[msknowledge1]

My 15 year old wants to start a t-shirt digitaltogarment business.:)

I want to know if there are any auctions, companies, websites, or newspapers that can tell me where I can get the printer real reasonable?:confused:

[brandy681]

Ebay has real reasonable prices. You cannot beat Ebay anywhere but just look for reputable sellers with good feedback.

[Clough]

I am glad that your son wants to be an entrepreneur. Shows some self-motivation on this part. I would just be careful that involvement in the business does not take away from his schoolwork.

I know that the cost of the printers can be out-of-site. The above answer is good. You might want to do some free advertising on the Internet in order to find a printer. The free advertising would also be good for your son's business.

If you do a Google search for Clough Quad Cities, then you will find ads for my various businesses dominating the first three or four pages in the search. Do a search for any of the things that I do and put in Quad Cities or any town or city nearby the Quad Cities, leave out my name, and you will still get the same result. All of these ads are free! If you take a look at how I have worded them, then you will get an idea how you could word yours. If advertising on the Internet is something in which you are interested.

I am listed in the Yellow Pages of the phone book for my two prime businesses. Also, I do occasionally list myself in a local newspaper. But, I still get more calls because of people who have my ads on the Internet.

[krystal1973]

How exciting that your child is starting to think about business. Although I do believe the best investment is an investment in our children's future, be careful not to do everything to start this business without including your child. My 14 year old is mowing lawns, I let him borrow our equipment until he had enough to buy his own. This makes them understand more what it takes to run a business, also it gives them the confidence and the small nudge they need to go out there on their own.

[Fr_Chuck]

I think this is great, since I have no idea what this type of printer this is, I have no idea where to get one, but I just want to say this is a great thing and good luck

[wallabee4]

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHh MEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. Here is the REAL SCOOP: The digital garment printing technology is NEW. Here is what you will find: There is NO MOBILE TECH SUPPORT. That means, unlike a commercial copy machine or color printer you don't have a repairman you can call who will come and fix the thing. There is simple maintenance to do which is essentially keep the machine and every inch of your shop CLEAN. (This might be tough for the average 15 yr old who's room is a pigsty. Let's go with the notion your child is above average, OK?) But, alas, through sometimes gross negligence (you forget to check a print height and crash a $500 print head) or through no fault of your own it starts printing wrong. Just plain wrong. Imagine it's like error messages on a PC you never know when you'll get one and you don't know what they mean when you do and you can't figure out how you could have caused it. But there you are with a machine that isn't printing right and you got to repair it. Usually the manufacturers state all sorts of lovely things about their support staff, but unless you are exceedingly mechanically inclined, you'll find yourself on the phone with a tech trying to walk you through what is equivalent to you doing your own transmission repair on your car. (The digital garment printer costs as much as the truck I own.) They send you manuals they forget to update when methods of repair failed and they changed methods. (Manuals come and go so quickly here... ) They send you DVDs that show somebody else doing the fix and they can be helpful entertainment at 3am when tech support isn't available and you need to get a job printed. Harry at Equipment Zone in New Jersey will become your best friend: he writes the best how to answers to problems, will e-mail you great advice. I am loathe to touch the internal workings on something so expensive. So I end up on major repairs having to box up the machine (a major undertaking to remove the ink system) and ship it via freight carrier (the machine weighs 150 lbs--you ain't shipping it UPS) to the manufacturer for repairs. This isn't as bad as it seems, as they will always get it fixed. Shipping, for me, is about $190 each way. Repairs seldom go more than $500. BUT HERE's THE CATCH: you will end up not being able to print while the printer is down. That means missing a deadline on an order and believe me, losing customers you worked hard to get. So, you need to invest in a back up machine. Which doubles your start up costs. You CAN and probably SHOULD consider leasing 2 machines to see how you do. (If you do, have your lawyer look over the lease agreement!) Then at end of lease you can upgrade to a new improved model. They are changing all the time. SECOND (this is very important) the bulk ink systems on these machines can be nightmares. ONLY GET A MACHINE WITH A BULK SYSTEM MADE BY HARRY. All the others I have seen are not well engineered--esp one with a blue bottom (if you see it, you'll know what I mean). THIRD, you need to consider if you want to be able to print onto dark colors of shirts (black and navy) because if you do, you'll need to have white ink and you'll need not just a clean area to run your computer and printer in, but also an open ventilated area for spraying a pre-treatment onto each shirt before you print it. This kind of negates the reason a lot of us got into digital--no fumes and messes of silk screening. FOURTH: you will also need a heat press or a conveyor dryer to SET the inks on your shirts. I'd look for those, too, on E-Bay or Stahls. FIFTH, you can and will be absolutely amazed at the printing results. BUT before going into ANY business, identify what niche you intend to serve, get a business plan, work out your overhead costs and develop pricing. Do NOT assume just because everybody you know wears a T-shirt that EVERYBODY is your customer. They ain't. You can do one-of-a-kinds and short runs and true gradients and photos better than a silk screener but silkscreeners will always beat you on price in a big order. And vibrance of colors. But you can print full color every time with little to no set up. It's like sending a print request to your inkjet paper printer--you don't have separate color screens to make and clean. BUT This technology is SLOW. The manufacturers quotes are ALL BLATENT LIES. It actually takes about 5 minutes to print ONE side of a shirt. That's 12 per hour. And if you need full fronts and backs, that's 10 minutes per shirt. (6 per hour) How long is it going to take you to print an order of 72 shirts? (Let your kid do the math) What do you want to make in an hour's work? Add that to cost of shirts. (You need wholesale suppliers--sanmar, alphashirts, broder, TSC--look at printwearmag.com), cost of shipping the shirts to you, your overhead, and ink in each side is about 50 cents (compared to silk screen ink which is pennies.) The figure out what you need to sell shirts for at that rate. SIXTH: You need to know how to use a computer graphics program of your choice. The printers support just about any of them. If you make your own images to print, great. If you accept customer's images to print, prepare yourself for patience and extensive customer service. The average buyer doesn't know a thumbnail image they stole off a website isn't going to blow up to a 10"x10" print on a shirt without falling apart to the pixels (or that it's illegal). You will also find photos that look good to the naked eye are often way too dark to reproduce well on a T printer. You'll need the skills for photo restoration. Color adjustment, lightening, etc. (Cafepress.com has a great explanation for consumers about choosing a right or a wrong image to print.) you need to know print locations for T-shirts and how to size them for youth sizes and 3XL sizes. You'll need to know where a left chest print should go and how to get a print onto a pocket. You amy want to expand to hats and sweats. Some printers and heat presses can't accommodate them. You'll want to know where you are going before you begin. Another note: FastRip is software available to speed up the printing. Some users swear by it, some swear at it. Your choice. But you want a GOOD computer dedicated only to printing to get top speed out of it anyway. Still, dpi and image size can slow you down, too. My wish for you is find a niche clamoring for what you have to print before you buy or lease ANYTHING. If your child just wants to print shirts for other school chums, then get silkscreening equipment and ask a silkscreener a few towns away to consider training.