the smaller Roland BN20 to make these little stickers for people, possibly the one or two off printed htv for shirts..etc? Sometimes it seems like I don't want to run my big printer for a bunch of little stickers for people. (More waste than product)
Since some of you have been in business for a while now, would it warrant buying a smaller print and cut machine to throw out a small order of stickers for people?

 

[victor bogdanov]

have you seen how slow the BN20 is? Very bad idea imo if you have another printer already, what printer do you have that creates so much waste that you don't want to use it?

 

[GC Decor]

I’ll agree with Victor, Ronald BN 20 is really slow. It’s a great entry level printer and I’ve personally owned one. Why not just buy smaller rolls of material so you get less waste ?? I personally stay away from 1 and 2 order items, never able to pull enough profit for my time.

 

[SignMeUpGraphics]

How many small orders will it take to pay off a $5k printer?
I'd try to keep using what you already own or turn down the small/one-off orders.

We do tiny orders on our S80600. Unlike latex machines, we only get ~1" of waste at the beginning/end of a print so it's not hard to cater for small runs.

 

[balstestrat]

If possible I would try to compose the orders. Lets say you only print these small batches on fridays. Having only one or two materials to work with helps as well.
Sure, I know people always want things yesterday. I'm just trying to say people will eventually understand if you tell them it will be ready on monday because you are ordering such a small batch.

Extra machine like this will always take more money, more time, more maintenance and it doesn't help that it's only being used a little every once in a while. It's just sitting there spitting away your expensive ink.

 

[netsol]

You can certainly run narrow substrates on your existing machine (nowaste)
Does running the small orders delay other work? That might be justification for a smaller
Slower printer being added. I guess the question is, how. Many hours per day/week is your main printer printing?

You could. Consider an ebay or craigslist purchase if you can put the used printer. Under contract with a support company. Keeping costs down and increasing capacity, especially if there are times during the year that you can't keep up with demand. The ability to run a second job, WITHOUT PAUSING PRODUCTION may have some value to you. Can SHORT RUN PRODUCTION open new markets? can you find more demand for these products?

It may be the additional printer becomes a significant CUSTOMER ACQUISITION TOOL since you don't have to Stop other work already in progress. That's a question only you can answer

 

[Geneva Olson]

have you seen how slow the BN20 is? Very bad idea imo if you have another printer already, what printer do you have that creates so much waste that you don't want to use it?

I'm not sure how long you've been doing this but MY HP315 takes a long time to print. I thought all printers did. It's the nature of the business. There is a lot of waste on my machine because I have to feed in rolls of material unlike Roland that you can put pieces in. I also like the idea that it would print and cut on one shot. When you say bad idea, what are you basing your assessment on? What machine are you running? I know this could be part of it?

 

[victor bogdanov]

I'm not sure how long you've been doing this but MY HP315 takes a long time to print. I thought all printers did. It's the nature of the business. There is a lot of waste on my machine because I have to feed in rolls of material unlike Roland that you can put pieces in. I also like the idea that it would print and cut on one shot. When you say bad idea, what are you basing your assessment on? What machine are you running? I know this could be part of it?

I'm basing my assessment on owning/using a VS300 for almost 10 years (same inks as the BN20 but WAY faster), using white and metallics on the VS300 (which were replaced by cleaning cartridges after those channels clogged up). Also have a couple of roland SG2 (which are slightly slower than the vs300) and recently got a Canon colorado 1650 which is faster than my 3 other printers combined.

Go watch videos of BN20 printing, it is slow

 

[victor bogdanov]

I think finding a used 30" roland would be a better long term solution as those machines can print fast enough to make decent profit and take on bigger jobs. Also you can easily cut 60" rolls or 54" rolls in half to use on the 30" machines greatly expanding the materials you can print without waste compared to the BN20.

I see you are in the Houston area - I have a vs300 or a SG2 300 I could sell

 

[Zoogee World]

I agree with Victor, you'd be better buying a used Printer, maybe a SP-300i or VS-300i.

 

[jochwat]

That's the advice I was given when I wanted to buy a BN-20. The vendor, who sold BN-20s, told me that for the price, I'd be better off getting a SP-300 or similar. Only a little more money, larger print area, faster, etc. Also told me how the white was damn near useless as far as speed and opacity goes. Really took the wind out of the sails, but other than the portability (which I think is the major reason the machine looks so enticing), there are much better options.

 

[binki]

I would stay away from the BN-20. We have been running a VS-300 for years without issue. It is fast and requires very little maintenance. As long as you take care of it, it will take care of you. Best of all it will pay for itself very quickly.

One thing though, forget about the white and metalic inks. It just isn't worth it. We started out with double white and we printed a lot of white in the beginning but haven't in years. Now cleaning carts are in the white channels.

 

[balstestrat]

Talking about the BN-20, it also has the downside of the cutter being on the printing carriage and not on a separate cut carriage. Your printheads are always uncapped when you are cutting.
The cutter itself is also a screw style which is very slow in up/down movement compared to the electric magnetic ones in all the bigger machines.

 

[weyandsign]

Try finding vinyl for BN-20

 

[balstestrat]

Try finding vinyl for BN-20

Most resellers/distributors can cut the rolls to your desired width. It's not a problem.
If someone don't want to, someone else will.

 

[Geneva Olson]

Thanks for the feedback.