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the new TMT laser with white toner… and other options…
Anyone got one / using one??
was looking at this at FESPA last week, really impressed by the new 2step ‘wow’ process. I’ve had a lengthy chat with David from TMT and I know it would be a useful addition.
however …. while I love the concept, I do struggle to comprehend why -what is essentially still an A4 oki laser, has a £2k price tag? the fespa offer runs for a while and includes about £300 of free stock which makes it more worthwhile but as a business who’s main business is not tee-shirts and trinkets in general, I wonder if it would ever pay for itself without some big orders very early on.
Now this isn’t a dig at TMT, far from it, they’ve been great with advice etc. it’s an industry thing… Just why is printing white so expensive??? the toner appears to be over £130 per cart! I can understand the white is more expensive but why would the CMY be more than double the cost of the 5600/5700 carts? I’m finding it really frustrating as I can think of a miriad of small niche areas that I’m already involved in but the outlay & printing costs is off-putting.
No doubt oki will only supply it with start-up carts- leading to a potential £500+ order for a set of carts. then of course papers which while they are coming down in price, are still expensive.
How much can you realistically charge for a tee? for an Iphone cover? I know and can see the benefits of the ability to print on dark garments and miriad other items, the potential and the costs involved but, is the customer gonna understand what you’re doing for them or will they just walk out because they think you’re taking the mickey?
Will it end up like the ricoh? I do more promo stuff for myself than customers – by a long way because of such a crap range of printable garments compared to the USA market.
anyways, before I make more decisions on this, are there any other options for printing white on dark garments without using a transfer paper like a skin / sticker?? the TMT oki is in the lead right now, purely because it is so versatile but unless I have someone on it all the time, I can’t see I can justify the outlay. I already have 4 printers, an oki & ricoh for tee’s, it would be better to use what I’ve already got!
overloaded my head with thinking I think!
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11 Replies
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Must admit we are looking at the OKI WT from TMT but will use it mostly for Mugs and "Leather" type printables.
We use TMTs Soldark for clothing printed on our Roland VS but is a film/Skin but produces great results.
The other option (ruling out Screen Printing) is Direct to Garment, but that has an even higher start up cost.
We have the OKI/TMT A3 printer and used their OBM before we had the VS and still use TTC, CPM and a couple of other papers occaionally. We just buy the standard CMYK Toner from Amazon.
This suits the Retail/Consumer side of our Business….
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Hi Nick,
thanks for the reply, maybe I’m just being over cautious, with the amount I’ve put into new equipment and stock lately (for the new shop), it’s a fairly big investment -half the price of a small ex demo solvent!The only downside I’ve found with the cheap toners (that I currently have in the 5600 – as it was only printing invoices for a long time) is the longevity of the print. I made a few tee’s for a bit of free advertising at the gym and they washed out within a few washes, wasn’t good.
H -
ps, I looked at DTG, seems to have come a long way from when I last looked but yes, big outlay! I get the impression that many of these machines need to be owned by someone who’s running them all day, rather than someone who’s got fingers in many pies but only two pairs of hands!
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I only ever buy genuine OKI toner (and Roland Eco-Solvent Ink) [Many years in the IT industry before a change in career and I’ve seen the false economy cheap inks give many times!!]
Agree on DTG, when I looked at it earlier this year I came to a similar conclusion.
I guess my/our set-up is a little different in that the business is me & my wife. She works hours when our lad is at school but spends all her time on the Printables for Retail etc (eBay, Amazon, Webshop, Local Direct). I spend only 25-50% of my time on it, the rest is spent on B2B which are either higher volume printables or Vehicles, Sign & Display systems.
We hope to get someone else in soon part-time to assist on the printables especially for the Christmas Seasonal demand.
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quote Nick.Eccles:I only ever buy genuine OKI toner (and Roland Eco-Solvent Ink) [Many years in the IT industry before a change in career and I’ve seen the false economy cheap inks give many times!!]
Agree on DTG, when I looked at it earlier this year I came to a similar conclusion.
I guess my/our set-up is a little different in that the business is me & my wife. She works hours when our lad is at school but spends all her time on the Printables for Retail etc (eBay, Amazon, Webshop, Local Direct). I spend only 25-50% of my time on it, the rest is spent on B2B which are either higher volume printables or Vehicles, Sign & Display systems.
We hope to get someone else in soon part-time to assist on the printables especially for the Christmas Seasonal demand.
ah right, I thought you meant you bought compatibles from amazon, I mis-read that. I went with compats when I was only ever printing invoices from it, only when I did a few promo things did I realise the toner was rubbish on garments!
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Yup, non original toners don’t work well with oki printers and TMT papers! We ended up replacing the guts of the printer to get the results we wanted after running just one set of fake toners. I agree about DTG it is not quite there yet as an add on, its seems ok if you are using them daily, but its the old white ink problem.
Hugh i tried wow a couple of years ago, but found it very fiddly and we couldn’t get the results we wanted. I am coming over the UK in July, and i intend to pop into TMT and check out the new white toner oki, if it works like TTC papers and has the same washability, then i think we will get one.
cheers
Dan
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I bought one from TMT at the signuk fair, good piece of kit, and yes it does come with startup toners.
Easy process with the two part stage with the WOW papers.
I’m currently testing the print washability on some samples we made, then I’ll decide what to do. -
Hi Dan,
The print finish seems very good and the process easier than the old wow. I am still very tempted but as George confirms (above^), it only comes with starter carts, I wonder how many prints that would do before I need to replace 4 carts at £140+vat each, an order of 100 t’s could likely see you need to buy new toner before even finishing -
I must admit that for 2k it would be reasonable to expect that it comes with full carts, that was the only disappointment…. 🙁
G -
thanks guys, didn’t realise they had moved to wow 2.0. We found it fine for one offs, ut for larger runs it was hard to registrate. Looking forward to seeing 2,0 might be a runner! Yup sale carts are a bit of a disappointment aren’t they!
cheers
Dan
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I bought one of these after also looking at DTG systems. Although the DTG has come a long way it’s still wet ink and needs regular tlc, really ideal if you are at least printing something regularly.
With the OKI I also have been running a 5650 for sometime and only went back into printing garments last year and found the OKI to be very good. I had no hesitation in purchasing the 711WT judging from the performance of my 5650 and the fact OKI are confident enough to offer a 3 year warranty (who else does that?). You switch it on when you want it and switch it off when you finish, and don’t have to worry about it in the mean time. Print performance is superb, the only problems I have experienced have been getting the heat press set up to suit the higher pressure needed, ( I run a pneumatic press, my wife is not heavy enough to close a manual press).
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