reclaiming 150+ screens?

[ABuffington]

To further Screen Foo's comments, Has anyone ever tried a steam cleaner to reclaim screens?
Just a thought, all ridicule welcome.

[ScreenFoo]

Wrong guy, but amusingly enough, we use warm water in reclaim too. 
Develops screens a little faster as well, FWIW.

I've always wanted to try out one o' them fancy pressure washers you can pipe hot water through, can't imagine NO one has info...

[ZooCity]

Wrong guy, but amusingly enough, we use warm water in reclaim too. 
Develops screens a little faster as well, FWIW.

I've always wanted to try out one o' them fancy pressure washers you can pipe hot water through, can't imagine NO one has info...

Most washers are perfectly fine with water as hot as a reasonably set water heater will produce out of the tap.  I think going too hot would make a lot of steam but I bet yer right, it would probably just melt ink and emulsion right off the screens.

[Itsa Little CrOoked]

Wrong guy, but amusingly enough, we use warm water in reclaim too. 
Develops screens a little faster as well, FWIW.

I've always wanted to try out one o' them fancy pressure washers you can pipe hot water through, can't imagine NO one has info...

Most washers are perfectly fine with water as hot as a reasonably set water heater will produce out of the tap.  I think going too hot would make a lot of steam but I bet yer right, it would probably just melt ink and emulsion right off the screens.

...and degrade tension at an alarming rate, I'll wager.

But no, I've never tried. So I'm just speculating.

[jsheridan]

Not steam but close to it.. one of those heater type pressure washers at a shop in mexico i did some consulting with. used diesel to fuel the heater with 3k PSI and they just put the screen fresh from the press in the wash tank and just blew it all off. No chemicals, just wicked hot almost steam high pressure water on Static frames. they had been doing it that way for years.

At the end of the day the operator would use scrap shirts to wipe down the tank and leave it clean for the next day.

So yes, hot water does work

At 150 screens a day, im looking to automation.

[kingscreen]

I'm with John.  At 150/day, I'm looking at automation.

[bimmridder]

Here's a little more. Since I spent four hours doing screens last night (can you believe one of my temps didn't make it in yesterday?) I timed myself. Not including carding and untaping, it too right at two minutes a screen. I wasn't killing myself, just a comfortable working pace. I have looked at automated cleaners over the years. I never really saw one that did as good as I'd like to see. I need to look again. I've seen the smaller units, two part systems all the way up to the half a million dollar units. I'm sure some things have improved since I last looked. And then the fun of justifying a purchase like that to my business partner. Ugh.

[GraphicDisorder]

Here's a little more. Since I spent four hours doing screens last night (can you believe one of my temps didn't make it in yesterday?) I timed myself. Not including carding and untaping, it too right at two minutes a screen. I wasn't killing myself, just a comfortable working pace. I have looked at automated cleaners over the years. I never really saw one that did as good as I'd like to see. I need to look again. I've seen the smaller units, two part systems all the way up to the half a million dollar units. I'm sure some things have improved since I last looked. And then the fun of justifying a purchase like that to my business partner. Ugh.

Let your business partner clean 150 screens a day for a week, purchase justified. 

[bimmridder]

He's not allowed in production. Period. Works best that way. He knows the frustration is building and production is being affected.

[Frog]

Wrong guy, but amusingly enough, we use warm water in reclaim too. 
Develops screens a little faster as well, FWIW.

I've always wanted to try out one o' them fancy pressure washers you can pipe hot water through, can't imagine NO one has info...

Most washers are perfectly fine with water as hot as a reasonably set water heater will produce out of the tap.  I think going too hot would make a lot of steam but I bet yer right, it would probably just melt ink and emulsion right off the screens.

Those who have heard my story know that I served major time a few years back as the screen clean guy at a medium sized shop (4 autos)
When I started there (2 autos) they were feeding the pressure washer through the drain of the water heater which was near the door leading to my outdoor work area.

We upgraded to a diesel /kerosene fired hot blaster that certainly did speed up the job a bit. Granted, we weren't using the uber high tension screens of today, but I saw no hastened loss of tension (except when others tried reclaiming without chemicals)

[3Deep]

Automation might sound like the perfect answer, but I don't think it is and here are my reason's for it how many screens can a machine clean at one time that would be satisfactory to you without a little extra cleaning, how fast can it clean screens.  Most of these units clean 1 maybe 2 screens at a time, the only thing automation takes away is the human element somewhat. We toured Russell's plant and they had an automatic screen wash which looked like a car wash it was so big, but the reason for that was the size of the screens they send thru it and they still prep the screens a little once they came out.  If I was in Dave position doing 150 reclaims a day I'd have whoever break down the setup remove ink and tape right there at the press and as fast as they take a screen off some else would be setting up new screen's.  Removing ink and tape is half the battle, once I'm finishing a run I always stroke the print area (which I'm sure many of you do to) so that area has no ink and the only ink left is the sides and right at the flood bar all's left is to remove the tape and the screen is darn near clean just a little ink degradent and reclaim spray.  With all this said I'm sure Dave don't need may help cause he runs a tight ship and has everything under control, my method might only work for me and I ain't doing 150 any time soon.  just my 2cents for the post LOL

darryl

[BorisB]

Be careful with auto recaiming systems.
Uses a lot more water if you have high water costs.
Uses a lot more chemistry, often specialized chemistry to prevent foaming.

I can confirm all above claims. We went from diptanks + high pressure washer to Grunig automatic products.

for ink removal: G-104 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8frujIqbdKQ
for emulsion removal and screen developing: G-112 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ss-LlSF2o3w

Negative points:
-Water consumption increased a lot to 2m3 per day for 50+ screens.
-Chemicals costs increase was around 30%.
-Machines were very expensive, only reason I bought them was 50% EU subsidy because of environmentally friendly technology. No ROI can justify it. We don't make any savings on tape either, to quickly return invested money.
-parts are expensive and they break more often than expected from Swiss Manufacturer. E.g.: Pump for $1500 several times in 5 years.

On positive side:
-consistent quality of screens
-with 15 min training anybody can process screens
-it's not dirty, messy job anymore
-can do it while doing other jobs, you merely need to change screens in machine


regards,

Boris

[ZooCity]

An in-between option that I have strongly considered is automating the rinse only.  That is:

• ink remover
• place in automated rinse unit
• emulsion remover
• place in automated rinse unit
• dehaze
• place in automated rinse unit

Degreasing, if done, would need to have it's own rinse unit to stay clean enough I imagine or be done in the 'clean' booth where screens are resolved (what we currently do).  Depending on the throughput and flow of screens in your shop I think the machine that rinses after degrease could be a dual purpose degreaser rinse/resolving unit, automating two steps with one unit. 

The cost for a simple machine to rinse with warm, high pressure water and filter effluent should be much lower than a fully automated system and much easier and lower cost to maintain.   This would net the benefits of less operator fatigue, not atomizing water and chem throughout the washout area, elimination of stray ink and chem or "splashback" issues and ensure all screens are at the very least rinsed to a certain standard throughout the reclaim process.   It eliminates the need for multiple washout booths and any bottlenecks that can occur with a single washout booth.  It may save space.  You could use any chem, any method of application- dip tank, stacking, hand scrubbing or any combination you like and change that up as needed with no major changes to to machines.

This would also let you do the reclaim in line or in a pass through style if you used multiple rinsing units with a side load/conveyor style.  I think you could achieve very high throughput in that fashion that may rival a fully automated one with far more flexibility.   Adding a unit full of air knives shooting warm, clean, compressed air could be another good piece in a modular setup like this for minimal drying time in a screen cabinet before re-coating and after resolving and no drips.

Boris, that's some great info from a real life user of the automated systems.

[willy35]

-Machines were very expensive, only reason I bought them was 50% EU subsidy because of environmentally friendly technology. No ROI can justify it. We don't make any savings on tape either, to quickly return invested money.
[/quote]

Boris, do you have any link to this EU subsidy ?

Cheers

Willy

[jsheridan]

If I was in Dave position doing 150 reclaims a day I'd have whoever break down the setup remove ink and tape right there at the press and as fast as they take a screen off some else would be setting up new screen's

No way in hell im trading money making production time for money sucking cleaning time.
Press labor dollars can be upwards of 300 per hour while the cleanup crew is10, 20 or 30 an hour.

Yank those dirty screens outa the press ASAP to allow the next job to get into the press ASAP.

let the cleanup guy handle the screens from that point.