screen printing > Equipment

MHM E-Type

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blue moon:

--- Quote from: Screened Gear on April 14, 2011, 06:16:37 AM ---I have been trying to lay down a real nice white PFP on my e-type. I am using Unions Cotton White on a 160 mesh. I have tried angles from 7 to 10 on the squeegee, air pressure from 1 to 4 bars and flood angle from 8 to 4 (I think) and height or whatever that is called from -1 to 5 on the squeegee and -1 to 5 on the flood. I have to be doing something wrong. I get a nice flat first layer (flashed dry) then a nice second layer. It looks ok but I am used to manually printing and if I was printing it manually I would hit it one more time to make it cover better. I am printing navy shirts. The only thing I can try is another ink, maybe this ink is too soft??? What ink do you guys use?

--- End quote ---

what kind of shirt? 100% or 50/50?

set the squeegee at 9 and the floodbar at 4. to get going, do two strokes and set the squeegee height so it clears the screen on the second pass. leave the pressure at 4bar. stir the ink and preheat the plattens using the preheat function. use soft squeegee, 60 duro if you have it. It would not hurt to coat the screens a little thicker than usual. print flash print should give you pretty nice white.
It will take some getting used to and with time it'll get better. . .

pierre

alan802:
Thicker stencil, and personally I go lower mesh for white only prints on darks.  50/50's suck to print on, you can do everything perfectly and they will still look bad sometimes.  Like Pierre said, just enough pressure to clear the screen and lay the ink on top of the shirt.  You wouldn't really think it would take lots of time to perfect it, but it really does take time to get good at it, there is an experience factor.  You'd think it would be easy to just duplicate someone elses specs and that will most certainly help, but sometimes all there is to do is do it enough times to where you just become good at it.

Screened Gear:
Thanks for the advice. I am sure my stencil is a little thin. I am printing on 100% cotton, gildan ultra cottons.

Not to Sound like a newbie (printing manually for 3 years) on an auto, am I right on this....

Squeegee angle - More down (45 degrees) puts down more ink but you lose detail. Higher angle (60 to 90 degrees) more detail less ink lay down

Flood bar - Hard thin flood fills the stencil making it lay down more ink? Soft Thick layer of ink?

Air pressure - More pressure less lnk lay down higher detail, ink goes into the shirt. Less pressure more ink less detail ink stays on top of shirt. (use just enough to clear the screen).

Squeegee downward movement- more down harder print less ink, less down more ink (use just enough to clear the screen).

Off contact ? More off contact clears screen easer

Print speed ? Slower speeds move thicker inks and lay down more ink.

I know all this is dependent on the job you are printing but are these basically how it works. If there is a how to print on an auto book you can suggest let me know.

ebscreen:
You're getting it, and you'll get there. No books that I know of.

When I first went auto I had a hell of a time too. Could not get white ink to clear a
156 to save my life. Same principles apply as manual printing, but you don't get to
feel what's going on.

You'll get it. Just stack the test shirts and mess with settings until you get it.
And get some Wilflex Quick White too.

Screened Gear:
I think I got it figured out. I had the squeegee coming down too far. It was applying to much pressure. I backed it off and then I got more ink on the shirt. It wasn't perfect but it was working a lot better. I also speed up the flood to 8 and made it a hard flood. It only left a thin layer of ink but filled the stencil. then i spead up the squeegee and that made the print much smoother. (went from 2 to 3.5) I printed 450 navy shirt with it and it went good. I have some practice to do on loading and unloading. I could only do about 300 shirts an hour according to the display. not sure how if figures that. I was doing a 6.5 second flash and I was only about 2 seconds behind the flash. Thanks everyone for the help.

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