Looking for a printer

MikeMN · October 22, 2011

We have been printing decorative film for 5 years now and the process of converting a glass tinting business to a decorative film printing business is much more involved than you realize. I have invested well over $150,000 on printers, laminators, software and educated graphic design professionals we employ full time. We had to experiment with literally hundreds of printable products before we found the right combination of products to use for various projects and effects our clients wanted. Ink cartrages alone are over $100.00 each and the printer holds 8. Then you'll need a hell of a lot of customers to make the whole deal pay for itself. We employ 8 people to make it all work full time. My advise is to sell the printed film for a good profit and use a professional to print it for you. We sell to dealers all over the country that charge between $8 and $15.00 just for installation. If you buy it fully designed, laminated and ready to install it's much more economical. I'm not trying to rain on your parade but it's way more involved than you realize.

I use your printed films, see the POTW I won............. :thumb

October 22, 2011

We've been doing vehicle wraps for about 2 yrs now, and after running some numbers, we were spending like 9-10k on outsource of just the printing....so needless to say we just bought a printer. It's expensive, but worth it if you have that anevue for your business. We got an HP latex printer 60", already had laminator and plotter. Latex seem to be the wave of the future as far as printers, check em out.

We also do vehicle wraps and latex works fine for vehicle wraps but it generates way too much heat for printing optically clear films.

October 22, 2011

We have been printing decorative film for 5 years now and the process of converting a glass tinting business to a decorative film printing business is much more involved than you realize. I have invested well over $150,000 on printers, laminators, software and educated graphic design professionals we employ full time. We had to experiment with literally hundreds of printable products before we found the right combination of products to use for various projects and effects our clients wanted. Ink cartrages alone are over $100.00 each and the printer holds 8. Then you'll need a hell of a lot of customers to make the whole deal pay for itself. We employ 8 people to make it all work full time. My advise is to sell the printed film for a good profit and use a professional to print it for you. We sell to dealers all over the country that charge between $8 and $15.00 just for installation. If you buy it fully designed, laminated and ready to install it's much more economical. I'm not trying to rain on your parade but it's way more involved than you realize.

I use your printed films, see the POTW I won.............

And I forgot to say "thank you" for your business

toodark · October 24, 2011

Like many have said it is not just the price of the printer. You will need a laminator and probably different software, I use flex sign pro (need a RIP software). With a printer, you will need to print daily or you will just run into prolems with the printheads clogging.

watchdaride · November 1, 2011

i heard the vinyl and ink is about $1.50 sq ft . They sell not installed around $8 a sq ft . So on a 100 sq ft job you make $650 and it probably takes the machine less than an hour to print that .

windowtintee · November 4, 2011

LetterTech in St. Paul, off of University- east of Dale.

Ben is the only technician's name I remember. I think the owner is Dave or Dan if I remember right.

They cut some film for me awhile ago; super nice guys and I don't even think they charged me!

http://www.lettertech.com/ 651.292.0738

November 12, 2011

i heard the vinyl and ink is about $1.50 sq ft . They sell not installed around $8 a sq ft . So on a 100 sq ft job you make $650 and it probably takes the machine less than an hour to print that .

You're guess is a bit low. We have numerous products to print on but optically clear film is more expensive and limited in size and quanity. We did just recieve a new product from Germany. It's not yet available in the USA.

To protect the film laminating is another cost, software programs and equipment maintenance and someone has to know who to run it. When we print white ink we burn out the print head faster @ about 12,000 sq ft so thats $6,000.00 a pop. If it was easy everybody would be doing it.

As a professional window film dealer if you can't get $18.00 + a sq ft installed then it's probably not for you. We really don't sell much solar film these days because of market saturation and slim profit margins.