US Made Digitech Trufire printer

[Daniel Jolly]

Yes. We have 2 HPs that we run in addition to the Trufire. We are printing 1.5 4x8s to every 18x24 on our HPs. It’s almost comical.

Sorry to be a pest. Is that the older fb series or newer r series? I have the r2000 and vanguard 300d hs and they are both decent.

 

[parrott]

No they are the old FB series. Great machines but old technology. I did not look at the R Series as I am not a fan of HPs business model. They made us a lot of money with their FB series, but they have also cost us 10s of thousands with their latex series. Maybe we got a lemon, but the way they handled everything was extremely unprofessional.

The vanguard is a great machine and great company. The people there are top notch.

 

[Yeahgor]

I am happy to answer any questions if anybody has any.

What about sq.ft.print cost? What ink "Digi" use some special made by Digi or common? What Print heads installed?
I cant find any of this information on their web site.

 

[parrott]

We are seeing between $.10-$.15 per square foot in ink costs. $.15 is with heavy saturation.

We are running 10 kyocera printheads with variable dot.

Ink is proprietary to Digitech as it should be. Never seen an ink as durable and scratch resistant.

 

[Yeahgor]

Yes. We have 2 HPs that we run in addition to the Trufire. We are printing 1.5 4x8s to every 18x24 on our HPs. It’s almost comical.

In case you still have HPs can you provide comparison in sq.ft. print cost for HPs?

 

[markdarian]

We have the TrufireX2 with the auto unloader. Machine is insanely fast and built very well. I really was not sold on the auto unloader at first but are really glad that we went with it. When you are printing a board every 45 seconds, your operator does not have time to unload and reload. Not to mention how physically demanding that is for a 8 hour shift. The second the auto unloader picks up the board we are loading another one right behind it.

The color gamut, quality, adhesion and speed are are almost too good to be true. Service has been great as we have a direct line to 4 different techs. No opening a service ticket and waiting for a call back. We have had the machine a little over a month and it has not skipped one single beat. I would imagine we have put about 70k square feet through it in that time. Can’t really think of anything I would change on this machine as it has been a really good fit for our company.

I am happy to answer any questions if anybody has any.

Hey Parrott, would you mind giving the price you paid for that X2 model?

 

[StratoJet]

DigiTech are great printers, but they come at a $$ price. If you're super high volume shop, the numbers might make sence. You can get a StratoJet for about a third the price, up to 47 boads an hour. Just need to look all the numbers

https://stratojetusa.com/

 

[parrott]

Like with anything, you pay for quality....and you only pay once. We just finished up 5k pieces of acrylic and this machine hasn’t had a single hiccup. The only issue was almost a bad head crash when I missed my guide. The anti-crash sensor stopped the carriage and saved me probably all of my heads.

This machine is insanely fast and the quality is equally impressive. Very happy with our purchase and would do it all over again.

 

[StratoJet]

Like with anything, you pay for quality....and you only pay once. We just finished up 5k pieces of acrylic and this machine hasn’t had a single hiccup. The only issue was almost a bad head crash when I missed my guide. The anti-crash sensor stopped the carriage and saved me probably all of my heads.

This machine is insanely fast and the quality is equally impressive. Very happy with our purchase and would do it all over again.

Like I said, it's a great machine and great people (been talking to them for years at trade shows, we help each other out and trade/give media when they've run out), but not everyone needs super high volume and can get into a very high quality StratoJet for less; not instead. Some companies just can't afford a Digi but after a few years with our printer, would grow their business to were they can.
Lucky on that $$ Kyocera print head save! This is why we have the same feature

https://stratojetusa.com/shark-2512

 

[parrott]

Absolutely. I looked at the stratojet in Dallas last year and they are great machines. Got to talk to an end user that spoke very highly of the machines and company. Lots of great companies/manufacturers out there doing incredible things. It’s a fun time to be in the industry!