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Small setup for printing Vinyl decals

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andreasdesmedt

New Member
Hi,

I have a little company that makes RC graphics. With this I mean: customized hoodies, customized T-Shirts, Name decals, sponsor decals, skins for chargers, pit boxes etc. It's selling good, and for now I'm outsourcing my products to a printing company. I only do the design part. But I have the feeling I'm loosing allot of profit with this. For example, I ask 16€ for 2 A4 sheets full of stickers, the company that prints these, charge 8€ for these 2 sheets, wich I think is allot.

I've been looking on buying my own printer and cutter or printer/cutter, but I soon saw that this is an exspensive investment, wich I surely can't afford. I also saw that most of these printers that are capable of printing on vinyl, are large format, wich I actually don't need at all. I'm only printing A4's. I then also came on the Roland BN-20, wich I surely like, but I think it's still a large investment.

I then started looking for seperate solutions, like an Epson for printing and a Silhouette cameo for cutting. I see allot of this around this forum, but there are allot of opinions. Some people say you can't print on Vinyl with and epson, some say you can,... I was looking at an Epson Stylus 7600, wich I can get cheap. This printer prints with pigment inks, and not with (eco-)solvent inks. I there any possibility to print on Vinyl with a pigment ink printer, or can I convert it to Eco-solvent, if that would be cheaper?

Could anybody give me some advice if it is even possible on getting a fairly cheap and small setup?

My requirments:

- CMYK Printing
- Printing on white vinyl
- Dye cut (contour) each sticker on the sheet
- Last about 6 months/1 year outdoors. (Racing is outdoors, but it's not 24/24 7/7 outdoors)
- A4 format minimum

What would I need for this all, can I do it with a simple epson printer and a cheap cutter? I saw that if I would use Papillo injet printable vinyl, it would be 0,70€ a sheet for vinyl, and about 0,2€ for ink. That leaves me with about 1,80€ for 2 sheets, that's allot less than 8€...

Hope I can get some help on this
smile.gif
 
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player

New Member
Printer comes with deluxe custom media take-up...

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Fred Weiss

Fred Weiss

Merchant Member
You might be falling into the trap of thinking that your supplier's only costs are the supplies expended in producing work for you. There are significant other costs including labor, equipment, overhead and earning a living providing it.

What it comes down to is you either have enough business to cover the legitimate cost of producing in house or you don't. Many of the printers, cutters and laminators you will find on the used market are the result of someone else falling into the trap of thinking they were overpaying for someone else to produce a product for them. You might want to shop around for another supplier before you jump into a comparatively heavy investment to bring production under your roof. But don't expect that there are solutions out there to produce professional products cheaply.
 
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player

New Member
A set of inks (4) is almost $600 Canadian. A single DX4 print head is $1200-$1600 CAD. A DX5 DX7 head is around $5,000.
 
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andreasdesmedt

New Member
Well, I actually think it is. I got 2 people contact me already that could do it cheaper. + the fact that I'm waiting a week already to get some sheets printed. I don't wait that long when I pay this price, I also have to keep my customers happy.

Reading this comments I think it also isn't a very good idea to start doing it myself.

So... Are there any printers that would like to do my printing job? Around Europe would be awesome! Hit me up with a PM!

Thanks for all the help :)

Andreas
 
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chartle

New Member
Unless that Silhouette cameo has some special magic alignment, in order to contour cut on another machine you are going to have have a setup that can print registration marks on the vinyl and a cutter that can read those marks to get everything aligned before it cuts.

Unless you print a lot I doubt printing and cutting it in house is not going to be cost effective.
 
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andreasdesmedt

New Member
chartle said:
Unless that Silhouette cameo has some special magic alignment, in order to contour cut on another machine you are going to have have a setup that can print registration marks on the vinyl and a cutter that can read those marks to get everything aligned before it cuts.

Unless you print a lot I doubt printing and cutting it in house is not going to be cost effective.
Click to expand...
The silhouette cameo has an optical eye to read registration marks.
 
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1leonchen

New Member
a pigment printer wont cut it. so forget that. a silhouette is a toy forget that also. if u go that route you will get buy but have a lot of angry customers. not good for business. cheapest way to go is either with a roland 20 inch print and cut. thats a 6k investment new.
problem with that investment how long will u take for return on investment. compare 8 cents per copy vs ordering supplies for 1000 usd. slowly gain your sales and budjet around 10k for a small setup. to start out.

just my 2 cents. buying a printer does not make u a specialist. you have to become a specialist buy learning the hard way
 
jfiscus

jfiscus

Rap Master
I would look into purchasing a used Gerber Edge setup for what you are doing unless you are focusing on "miniature wraps". it would have great efficiency and accuracy for tiny decals like yours.
 
Gino

Gino

Premium Subscriber
I'm outsourcing my products to a printing company. I only do the design part. But I have the feeling I'm loosing allot of profit with this. For example, I ask 16€ for 2 A4 sheets full of stickers, the company that prints these, charge 8€ for these 2 sheets, wich I think is allot.


Okay, so you think their price is alot, but then you are doubling it to your end-users and that's not alot ?? To your wholesaling friend, you are hardly anything but an end-user who happens to have a graphics background. At the quantity you are getting them, I highly doubt you warrant any kinda discount, unless you can let the company gang your job in with another order which is similar. Then, perhaps you could get a small discount.

Most business-people will add close to 4 or 5 times what their costs are to reach their final cost to an end-user. Your doubling it. Maybe your business plan is set up wrong. Did you try putting enough on top of your cost so you can make a decent profit, along with paying for your overhead, utilities, supplies and other related costs ?? If that prices you out of the market, then a look in a different direction would be a good idea. If you cultivated enough work to justify the purchase of a real machine to do the work in-house, I'm sure you won't be looking at a toy, like you mentioned earlier. Remember, these are mostly professionals you are coming to and they have professional answers. Not usually what most hobbyists or backyard mechanics want to hear.
 
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