screen printing > DIY - From master engineered marvels to cobbled together jury-rigged or Jerry-built junk!

Marking lines on a Pre- registration air platen / pallet trick

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Wildcard:
Pretty cool. I like the thought of avoiding double taping films. Does the film hold firmly in place with the vacuum if the screen slides over it while being positioned?

eviltig:

--- Quote from: Wildcard on April 07, 2016, 04:55:47 PM ---Pretty cool. I like the thought of avoiding double taping films. Does the film hold firmly in place with the vacuum if the screen slides over it while being positioned?

--- End quote ---

Yes it holds down tight.
I was testing it pulling the screen up as fast as I could and with the air off it flew up and slid off onto the floor but with the air on it didnt twitch.

This is the second air platen I made, the first one I use for printing stickers and it has been super great but on that first one I used a hand held router for connecting the holes and it looked like a curvy mountain road when I was donr but this time I used a angle grinder with a fat grinding wheel which left the channels straighter and I think the air flow is better on this one now.

I and actually grab the clear transfer when the air is on and pull hard enough for the carousel to spin all the way around with just a sharp tug without the transparency moving.

This is what the bottom looks like before being sealed with a backing

eviltig:
Then the bottom is a thin layer of wood with a sink drain mounted. the rubber seal on the drain is perfect for sealing it off and my shop vac plugs right into it.

I preset the mounting bracket on before cutting the channels so I knew where I would need to leave some meat for the screws to hold the bracket on.
If you look at the picture with the backing attached you can see three lines on the side edge of the main body, these let me know where my screw holes would be after covering it with the wood backing that seals the channels.
There is two lines at the top so I could intersect them with the three and not miss, unless some unseen event happened...... like beer lol

Denis Kolar:
LOVE IT.

Thanks for sharing

Sbrem:

--- Quote from: eviltig on April 07, 2016, 04:27:06 PM ---
--- Quote from: Sbrem on April 07, 2016, 04:15:05 PM ---What's a pre-registration air platen? Just curious...

Steve

--- End quote ---

It is a board or system of jigs set so you can get your artwork onto your screen in the exact same spot for multi color jobs and then mount the screens into your screen printer faster with out the need to use the micro adjust (most of the time)
It also is nice for one color jobs as you can pop those in without the need to do any adjustments.
It saves time mainly.

In the picture below you can see three pins. the screen will press up against the three pins while your artwork is being held down by air suction. I use a cheap foot switch from harbor freight to turn on and off the shop vac for this purpose.
When you release the air you can lift the screen off and go on to the next color. this way later you can use the same three pins to put the screen on the press and it should land in the same exact spot each time.

This is the poor mans Pre registration lol  the cheapest one I could find to buy was $499.00 then the next level was $999 and they go up... way up to thousands on top of thousands.

Hope this helps, you can look up pre registration or VRS on youtube and they demonstrate  the VRS Vastex. it helps to see it being done

--- End quote ---

I get it now, of course. We built a similar pre registration boards over the years, then we got our MHM, and their FPU does pretty much the same thing, without the vacuum. Three point registration is a time honored tradition, would run poster back in the day any other way. All about less downtime during setups; nice job...

Steve

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