Packtex: Kornit Avalanche HD6 from Adelco
Suleman Gaffar, managing director
Tell us a bit about your business
Packtex has been established for 20 years. We work in three distinct areas: embellishments for the fashion industry, ecommerce and B2B digital printing.
What is the latest DTG machine that you have bought, and when did you buy it?
We’ve recently purchased, through Adelco, a Kornit Avalanche HD6 digital printer, together with a new Pro-Cure dryer. They were installed at our premises in April 2019.
What was the reason for the purchase?
We’ve been digitally printing garments since 2014 and have recently begun to see a shift away from traditional screen printing to DTG printing. Improved print speeds, quality of print and reduction in ink costs now enable us to compete within this environment and the decision was made to invest in the new equipment. The new Avalanche HD6 replaced some of our older Kornit printers.
How much did it cost?
The total investment was in excess of £300,000.
What other machines, if any, did you look at before purchasing this one?
Over the years we’ve used and evaluated a variety of DTG printers other than Kornit, but for speed, ink costs and garment feel we’ve found the Avalanche HD6 to be unbeatable.
What do you think are its main advantages?
The on-site training given by the installation engineer was thorough, and this was followed up by Kornit’s Empowerment Program. Since purchasing the Avalanche HD6 our trade printing business has increased dramatically, and I’m extremely pleased with the ink cost and print quality achieved by the machine.
Is there anything you’d like to see in an upgrade or don’t particularly like about it?
We had a few initial problems with the machine, but Kornit’s UK-based service engineers sorted these quickly and since installation we’ve only had a total of a couple of hours downtime.
What’s it like to use? Do you have any tips on how to get the most out of it?
After initial training the printer is easy to use: load the image, load the garment and press print. Our print runs are normally 500 and above across a range of designs, although we recently completed a 5,000-piece single design order. All work run on the Avalanche HD6 is trade printing.
What other machines do you have? Does your DTG machine work in combination with any of them?
We also operate a Kornit Storm and four Epson F2100 DTG printers. These are used primarily to print our ecommerce and promotional orders.
What would be your advice to others thinking of buying a DTG machine?
My advice to anyone wanting to enter the DTG print market is to carefully evaluate the marketplace you will be operating in. DTG printers range in price from a few thousand pounds to hundreds of thousands, so your level of investment must be the one that can satisfy your market’s demand. Assess all ancillary costs such as ink, pre-treatment and servicing components as they all add to the final cost of print. Ensure you see the printer operating before committing and check the quality and feel of the print. Compare as many options as possible and hopefully this will enable you to make the right purchasing decision.
www.packtex.com
