mac6986

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Posts posted by mac6986

  2. Posted

    I no longer sell print decals without laminate. They will come back hollering at me when they fade if I give them the cheaper choice so I don't even offer it.
    Haha, been there, done that. If there was one quote that ever stuck in my head it was one from Steve Jobs " People don't know what they want until you show it to them."

    I don't want to have to deal with people coming back in a year or two so I just laminate everything and charge accordingly, and never even offer them without laminate.

    • Like 1

  3. Posted

    OK, so I just recently upgraded from a hand crank laminator, to an Diage Solo electric laminator.

     

    When I was doing things by hand, my sheets of lam were cut to size and I discarded the backing imediatley after use. NOW, the solo has a backing paper take up reel, and im about to change out the empty roll for a new one, but I have 50 yards of laminate liner rolled up on the take up reel.

     

    First, its a pain to get it all off because to start it, you have to tape it to the take-up reel. so I cant just slide it off.

     

    Once I got it off, I dont have a use for it, but it feels like such a waste to throw out THAT MUCH liner in one shot. Do any of you guys out there have uses for liners?

  6. Posted

    How are they for running banners? seem to be getting more and more of them.

    This printer has a seperate print spread and speed just for banners. at its highest speed, you can print up to 70 sq/ft per hr. On a 30" model, thats just under 6 linear inches per minute at the full 30" material width.

     

    Tthe higher the speed, the lower the quality though, but for roadside banners, and banners strung up high, crystal clear, razor sharp images are not always needed. just get yourself some hemming tape, and a grommet machine and you're set.

    • Like 1

  7. Posted

    I would recommend it. I'm a little bias though, I'm on my second printer, both of them Rolands. I've had no complaints.

    I started with the BN20, good machine to get your feet wet, but once you start offering printed graphics to your customers, you'll find out real quick that this particular printer was not built for any kind of production speed. From print speed to cut speed, it's slower than molasses in winter.

    Once I moved into a large enough space, I spent the money and got a brand new versacamm VS-300i. Oh man, I wish I hadn't waited as long as I did to upgrade. My niche is small decals ( under 5") and reflective graphics for emergency vehicles. This machine is more than enough for me.

    The versacamm is a great all in one printer. If your print demand increases ( which it most likely will) couple it with a gx300 cutter, and you can let the printer print off specific lengths of material, and while that's going on, you can take the finished prints, laminate them, and cut them separately, saving you tons of time. I've seen them all over the net used, you can pick them up for anywhere between $5-8k.

    Now the other side of the coin. These machines need about as much attention as small child would. They need to be fed properly (OEM inks highly recommended) and cleaned on a regular basis. These things also don't like to sit around with nothing to do, you need to print things off regularly to keep the ink from getting stagnant in the lines, dampers, & heads. You can't just print on any old vinyl, you need to buy the proper solvent printable vinyl. Some jobs will require you to laminate, there's more material and another machine. Some people use a big squeegee, there's too much "silvering" when I use a BS, I personally would recommend a hand crank or electric cold roll laminator.

    The upfront cost will be more than just the purchase cost of the printer. Keep that in mind while window shopping.

    • Like 2

  9. Posted

    I would have given it alittle more time. 

     

    You placed the order on a Saturday. 

    It can take a day or 2 to process your order.  The items may have come out of different warehouses.  

    So within 4 days you're canceling your order. 

    You got the hat press so it's not like they are trying to cheat you.  

    A heat press is BIG and Heavy. 

    It's getting shipped the slowest and cheapest way possible. 

     

    Just because they aren't reponding doesn't mean you're not going to get it. 

    +1

     

    I agree with Go-C. Its only been 4 business days, ( 3 technically if you ordered after 5 pm local time )

     

    I highly doubt they have them in stock at their facility. They most likely drop ship them straight from the manufacturer.

     

    I would give them 5 business days for an item of that size before I start poking them for information.

  10. Posted

    I had to get around putting my email in my ebay listing. They kept stopping me and I need to work up designs with people for the stuff I sell on there. They are very protective of keeping their piece of the pie.

    That's why they added the image attachment option in the eBay message system. One more reason for them to say "There's no reason for you to contact them outside of eBay." ( even though you get their email address when they make a purchase anyway )

  11. Posted

    If you were to follow the terms and conditions to the letter, no it's not allowed.

    That being said, the only way that eBay would know you are doing it, is if someone were to report it. And the only reason I could think someone would report it , is if a competitor bought your item, saw it the insert/flyer/biz card and just wanted to start trouble.

    I put stuff in my shipments all the time.

    What's more in plain sight and easier for ebay to scold you on is links in your product descriptions. That's a no-no. You can refer other websites to your ebay listing/store, but you can't refer from a listing to an external site promoting items for sale.

    • Like 4

  12. Posted

    so what do you do about lightning?

    Lightning is what it is. There's no surge protector out there that will guarantee against any and all possibilities. There is always that one bolt of lightning strong enough to push through the surge protector, no matter what its rated at.

     

    I will continue to leave mine plugged into the surge protector, and if an act of god comes along and fries my printer? Well that's why I pay for insurance.

     

     

    To put it all in perspective, you could spend thousands of dollars on measures to protect your electronics from lightning, yet the bolt didn't fry your equipment, it just set the building its all stored in on fire. Now where does that leave you?

     

    Its all relative, you can only do so much to protect your equipment. Take the right steps and be smart about it, but don't worry about the stuff you can't control.

  13. Posted

    UNPLUG IT...  Best protector of all.   I am referring to vinyl cutter..  Not an expensive  printer..

    Can't do that with most printers. They kick on every 4-6 hours and run self maintenance cycles to prevent heads from clogging/drying up.

     

    I run my VS-300i through a Monster HTS 1000 power strip. Can absorb over 6000 joules of surge, plus has ports to run cable and Ethernet through as well. You never know where the surge will come from.

     

    also run an APC UPS Pro1200 8 hour battery backup. I dont need a power outage costing me a $1500 print head replacement.

    • Like 1

  14. Posted

    If its guaranteed that you're getting the job, call up the big guy and get a price quote and see what he charges.

     

    Obviously don't tell him who you are or the address of the job, just give them the size, material you want and price to include installation. I've done that many times to just keep tabs on what other guys in the area are charging for different things.

     

    There have been many instances where I will do some work for a business friend and when I shoot them a price, they will straight up tell me that I am too low, and ask me to charge more.  :huh: Ok, if you want to pay more, I wont argue.

     

     

    Another little tid bit, when you invoice, write it up as a full priced sign, the same you would for a complete stranger, but put the discount on the invoice as another line item, or before the grand total. People are more likely to remember that you cut them a deal when its in writing as opposed to just charging them the discounted price up front.

     

    Check out this write-up I wrote on pricing. Your sign is exactly what I used as the example sign and how to price it.

  15. Posted

    Good idea.

     

    I am wondering about the 3-deep arrangement, however, because it doesn't seem to allow easy access to the rear rolls.

    It would drive me nuts to constantly require unracking two rolls just to obtain the one I need in the back.

    True, I agree that it would drive me nuts too, having to un-rack 2 rolls just to get at one in the back, but thats the beauty behind the adjustable rack. all you have to do is drop the rows low enough that you can get the one in the back out between the top and bottom rolls.

    • Like 1

  16. Posted

    You're asking a lot of that machine to be that accurate over that long of a distance. The relative humidity and temperature changes can make material grow and shrink, coupled with the cut accuracy of a "hobby cutter", I'm not surprised.

     

    Even a Roland GX24 cutter has a cut accuracy of +/- .2% of the distance traveled. So in theory, two of the exact same cuts, 96" long, on a gx24 could have as much difference as .5" between the two of them in perfectly temperature controlled environment.

     

    Looking in the store, I cant find any specs on the cut accuracy of the PCUT. I cant imagine it being more accurate than professional cutter.

     

     

    If you are cutting vinyl to be applied to a substrate and that color needs to go all the way to the edge, Make it larger than the substrate and trim away the excess. other than that, looks like you need to get out the straight edge and fix the cut manually.

    • Like 1

  19. Posted

    Just a suggestion/unsolicited advice. Instead of 'giving the customer away' I would suggest you take the order, sub it out with a 25-30% profit and keep the customer. Sending them to someone else will cut you out of future business also.

    +1

     

    Never give a customer away just because they want something you don't provide in-house. Subbing work out is great because you're still making some money, while being able to get your other work done at the same time. As far as the customer is concerned, you made it yourself.

  20. Posted

     I hate to tell you this but bubbles come from poor squeegee techniques. . . . . It seems like such a simple thing but turns out there is a true art to it.

    If I had a dollar for every customer who came back and asked me to re-install their self installed graphics . . . oh wait, they paid me again anyway, lol.

     

    Parctice, practice, practice. Laying down graphics in essence is a very simple process but it takes time to learn the behavior of the vinyl when you do different things to it, and how different surfaces will accept the material.

     

    I recommend learning how to do dry installations (not on a paying customer job) because there are certain materials out there that you just cant install wet.

     

    lots of good videos on youtube. you're going to use up material to learn but its far better to practice behind the scenes, than to get to a job and not know what to do in front of a customer.

    • Like 2

  25. Posted

    meta tage keywords are not used as heavily as they once were to rank search results, but they are still used. the meta tag description is an important tag though. It controls what is displayed under the title in most all search engines. Have a good, short, clear descprition there will help people know what the page is about and more likely to click on it.

    In my rambling I think i forgot to elaborate on it. You are correct Shadow, what I was referring to was the old ways of using all your key words in the meta tag field, with the new Google algorithms, it will actually be detrimental to your rankings to do it the old way. Yes you do want a short description in there, but most eCommerce platforms will do it for you. I know with shopify, there is a section while setting up your store that asks you "  write a short description about your store " and under it you are limited to 140 characters. This is what they will place in your meta tag.