Easiway Diptank discussion

[acescreen]

Few questions/thoughts and comments for you Easiway diptank guys. We've been using the system now for a little over a year. At first it seemed to work really well for us, now it seems like we are needing to reacharge every time we strip. . We bought the larger 37 gallon tank a little over a year ago using Supra mixed as instructed and 701. We only strip about 20-35 screens a week. The last 2 months it seems like we are needing to recharge every time we strip. Doing some quick math if we average 25 per week that would be about 100per month, so about 5,200 screens stipped over the last year.  I also noticed for us the system works great when stipping Chroma blue (pure photopolymers), but when we put our water base coated screens in their (Murakami's sp1400 diazo emulsion or Kiwo Poly Multi Tex SBQ dual cure) it really wasn't able to break down the stencil very well at all and we end up needing use emulsion remover and scrub on them to break those down. I was hoping to switch to the Kiwo Multi Tex or a similar dual cure for every day so we can grab any screen out of the box and use it for plastisol or waterbase jobs.

Questions now that I have some time using this system:

-at what point do you dump all the fluid and start fresh....or do you ever need to do that?

-are you guys putting anything at the bottom of the tank to keep the screens out of the sludge-if so what works (I know they said not to use anything metal as that kills the chemistry)

-are you using 701 or 901 (901 has the degreaser built in, is it as good or better)?

-is it breaking down different types of emulsions equally or are some stripping better than others?

I'd love to hear what and how others are utilizing this system. We really feel it works great but it seemed like we hit a wall and I was really disappointment that it was not breaking down the Kiwo Multi Tex. Seems or sounds like guys with much higher volume shops are getting a lot more out it than we are but I could be totally wrong and not know how often you guys are charging or changing fluid. Thanks for you time guys!

[jsheridan]

I've used supra doing 25-50 screens a day and got a 90 day run using one of their larger tanks, want to say 105 gallon.. 

after 120 ish days we'd have to recharge it daily. that was the cue to change it. pump the water out and pull the 3-4" layer of sludge out.

refill and reset the clock for 120 days.

Diazo always takes a little longer in the tank to soften due to the makeup of the water resistant properties.

[mk162]

Yeah, i would say we can get 6 months.

[Shanarchy]

We're a real small shop. We do 20-40 screens every week or two depending on how busy we are.

I've recently noticed that when we recharge our tank it works great. Then is see,s like the next time or 2 we need to recharge it again or it's just doing nothing. I dumped and refilled the tank. Didn't make a difference.

I'm using Satti chemicals and doing everything manually for now. I may consider dumping the tank and filling it with Saati ink wash 50/50 like Homer did.

What type of frames are you using, Ace?

[jvanick]

our tank is now about 8 months old...

we use only emulsion remover in it (Saati ER-2)

every 75 screens or so, we recharge with 1 oz of ER-2.

the chems are just getting to the point where they're slow... (about 2-3 minutes per screen for it to start to react).

we are VERY careful to not let the emulsion fall off in the tank...

[jsheridan]

we are VERY careful to not let the emulsion fall off in the tank...

that really is a key to dip tanks. just soften the emulsion, not let it fall off

[mimosatexas]

I also have a 37 gallon tank and use supra and sp1400.  I can usually get 8 to 10 months out of mine and I probably am doing around 50 screens a week these days.  The chemistry will die really randomly and really quickly.  I tried recharging the first time it happened, but have since just cleaned the tank and started fresh.  No need to waste time or money recharging unless you're in a time crunch and cant get the chems in to start fresh.  I usually have 4-6 screens soaking at a time, and do them in batches, so they end up sitting for however long it takes to pressure wash 6 screens (about 2 to 3 minutes).  I dehaze as a separate step with the 701 later after stripping the ink/emulsion from all of my screens.  It probably slows down the process a little bit overall, but allows me flexibility since it is just me doing everything, and it means the screens don't sit in the supra for too long.

[bimmridder]

We do a few screens a day with our tanks, about 150 a day right now. A few things we try to do. Mix the chemistry in the correct ratios. Like John said, you only want to soften the stencil. Make it too strong and the emulsion falls off in the tank (= sludge). We make up a five gallon container mixed as directed so we don't just add chemical, but BALANCED chemical. We can do thousands of screens before we have to do a complete change of chemistry in the tank. FWIW, we only print plastisol and use photopolymer for most of our work, but there is some diazo emulsion here and there. Probably not an issue now, but it also works better when it is warm. Mr. Kitson has (at least used to have) a tank warmer on his dip tank in the colder months. We are using Supra in our tanks, but results are very similar with others we have tried.

[Maxie]

I used a dip take for about a, year until I switched to a Saati system where I spray the remover onto the screen, wait 2 minutes and wash with pressure hose.
I didn't like having to worry that my staff were leaving the screens in the tank.     Here we are using fresh chemicals all the time.

[blue moon]

anything on the bottom of the tank is killing the chemistry! Make sure you get the sludge out if you have it. We clean the tank regularly and keep refreshing. I think we have not emptied the tank in few years now, Go through 40-50 screens per day. We use a 5G of Supra about every 6-8 weeks.

pierre

[acescreen]

What type of frames are you using, Ace?
[/quote]

We use the old Hix 23x31 retensionable frames, although we are going to switch the standard 23x31 aluminum frames soon.

Just got off the phone with a nice lady from EasiWay. She said once you are needing to charge every time you strip that is a good sign it is time to empty the tank, clean all the gunk out and start a fresh batch. Also just to clarify she did clarify that 701 and 901 are similar products and both are considered to also be a degreaser but 701 is a more superior higher end product.

I think we got our fare share of over 4,000 screens stripped over the last year from a single 5 gallon batch and a few gallons of Supra to recharge along the way. Just dumped the tank and found about 2" of sludge at the bottom, which I thought would be worse. Everything came out out fairly easy. Gonne fill her up and start fresh batch tomorrow. After doing lots of research and reading sounds like letting them sit too long in the tank is the worst thing for this system. Make em soft and take them out. My new guys towards the end got real comfortable and was dropping 6 frames at a time and probably let them sit way too long!!! I think 2 in and 2 out making an "assembly line" style works best.

After all this I'd say it's a great product thatis much much faster  and cheaper than the traditional 3-4 step process and we will continue to use it and we highly recommend it.