Trying to understand my dryer (Radicure)

[Gilligan]

Will do Rich, thanks!

FYI, we ran some transfers just now.  Cranked it up to 43'/min (left it at 1050 and 6") and they were coming OUT of the dryer at 270!  Dry to the touch and pressed perfectly.

I ran a sheet of embroidery backing as a test and was getting 430 under the last panel even at 26'/min.

Still don't really know the proper way to test what temps we are actually seeing.

[Gilligan]

I think it maxes out at 7.x" of height... I know it doesn't go much higher... maybe 8.x".

I can turn down the temps for sure, will probably save me some money.

set your panel height to 4" and adjust your temp to 950 with a 30 second retention time. That is a good starting point.

Just tried a version of this.

Dropped temps, dropped panels, but left the belt speed up (19) and shirt hit 430 on the infrared as it was about to exit the dryer.

[244]

I think it maxes out at 7.x" of height... I know it doesn't go much higher... maybe 8.x".

I can turn down the temps for sure, will probably save me some money.

set your panel height to 4" and adjust your temp to 950 with a 30 second retention time. That is a good starting point.

Just tried a version of this.

Dropped temps, dropped panels, but left the belt speed up (19) and shirt hit 430 on the infrared as it was about to exit the dryer.

speed up the belt and should be there

[Gilligan]

Also the Thermal Strip doesn't register anything.

I'm still just as baffled here.

Just ran a shirt through at 24 and stretched ok but doing a rub/scratch test the ink is coming off on the shirt.  One gun was saying 330 one was saying 430 but I didn't reach in as far with the 330 one.

Seems like there would be a definitive way to make sure your dryer is getting to X degrees on the garment/belt.

[Frog]

Seems like there would be a definitive way to make sure your dryer is getting to X degrees on the garment/belt.

I know that you didn't think much of it, but some folks consider the Atkins Donut probe, with its wires buried in the ink layer just that.

[Gilligan]

I have one and I've done that.  Shirt comes out almost too hot to handle... yet probe was showing well under 300.

[Gilligan]

I'm still hanging out at the shop, catching up on some PC work, so I fired up the dryer and printed off me a shirt.  Double stroked some Royal Blue, flashed it, double stroked it again!  (single would have been fine for any job... but I wanted to lay some ink down).

Slowed the dryer down to 30 seconds in the tunnel at 950 and 4" panel height.  I pulled out the donut probe buried it in some ink, placed a thermal strip on TOP of the ink.  Ran it through.

Donut probe never hit 250, thermal strip didn't light up one thing (lowest is 290).

YET, ink seems pretty darn cured, flaked off of the donut probe's wires.  Pulled the thermostrip off and the ink even seemed cured underneath it.  Stretch test look good, scratch test looks good.

FYI, it's not a bullet proof deposit, just thicker than it needed to be for the light garment (baby blue).  It's Union Ultra soft series royal.

[Gilligan]

We had our first call about a shirt that the print was coming off on.

Was part of a 900 pcs job... REALLY hope it's a fluke.  We know it was fleece and we know we had some print issues on the fleece and hit a couple of them a few times to get it right.  So we are HOPING it was just a really thick print on that particular shirt.  Possible fleece isn't getting washed as much the regular t-shirts so no one is really discovering problems?  Not sure, we are obviously replacing this one, luckily we are doing a repeat of the order as it's a 5 color job.  Fleece was 182 out of the 900 pcs, so that might be the common denominator.

Just sucks... crazy thing is we never had a single garment come back or call when we were running our little Chaparral for all those years.  Now we get this big bad Radicure and we can't seem to get it right.

[blue moon]

We had our first call about a shirt that the print was coming off on.

Was part of a 900 pcs job... REALLY hope it's a fluke.  We know it was fleece and we know we had some print issues on the fleece and hit a couple of them a few times to get it right.  So we are HOPING it was just a really thick print on that particular shirt.  Possible fleece isn't getting washed as much the regular t-shirts so no one is really discovering problems?  Not sure, we are obviously replacing this one, luckily we are doing a repeat of the order as it's a 5 color job.  Fleece was 182 out of the 900 pcs, so that might be the common denominator.

Just sucks... crazy thing is we never had a single garment come back or call when we were running our little Chaparral for all those years.  Now we get this big bad Radicure and we can't seem to get it right.

did you do the wash testing? if it passes there, that's another clue . . .

pierre

[blue moon]

also, dial in the temp, speed and height so you have 60 sec reten time and see what comes up on the probe, gun and strips.


had to run it through three times to get 330 to be black.
this tells me that you need to build up heat in the strip and that you don't have long enough dwell time, but it's as good a guess as any. . .

pierre

[GraphicDisorder]

Didn't have time to read all this so it may have been said, forgive me if so.  You are introducing more than just a new dryer to your situation, you could be over/under flashing your base as well that could be part of your issue if you have some washing off.  Just food for thought.

[ebscreen]

Underflashing would be obvious on press and wouldn't have anything to do with washout issues.

And in ten years I've yet to see an overflashed base with intercoat adhesion issues, and we've certainly cooked
some bases. Concept is sound but given correct temps in the dryer it should all melt together.

I'd chalk it up to a new dryer. It's always a head scratcher finding your settings when you were used
to something else. Wait till you go from electric to gas...

[Orion]

We run Radicure dryers, 10ft. chambers, elements set at 5". Plastisol- 830f  belt speed 13. Discharge/WB- 700f belt speed 4. Readings from the temp gun range from 350-370.

[Gilligan]

Didn't have time to read all this so it may have been said, forgive me if so.  You are introducing more than just a new dryer to your situation, you could be over/under flashing your base as well that could be part of your issue if you have some washing off.  Just food for thought.

That's a good point, but we try to get just past dry and if still tacky just past that.  At the end of a run we might have the plattens warmed up but usually they aren't unless we are really moving.  This was also coming back from printing the tees... so we didn't really have any change to warm them up (we don't warm up plattens with the flashback).   So it SHOULDN'T be that.

Underflashing would be obvious on press and wouldn't have anything to do with washout issues.

And in ten years I've yet to see an overflashed base with intercoat adhesion issues, and we've certainly cooked
some bases. Concept is sound but given correct temps in the dryer it should all melt together.

I'd chalk it up to a new dryer. It's always a head scratcher finding your settings when you were used
to something else. Wait till you go from electric to gas...

In Brandt's defense (did I just say that?! )... we did just also get a new press and flash.  But as I said above, I don't think that was the issue.