Does having a larger auto press mean you can run "faster"?

[im_mcguire]

Im trying to wrap my head around this.  Sorry if this is a common sense question, but I just cant figure it out.

If you have a 8/10 or a 10/12 (air head, and electric indexer), will those run faster then a 6/8 with the same indexer?

Are you loading more shirts per hour, or is it taking the same amount of time to print each complete cycle of say 100 ish shirts? 

Im just chatting with my business partner, and it seems like anything, it depends on the press.  Our new press is maxing out about 38-40 dzn per hour for full back, and we are trying to see how we can improve that number. 

Just curious..
Thanks!!

[TCT]

As long as it is the same indexer and you are only jumping 2 print heads, they usually stay the same. That number for a full back seems pretty low though.

[jvanick]

Better inks will help the production times.  Alex is right that 40 doz/hr seems slow.

We were running a full back today, limited only by our dryer, and still at 50dz/hr.

Is it that the press can't index fast enough,  or is it that the print heads aren't fast enough?

[Doug S]

If you are running a 5 color job on a 6/8 and having to flash, you could run that same job on a 10/12 faster because you would have more cool down stations after the flash available allowing you to speed it up.  If you were to jump to a press that the tables didn't raise and lower then you would definitely be able to increase speed because if you set your index at say 5 seconds, you would have more of that 5 seconds to load instead of part of that time being used up by the raising and lowering of the tables.  I hope that made sense.

[im_mcguire]

Better inks will help the production times.  Alex is right that 40 doz/hr seems slow.

We were running a full back today, limited only by our dryer, and still at 50dz/hr.

Is it that the press can't index fast enough,  or is it that the print heads aren't fast enough?

We have a new cutlass, it has electric index, but air heads. I'm not completely maxed out on print speed on the heads themselves, but nowhere near 50 dozen per hour. We use s mesh, Rutland Street Fighter 2 cotton white, and Rutland M3 mixing system here. Maybe I just need more fine tuning on this press ( I am still only 4 months into getting used to the press, so there might be some things I am missing...

[SI]

We have a ten color press, by using multiple underbase screens I was able to run at 79 dozen per hour on a full front, are you hitting any screen twice?  That will cut your speed dramatically, if I use a single underbase screen and hit it twice I max out at 45 dozen per hour on a 13" tall print.  Vanick filled me in on the two underbase screens trick to increase speed.  Although proper ink would eliminate the need to hit the UB twice, but hey I'm still learning too.

[spotcolorsupply]

Better inks will help the production times.  Alex is right that 40 doz/hr seems slow.

We were running a full back today, limited only by our dryer, and still at 50dz/hr.

Is it that the press can't index fast enough,  or is it that the print heads aren't fast enough?

We have a new cutlass, it has electric index, but air heads. I'm not completely maxed out on print speed on the heads themselves, but nowhere near 50 dozen per hour. We use s mesh, Rutland Street Fighter 2 cotton white, and Rutland M3 mixing system here. Maybe I just need more fine tuning on this press ( I am still only 4 months into getting used to the press, so there might be some things I am missing...

Flashback or quartz flash?

[im_mcguire]

Better inks will help the production times.  Alex is right that 40 doz/hr seems slow.

We were running a full back today, limited only by our dryer, and still at 50dz/hr.

Is it that the press can't index fast enough,  or is it that the print heads aren't fast enough?

We have a new cutlass, it has electric index, but air heads. I'm not completely maxed out on print speed on the heads themselves, but nowhere near 50 dozen per hour. We use s mesh, Rutland Street Fighter 2 cotton white, and Rutland M3 mixing system here. Maybe I just need more fine tuning on this press ( I am still only 4 months into getting used to the press, so there might be some things I am missing...

Flashback or quartz flash?

Flashback, flashing in table up on print head #2
We mostly run 2-3 color jobs. Lately it's been in the 1,000-2,000 range.

[kingscreen]

Sometimes you have to slow down to speed up.  Try slower single strokes versus fast double strokes.
Change your default print and flood delays to zero. That should give you a 1-2/dz/hr. increase 
Lower your flash a bit and speed it up.  Use stroke time to your advantage and program less flash time.

We run a 6/8 Sabre and a 10/12 Sabre, both at 45-55/dz/hr., every day.

[Ross_S]

There are a lot of variables to this question. 

[alan802]

I could run just about any job with more than 4 or 5 colors on a larger press faster than a smaller one.  We do a lot of little things that allow us to run most all of our jobs as fast as we want to go or the press will allow.  We have a 10 color but routinely run from 65-75 dz/hr and if it's an easy loading shirt with no flashing involved we'll run at 80+dz/hr.  Fast flashing, low tack white, fast squeegee speeds (faster you can print, the more opaque your print will be), AC heads, servo indexer, decent flash units (prefer quartz but some IR's will run very fast).  We don't double stroke, we don't run the base twice before we put on top colors, we don't run standard mesh counts, we don't run cheap ink...we get jobs on the press and 99 times out of 100 we run it at those speeds I mentioned.  Sure, there are times where we have to use a junk ink or with a 10 color press and a 7-8 spot color job with large ink deposit areas we'll have to run revolver, but it's rare these days. 

[tonypep]

Its important to add in the human equation. How fast can a team perform? Its finite at one point if one wants to retain consistent quality. I equate faster with quicker set ups.
tp

[blue moon]

a 12 station press has to turn 30 degrees to move from one station to another. A 6 color press has to turn 45 degrees, that's 50% more. I would imagine that alone could make the larger presses produce more.

pierre

[inkman996]

a 12 station press has to turn 30 degrees to move from one station to another. A 6 color press has to turn 45 degrees, that's 50% more. I would imagine that alone could make the larger presses produce more.

pierre

That may be so Pierre but you have to factor the lenght of the pallette arms, at their very ends is the furthest travel in relation to the center, I would assume a 12 color press has far longer palette arms which means a longer travel length at the ends. Add in the 30 degree versus 45 degree and it is probably a tie.

But then their is the speed factor the farther away from center the faster it will ir travels, so who knows with out someone sitting down crunching math.

[blue moon]

a 12 station press has to turn 30 degrees to move from one station to another. A 6 color press has to turn 45 degrees, that's 50% more. I would imagine that alone could make the larger presses produce more.

pierre

That may be so Pierre but you have to factor the lenght of the pallette arms, at their very ends is the furthest travel in relation to the center, I would assume a 12 color press has far longer palette arms which means a longer travel length at the ends. Add in the 30 degree versus 45 degree and it is probably a tie.

But then their is the speed factor the farther away from center the faster it will ir travels, so who knows with out someone sitting down crunching math.

I did not want to get into that as I don't really know, but a larger press is heavier, the weight is further out and thus it requires more torque to turn. If the servos are turning at 30 degrees per second, the platens on the end of the larger press will cover more distance n the same amount of time (that's the equation for speed), but the time would still be 1 second. The smaller press would need a second and a half to cover the 45 degrees.

Now, here's the twist (something that Rich could answer), are the smaller presses turning faster than the larger ones since they don't have as much momentum to overcome?

pierre