Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work. - Thomas Edison
screens are a mixture of 23x31 MZX, 25x33, 25x36, and 36x42 M3
Duane I know you guys are pressed for space but try to climate control this. Temp/humidity changes in NH lean to the extreme side.
You will find out very quickly that multiple screen sizes are not DTS friendly. I know those 36x42's won't fit and you'll have to change out the base plate to switch between 23x31 and 25x36. In short.. stick with one frame size. We use 28x38 custom sized frames and had to have our CTS custom made to fit it.
Quote from: Zelko-4-EVA on April 29, 2014, 02:47:06 PMscreens are a mixture of 23x31 MZX, 25x33, 25x36, and 36x42 M3You will find out very quickly that multiple screen sizes are not DTS friendly. I know those 36x42's won't fit and you'll have to change out the base plate to switch between 23x31 and 25x36. In short.. stick with one frame size. We use 28x38 custom sized frames and had to have our CTS custom made to fit it.
Zelko, we recently installed an I Image STE in our shop so if you want to jump on a phone call I can probably do a better job answering a few of your questions....... I'll try to address them here first but let me know if you want to call.- As far as your workflow, everything will be significantly improved as press setup times will go to almost nothing. Nearly every job we are setting up with our ste is in almost perfect registration. We had just setup 113 screens over 8 jobs on just one of our auto's for an 8 hour shift. What you will find is the dts will speed everything up so much that you will experience a few bottlenecks the first few weeks until you can get your processes of washing imaged screens done. Without knowing your washout setup(if dirty reclaim is separate from rinsing newly imaged screens) I cannot say for sure but with the STE you will be imaging screens at lightspeeds compared to printing films. Once you get used to imaging screens at the speed in which you can your workflow will be better then ever. - Climate control, we keep our room at a constant 68* and 40% humidity..... Our I Image ste has been working perfectly for us so I've been playing around with the room keeping it climate controlled. The last 3 days of imaging I have not done anything with our room and our screens are still coming out perfect. While I think climate controlling the room is important, once your I Image is setup well I personally don't feel it's 100% necessary but I would def. recommend it for your screens to stay consistent.As far as the I Image meeting our expectations, it is by far exceeding it for me right now. We have been using dts for 2 years now, and I would never start or run a shop without one personally. I have done a ton of research on DTS and I personally feel the I Image STE is the unit to have. There's going to be some pros/cons with each machine but I feel like the I Image is engineered the best out of them all and from a production standpoint I feel like it has the best parts for longevity. Like I said feel free to give me a call here and I talk everything over with you but right now we are incredibly happy with our m&r ste dts machine. I have a pretty small 2 auto shop but this has bumped our production numbers above some of our competition in town that have 4 autos......On friday we imaged approx 120 screens and that only took 1 guy half the day but if we were in the market for dts and I had unlimited budget I would choose m&r I Image ste over everything else, bottom line.Hope this helps, DannyAlso, if your going to make the leap for the I Image I would strongly suggest getting a uni-kote auto coater as well if you guys aren't already auto coating. Pairing the two machines together have made our screens so much nicer then they were before. Now we can control our eom extremely consistently which also helps dial the ste exposure in correctly. With the price of the uni kote, it really should be paired with the dts though for best results.
If your screen wash department is setup like that you guys will be good to go from the start. Your workflow will be extremely fast compared to what your currently doing using films..... Honestly if your making the amount of screens you are, I wouldn't be waiting any longer as your press setups are going to justify the cost of the machine before you even calculate film savings, ink savings, etc. From the sounds of it I don't think you will have to change much in terms of how your workflow operates but without seeing your setup/how you do things it's impossible to say but I really don't see a huge learning curve for you guys.... The biggest aspect to get used to is how to send ripped files to the dts software but that should go pretty quick as well if you have an artist even halfway smart lol..... But seriously if I was in your boat I wouldn't even have to think twice about purchasing the ste.......