MHM E-Type

[blue moon]

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?

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.

[blue moon]

the display only counts the last 10 shirts. . .  so it tends to get skewed as you stop and start.

300 to start is actually pretty good. It took me weeks to get past 100. It took almost 6 months to break 750, but my experience was pretty limited. You'll get there fast.

I don't think I ever flooded at 8, that's pretty fast, especially for a white.

If you flood too hard, you'll hit the plattens at the end of the stroke (when the flood bars come back down). Make sure you are not banging them too hard.

did you figure out the squeegee cylinders being able to go up?

pierre

[Screened Gear]

Pierre,

You can print 750 with you loading and unloading the shirts??? that can't be right. It was a lot harder then I thought it would be to do 300. I don?t think I will get much past 400 by self. I may have to move the dryer position to get any faster. 

I am flooded at 8 but the white is Unions cotton white. It is as soft and printable as any other color (I have printed it through a 305 with no problems had to push hard). I am sure I need to change what white I use to get a more opaque print in 2 layers. Even on a manual I print 3 layers. (156 screen) it leaves a glass like print that is really thin and bright white.

I did figure out the squeegee / Flood bar lifting thing. That is what I needed. It is easy to change them out that way. Is there any other hidden controls that I need to know about? Maybe they have a secret book that has all the hidden controls?(manual)

On another note. I am going to buy the FPU they told me I can get it for $3000.  Then I am just going to have the Drill Jig made. They want $500 for it. It is just a piece of metal white 2 holes and a few guilds. I can have a machine shop build it for maybe $100. 

Thanks Pierre.

[blue moon]

Pierre,

You can print 750 with you loading and unloading the shirts??? that can't be right. It was a lot harder then I thought it would be to do 300. I don?t think I will get much past 400 by self. I may have to move the dryer position to get any faster. 

I am flooded at 8 but the white is Unions cotton white. It is as soft and printable as any other color (I have printed it through a 305 with no problems had to push hard). I am sure I need to change what white I use to get a more opaque print in 2 layers. Even on a manual I print 3 layers. (156 screen) it leaves a glass like print that is really thin and bright white.

I did figure out the squeegee / Flood bar lifting thing. That is what I needed. It is easy to change them out that way. Is there any other hidden controls that I need to know about? Maybe they have a secret book that has all the hidden controls?(manual)

On another note. I am going to buy the FPU they told me I can get it for $3000.  Then I am just going to have the Drill Jig made. They want $500 for it. It is just a piece of metal white 2 holes and a few guilds. I can have a machine shop build it for maybe $100. 

Thanks Pierre.

HELL NO! On my own, loading and unloading best case scenario (with shirts that fit snug on the plattens) I can get close to 500. I think that might have happened once or twice.
One operator, if averaging 300-350 I am happy with it. We run two ppl for anything over 100 pieces and can hit some pretty good numbers on simpler prints. We'll hit 750-800 in operating speeds for many runs and have gone over a 1000 on several occasions. Now this is running speed. Actual production is 400-500 per hour (with no major issues).

The reality is, most of the orders are small and we don't get a chance to run fast very often. So it all boils down to what you can do with small runs!

pierre

[Screened Gear]

Pierre,

Are you running your press in auto mode or pushing the start button every time? I did both and the auto mode can be a little scary but it does make you have to be consistent.

I am sure I can load over 700 if i was just loading. It is so easy to load shirts on a MHM. I have a Workhorse Manual and the shirts always get stuck under the boads on the knobes. On the MHM there is nothing down there to get stuck on...I am loving this press. I also like not havign to turn knobes to tighten the boards. I have calists on my hands from the knobes on my Workhorse. 

[blue moon]

we run on auto now. My guy that is leaving keeps his foot on the pedal as a brake. He lets it go when getting a new shirt.

I run it straight up auto and will find the pedal and press it if something is causing a delay. It took a very long time to get used to auto mode. I would suggest start with it, use the pedal as the brake and you'll learn right from the start.

Auto mode also runs faster. In manual and pushing the button (or stepping on the pedal), the print cycle starts after you let og or push the button. In auto, it starts earlier. In the end auto will print faster, in some cases it will run 100 shirts per hour faster.

pierre

[Screened Gear]

I didn't get the pedel with my press. I guess just another thing I need to buy. I may wait a while for that. I am sure it is atleast $500...

[squeegee]

I'm late to this party, but here's our typical set up for white plastisol on E-type, something soft like a quick white.

Flood speed 8-9, flood angle 0, depth set all the way down (this varies with detail and mesh count, raise depth for detail and delicate mesh, hard flood for low mesh/high coverage), decrease flood speed for even more coverage.

Print speed, start at 1 slowest until ink softens, then increase to 2-3 usually.  Angle, 6-8 for low detail, 4-6 for more detail.  Depth set all the way down (we rarely move the squeegee depth).  Pressure, starting out usually 4 bar, 1.5-2 bar once ink is creamy (lower the pressure to bare minimum for best results).  We love 60/90/60 squegee blade for second down white, 70 or beveled smilin jack for UB, sometimes a 60/90/60 works well for UB's, sometimes not so well.

We like thick stencils too for UB's, we run most low detail bases on 110/71 S mesh or 125, moderate to high detail or lesser coverage on 150/48 Murakami S mesh (try this stuff if you can it's amazing mesh).  Very fine detail we run from 225-300 for UB, depending on the art.  We run 1/3 coats on 125/110 mesh, 1/2 on 150 and up.  We get 100-110 micron stencils on 110/71 S mesh, 80 micron on 125 and 150/48.

[blue moon]

I'm late to this party, but here's our typical set up for white plastisol on E-type, something soft like a quick white.

Flood speed 8-9, flood angle 0, depth set all the way down (this varies with detail and mesh count, raise depth for detail and delicate mesh, hard flood for low mesh/high coverage), decrease flood speed for even more coverage.

Print speed, start at 1 slowest until ink softens, then increase to 2-3 usually.  Angle, 6-8 for low detail, 4-6 for more detail.  Depth set all the way down (we rarely move the squeegee depth).  Pressure, starting out usually 4 bar, 1.5-2 bar once ink is creamy (lower the pressure to bare minimum for best results).  We love 60/90/60 squegee blade for second down white, 70 or beveled smilin jack for UB, sometimes a 60/90/60 works well for UB's, sometimes not so well.

We like thick stencils too for UB's, we run most low detail bases on 110/71 S mesh or 125, moderate to high detail or lesser coverage on 150/48 Murakami S mesh (try this stuff if you can it's amazing mesh).  Very fine detail we run from 225-300 for UB, depending on the art.  We run 1/3 coats on 125/110 mesh, 1/2 on 150 and up.  We get 100-110 micron stencils on 110/71 S mesh, 80 micron on 125 and 150/48.

huh . . . floodbar all the way down? I am finding that it is banging pretty good already in the middle, can't imagine what it would be like if it was any lower!

pierre

[squeegee]

You mean the floodbar banging the pallet?  Like I said, it depends on the mesh, for lower counts and a hard flood definately all the way down.  Higher mesh count or delicate mesh we raise ours.  It depends on the work and the desired results.

I have noticed that both our machines are not identical for the depth setting, so there is probably some difference there from machine to machine.  Amount of OC also has a role in this.