Cool down pallet?

[3Deep]

I know we all would love to have a pallet or empty head for a cool down during printing or maybe two if possible, I know having a bigger press will allow this to happen without losing printheads but for us that use 6 and 8 heads it becomes a problem where we need all those heads working.  Rich might can answer some of this but what is on the market to help with this or does it really matter?  I know you can slow your printing down to adjust for some cooling before printing the next color but that slows down production and plus once the pallets are warm the printing does better (not hot pallets warm pallets)  I asking these questions because I had an idea yesterday hit me like a brick after a print job I had to slow down on, even turning the flash down still didn't help to much.

Darryl

[TCT]

We have used fans a higher power targeted one like this-
http://www.harborfreight.com/3-Speed-Portable-Blower-69721.html
Or
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Stanley-Pivoting-Blower-Fan-655704/203423260

That way the air is more targeted at the image area....

Darryl, if I can manage to get my sh!t together today I will try to get in touch with you or describe what I built. It actually has magnets on the bottom and has 6 "arms" that come out like a octopus with air nozzles at the ends. It will attach to the top of your print arm, and you can position the arms where the air needs to go. It just hooks up to the main manifold in the press and only blows air during the flood stroke. But honestly those fans work just as well with saving you some serious time and $$$ but I had challenged myself!

[sportsshoppe]

my auto has fans built into it so while its flashing its cooling (flashback). Sounds like a trip to Lowes D.

[tonypep]

Ys ago I talked to someone (Rich?) about a tube with tiny holes in it mounted on a tripod hooked up to compressed air engaged by a motion detector. The unit would have been mounted between heads; therefore eliminating a cool down station. Not long after the Kool Mist came about which is a vast improvement although a reasonably skilled person (mimo ) could build this for less than a hundred dollars I'll wager.

[Screened Gear]

When I started using my auto I had all kinds of issues with heat and flash times. It was all a learning process for me. I took a frame with no mesh and zip tied a box fan to it. I then put the frame in the head after the flash. It worked great. Since then I have learned the press and flash times and inks alot better. I haven't used it in a long time.

[Screened Gear]

Another thing you can do on my press is put a delayed print on the head after the flash. So lets say the press is indexing every 7 seconds. And your print stroke takes 2 seconds. What you do is put in a 5 second delay. It doesn't slow the press down. Your just making that head print later in its allowed time. Do this and add one of those fans TCT linked to in front of that head so air is moving under the screen for that delay and you have a cool down and print head all in one.

(((((edit))))))

ok I was just out at the press and this would not work with the way the press prints. The delay that I am talking about would hold up the printing of the press.

[ZooCity]

For plasti, the delayed print or just setting a fan to blast air between the screen and platen on the print head printing immediately after the flash can help tons.   We have a kool mist now for this purpose that I need to get up and running. 

For WB and HSA, fans setup like this are obviously not a solution.  Luckily most of these inks don't really need a cool down after the flash.  I'm interested to see if the kool mist can play along with HSA though, doubt it but who knows.

I think a wonderful idea would be something mounting between the heads and directing air very specifically at the platen and away from the screens.

[alan802]

Another thing you can do on my press is put a delayed print on the head after the flash. So lets say the press is indexing every 7 seconds. And your print stroke takes 2 seconds. What you do is put in a 5 second delay. It doesn't slow the press down. Your just making that head print later in its allowed time. Do this and add one of those fans TCT linked to in front of that head so air is moving under the screen for that delay and you have a cool down and print head all in one.

(((((edit))))))

ok I was just out at the press and this would not work with the way the press prints. The delay that I am talking about would hold up the printing of the press.

That would be a fantastic feature of a press if it worked as you described.  I've never thought of that and we don't have much of a dwell time when we print but when it comes to printing wow and flashing even just a second can matter. 

So how does that feature work now that it slows down the overall speed of the press?

[mimosatexas]

Ys ago I talked to someone (Rich?) about a tube with tiny holes in it mounted on a tripod hooked up to compressed air engaged by a motion detector. The unit would have been mounted between heads; therefore eliminating a cool down station. Not long after the Kool Mist came about which is a vast improvement although a reasonably skilled person (mimo ) could build this for less than a hundred dollars I'll wager.

I'll post my "Kule-Myst 9000 v2.31221" soon.  It did indeed cost much less than $100.  Key component: giant CPU fans bought at a garage sale.

[Printficient]

MHM's have a separate table up and table down dwell.

[Screened Gear]

Another thing you can do on my press is put a delayed print on the head after the flash. So lets say the press is indexing every 7 seconds. And your print stroke takes 2 seconds. What you do is put in a 5 second delay. It doesn't slow the press down. Your just making that head print later in its allowed time. Do this and add one of those fans TCT linked to in front of that head so air is moving under the screen for that delay and you have a cool down and print head all in one.

(((((edit))))))

ok I was just out at the press and this would not work with the way the press prints. The delay that I am talking about would hold up the printing of the press.

That would be a fantastic feature of a press if it worked as you described.  I've never thought of that and we don't have much of a dwell time when we print but when it comes to printing wow and flashing even just a second can matter. 

So how does that feature work now that it slows down the overall speed of the press?

Its a per head delay. It will hold up one of the heads from the print stroke. You could also set a flood stroke delay. So I guess it could still work. The other heads would print and the flash would go off but the head with the delay will squeegee down and then sit for what ever amount of time you want. This is all done with the table up. So I guess I retracted my idea before I should have. It will work. Its just a creative way of using the press. If your double stroking the second stroke would happen after the delayed head has printed.

[TCT]

MHM's have a separate table up and table down dwell.

Believe it or not, the anatol has the same option. The per head dwell idea would be sweet, I "kind of" did that a while ago- just adjust your flood stroke S L O W....

The little contraption I built was pretty easy and everything was from McMaster/Grainger. Like I said it was more expensive than one of those fans I linked to but I felt pretty cool One would be able to aim 3 of the "air arms" to direct air between the heads I suppose, but you would have to splice into a different air supply line. The speed of indexing would only give it maybe 1/2 of a second of air anyway. We would just point the arms between the pallet and screen on the head following the flash. You could then print in that head also.

But Darryl if I remember correctly, you just upgraded to LCD computer monitors last Christmas.... Just get the $40 fan and skip the fancy over engineered octopus air blower!