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Did a renovation last fall .. Just now getting around to posting a few pix. Knocked out a few walls, added a new one, and plastered & painted and replaced flooring (Rid of Carpet at last, .. or so I hoped...)
My background is technical, learning layout is a newer skill, (improving all the time .. I hope... ) I love toys and I service all of my machines (no service contracts) this has enabled me to purchase and operate equipment that otherwise would be hard to justify.
One of the first things I learned when I first joined this board was that a shop dog was needed .. Here's Penney Adopted about 4 years ago, she hasn't missed a day. It's amazing what having a large dog in the shop does for customers dispositions..
After going to considerable trouble to get rid of carpet I ended up having to put carpet runners all over the shop ... Penney just couldn't handle the hard flooring.
We do printing/copying as well as signage, This is a 50ppm copier/printer and a Color copier, both devices have print controllers and are network printers. ½ of storefront (kip on other side
We've found a vinyl that runs well through the color copier, and we've found how to register the output with the vinyl cutter... result is fast, custom cut decals
The HP 3500 printer and the Seal 600d combined to add a lot of new products to our arsenal. I've ran everything from 3/4" MDO to 4mm dibond through the Seal (not for the feint of heart, but nothing damaged ... yet ) It's a great way to lay reflective sheeting. 54" poster cutter in front of the HP
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Looking good Mike, with all that stuff to run & maintain, it is hard to imagine ever getting around to posting pics, & the graphics package for the truck... I could see that taking some time to get to also. After checking out all 3 topics, I wonder how many sq. ft. you spread out over?
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The Shop itself is about 1400 sq ft and has about 1000 sq ft of basement. The only equipment in the basement is a numbering machine and a folder (noisy), bindery, paper drill and a 4' light table / dark room for silkscreening. The 1500 sq ft garage is joined onto the shop and the engraving setup and the t-shirt & duplicator equipment is actually in a room in this garage. It took a while to figure how to arrange it all, but it worked out very well.. Workflow and materiel flow through the shop is much better than prior to renovation. I figure I've got just enough room for one more device in the main shop, 1 small corner not in use yet..... unless it's a solvent based printer then I'll have to create another (well ventilated) room in the garage.
Maintaining the equipment doesn't take much time, less than 1 hour per week on average, but I do hit the occasional week when it seems everything requires attention at once (rare, thankfully) .. on the whole digital equipment requires much less servicing than analog, I'm averaging about 200,000 copies between servicing on my b/w copiers... I keep common parts, drums, heat rollers etc.. on hand, for most equipment so I can keep downtime to a minimum.. I also have 2 pieces of any critical equipment ( to handle large rush orders) but also so if I'm out of town for a while, the shop keeps running ..theres a lot to be said for redundancy.
The network itself takes a lot more time, even a minor upgrade such as going from postscript 4 to 5 becomes a major chore when you have 6 workstations and 6 postscript devices. Learning to build my own web server, mail server and ftp server has also been a challenge.
-------------------- Mike O'Neill
It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value. - Arthur C. Clarke
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We've found a vinyl that runs well through the color copier, and we've found how to register the output with the vinyl cutter... result is fast, custom cut decals
Hi Mike
Could you give us some more details on your process What vinyl are you using? What color copier? How big a page size does it do? How is the durability of the print, can you scratch or smudge it? Can they be used outdoors without fading? What is the cost of the decals like?
Thanks Neil
-------------------- Neil Senior NA North Hollywood CA,91606 Posts: 5 | From: Los Angeles, CA | Registered: Jan 2002
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) I love toys and I service all of my machines (no service contracts) this has enabled me to purchase and operate equipment that otherwise would be hard to justify.![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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