Ink Cost for i-Image STE

[jvanick]

Jason, I haven't hand coated a screen in ten years. Your comment about having a coating machine so you can image, expose, and coat at the same time is certainly true. BUT...... even if you are hand coating, would you still be able to coat and image at the same time? Just not as many screens getting coated as easily? Seems to me like you could still be saving time? I don't know.

Yup.. we could coat by hand and image and expose at the same time.. BUT... we couldn't rinse out all at the same time.  Our 'creation' loop includes everything but reclaim. 

FWIW -- we are a 2-1/2 person shop (actually 2.. because mainly I stand around and drink beer while watching people work))...  we would not have been able to grow to the point we are at without the CTS...  we're doing 20-25 screens per day right now with 12-15 setups.  (lots of 1 color and 2 color jobs).

Between the time savings on not dealing with film, and the time savings on press setup (even the time savings of NOT climbing underneath the press to tape screens adds up to a decent amount of time), a few extra jobs a day adds up in either less time at the shop or more profit or both.

[screenprintguy]

Jason, I haven't hand coated a screen in ten years. Your comment about having a coating machine so you can image, expose, and coat at the same time is certainly true. BUT...... even if you are hand coating, would you still be able to coat and image at the same time? Just not as many screens getting coated as easily? Seems to me like you could still be saving time? I don't know.

Im still hand coating, "hope to change that soon just don't know what to do yet", but I have times where I am imaging on the ST, coating, and setting screens on the exposure unit. When I was exposing 2 up on the tri light, I didn't have to hustle as much, but nowwwwww, with a Starlight, 1 second on 280's and 305's, 2 seconds on 230's and 225 s, and 150 s at 4 seconds, man, I can let a stack build up from the ST, and then bang out a dozen exposures in less time than the Trilight took me on 1 exposure, lol. So now I'll wait till I have at least 12 to 20 screens before shooting, so I can coat, load/unload from the ST. I hate when my coater edge gums up from sitting for a little too long with wet emulsion on it. Not sure an auto coater is going to change that, but at least, push a button and it does it's thing so I can hop onto one of the other room tasks. Getting to automation is where it is at. I can say in the subject of ink use, going from the Epson based I-Image 1.0 to the I-Image ST, the ST uses less ink. The epson burns through ink and you cant do anything about it, mainly in it's own cleaning cycles that most of the time do not work on their own, where as the ST forces a drip of ink through the print head before wiping it. Before imaging, I run a couple cleaning cycles to play it safe, do a nozzle check and rock on. We have defiantly gotten busier from when we had our Epson based unit, processing at least double the screens if not closer to triple what we did before and the ST is still using less ink. I'm not sure if a double or triple head would use more, it seems they would, but it can't be that much more considering the tiny amount that is being put on the screen. All in all, even if ink cost you 4 times more  on a CTS than a film printing, you are still way ahead of the game going to CTS, that's just fact in the real production world setting. Maybe if you are only doing 5 or 10 screens a day, you won't see a gigantic difference, but still 10 or more screens a day, I'd want a CTS over film. Everything just gets better with it. People looking under loops at dot cleanliness and all that becomes ridiculous considering the award winning prints are mostly all being done on ink jet based CTS units. I understand what looking cleaner under a loop ect, but bottom line, the final product is what matters and the proof is in the awards. Everyone I know doing highend printing with CTS only got better at it and more efficient when they went CTS. It's worth the investment, just make a choice to go with a company who stands behind their machine, for us thats M&R.

[244]

Which I hope I can retro fit to my machine. My screen guy has good days and bad days. This feature will eliminate the excuses.

it is retrofittable

[dirkdiggler]

Who cares what it costs, If I had to go back to film, I WOULD SELL MY SH!T AND CLOSE THE SHOP!  That's the difference!

[ffokazak]

Rich let us know more info about retro fitting! I would love to install it on our ST

Thanks!

[GraphicDisorder]

Who cares what it costs, If I had to go back to film, I WOULD SELL MY SH!T AND CLOSE THE SHOP!  That's the difference!

I would echo the same. Makes for less mistakes, easier to fix the mistakes that are made, easier for employees to use, faster all the way around, more accurate, and so on.

Quality of life folks. How more people don't factor this into expansion or equipment that just generally makes life better blows me away.

[GraphicDisorder]

Which I hope I can retro fit to my machine. My screen guy has good days and bad days. This feature will eliminate the excuses.

it is retrofittable

I haven't even seen this new tri-sync? Any where I can see it?

[cbjamel]

youtube video of the new S model. Watched last night.

Shane

[244]

Rich let us know more info about retro fitting! I would love to install it on our ST

Thanks!

we are not at the point of quoting the retro yet but it's very doable. Stay tuned.

[screenprintguy]

Rich let us know more info about retro fitting! I would love to install it on our ST

Thanks!

we are not at the point of quoting the retro yet but it's very doable. Stay tuned.

Ohhhhhyeeeaaahhh

[jsheridan]

Which I hope I can retro fit to my machine. My screen guy has good days and bad days. This feature will eliminate the excuses.

it is retrofittable

I haven't even seen this new tri-sync? Any where I can see it?

I've got it on the 500th machine.. it was added last minute to go along with the new led tri loc pallet.. it's a wicked feature for sure. Will not print until all 3 corners are in contact. I've got all brand new screens, but I can see issues with a shop who has beat up frames and not getting one of the corners to hit and if it won't.. the option to turn the feature off is behind a password.

[Dottonedan]

Which I hope I can retro fit to my machine. My screen guy has good days and bad days. This feature will eliminate the excuses.

it is retrofittable

I haven't even seen this new tri-sync? Any where I can see it?

I've got it on the 500th machine.. it was added last minute to go along with the new led tri loc pallet.. it's a wicked feature for sure. Will not print until all 3 corners are in contact. I've got all brand new screens, but I can see issues with a shop who has beat up frames and not getting one of the corners to hit and if it won't.. the option to turn the feature off is behind a password.

But that is a good thing since it helps you locate and get rid of your beat up screens.

[dirkdiggler]

Which I hope I can retro fit to my machine. My screen guy has good days and bad days. This feature will eliminate the excuses.

it is retrofittable

I haven't even seen this new tri-sync? Any where I can see it?

I demoed it, pretty cool I must say!

[Lizard]

ROI will be different for every shop and there really is no magic answer.  We waited till we had four presses to move to cts.  It has changed our workflow tremendously. We used to spend so much time printing films and now that time is spent on on other parts of the process. But at this point we could never go back. It's almost like comparing hand cut and made screens to the computer age. There is a day that it is right for your shop based on the work you are doing and what best fits your shop today.

Talk to as many shops that are similar to your business.  You will know when it is the right time.

[cbjamel]

jsheridan what is the new led tri loc pallet, how does it compare to tri loc?

Haven't heard of it yet. Yet being the word.

Thanks,
Shane